Hi everyone!
I have a single 250W solar panel, which is currently operating off-grid, charging up a bank of batteries. It is not ideally located, and only receives direct sunshine for part of the day - most of the day it is shaded, and generating only about 30-40 watts. I'm thinking about replacing the charger with a grid-tie inverter to make more use of the generated power. 30-40 watts would be sufficient to power my entire house (fridge excluded) most of the day.
It it possible to buy a micro inverter that can operate completely stand-alone, and does not require any kind of gateway or management unit to configure it?
I believe the old first-generation Enecsys units can operate stand-alone, but the Gen2 units require a management unit to enable them. Similarly the Enphase inverters require their (stupidly expensive) Communications Gateway unit to enable them.
I have spoken to a local solar installer, and he says that the Enphase gateway is only required for initial setup and can then be removed from site. However, I would worry about the inverter somehow losing its configuration at some time in the future, and I would be unable to re-enable it.
The price of the Enphase gateway is prohibitive, and would cost double the whole of the rest of the system including the solar panel, and wipe out any possible savings in electricity.
There are cheap Chinese ones available on eBay, but I was really looking for something good and reliable. Can anyone advise?
Annoyingly, a lot of inverters on eBay are described as "micro inverters" but are actually just normal grid-tie inverters and require quite high input power to initialise, and will not work with a single panel. I know because I bought one, found it to be useless, and sent it back.
Thanks in advance.
I have a single 250W solar panel, which is currently operating off-grid, charging up a bank of batteries. It is not ideally located, and only receives direct sunshine for part of the day - most of the day it is shaded, and generating only about 30-40 watts. I'm thinking about replacing the charger with a grid-tie inverter to make more use of the generated power. 30-40 watts would be sufficient to power my entire house (fridge excluded) most of the day.
It it possible to buy a micro inverter that can operate completely stand-alone, and does not require any kind of gateway or management unit to configure it?
I believe the old first-generation Enecsys units can operate stand-alone, but the Gen2 units require a management unit to enable them. Similarly the Enphase inverters require their (stupidly expensive) Communications Gateway unit to enable them.
I have spoken to a local solar installer, and he says that the Enphase gateway is only required for initial setup and can then be removed from site. However, I would worry about the inverter somehow losing its configuration at some time in the future, and I would be unable to re-enable it.
The price of the Enphase gateway is prohibitive, and would cost double the whole of the rest of the system including the solar panel, and wipe out any possible savings in electricity.
There are cheap Chinese ones available on eBay, but I was really looking for something good and reliable. Can anyone advise?
Annoyingly, a lot of inverters on eBay are described as "micro inverters" but are actually just normal grid-tie inverters and require quite high input power to initialise, and will not work with a single panel. I know because I bought one, found it to be useless, and sent it back.
Thanks in advance.
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