550w Wind Turbine Installed

Load Test

Solar Electrical Panel

Battery House

Solar Panels Installed

The rain held off just long enough this evening to get the Solar Panels installed. The rail system made the job very quick and easy. The space in the middle could easily accommodate another panel, but for now I have my two 750w groups, off-grid back-up and Grid-tie. I've ordered a 550w wind-turbine to supplement my back-up, bringing my total renewable energy resource to just over 2Kw.

Solar Panel Rails

The rails for 6 x 250w 24v panels have been installed on to the north facing roof of my carport.

Testing new Grid-tie inverter

Whilst the 'Net-meeting' law has not yet been passed in Chile, I'm nevertheless putting together my hybrid solar/wind solution to provide off-grid battery backup and the ability to feed energy into the house electrical system - grid-tie.

I've chosen to split my 6 x 250w panels into two groups. Here I'm testing a Smart Micro Grid-Tie inverter which connects directly to the solar panel. It will convert the 24-40v DC from the panel directly to 230v ac. 

There are several advantages to using this type of inverter:-

- Highly scaleable, add panels and inverters as your needs grows
- Reduces single points of failure, you are still generating power even if one panel or inverter goes down.
- Control losses normally created by long DC cable runs

In the picture above, the 60 cell 250w panel is generating 226w 230v AC in moderate sunshine and is plugged into the household supply. If the grid-power drops, the inverter automatically cuts the AC output. It was interesting to observe how the AC output varied depending on the amount of sunlight striking the panel. It seemed fairly linear all the way from 200w+ down to just 10w output in low light conditions.