Ultimate Guide To Solar Inverters In Nigeria

Almost every equipment that uses electricity uses alternating current (AC) while solar panels - either individually or when connected together - generate Direct Current (DC). Therefore it is highly necessary to switch the DC power being generated from solar power (sunlight) with an inverter into useable AC power. Thus a solar inverter actually “inverts” DC to AC to operate all types of common electrical loads from lights and fans to air-conditioners and heavy machinery without interruption.

Ultimate Guide To Solar Inverters In Nigeria

What is Solar Inverter?

Solar Inverter is a device capable to convert DC into AC electricity. Inverters are typical components of solar electric systems since solar panels generate DC electricity and most devices used in homes or offices operate on AC voltage.

Components of Solar Inverter

These are components of a solar power inverter:

• Intelligent Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) of solar voltage.
• Efficient inverter to convert DC to AC making commonly usable electricity.
• Solar Panels
• Charge controller

On the AC side, these solar inverters supply electricity in sinusoidal form. On the DC side, the power output of a module varies as a function of the voltage in a way that power generation can be optimized by varying the solar system Voltage to find the 'Maximum Power Point'. Solar inverters therefore incorporate optimized 'Maximum Power Point Tracking' (MPPT). It ensures optimal energy transfer from the solar PV system using MPPT technique which maximizes the amount of current going into the load from the solar array. An under optimized solar MPPT algorithm can seriously affect the amount of solar electricity generated from your solar power solution.

How Does Solar Inverter Works?

Image Creidt: Vikram Aggarwal

When the sun shines on your solar panels, electrons within the solar cells start to move around, which produces direct current (DC) energy. Circuits within the cells collect that energy for you to use in your home.

This is where your solar inverter comes in. Most homes use alternating current (AC) energy, not DC, so the energy produced by your solar panels isn’t useful on its own. When your solar panels collect sunlight and turn it into energy, it gets sent to the inverter, which takes the DC energy and turns it into AC energy. At that point, your solar electricity can power your appliances and electronics or, if you’re producing more electricity than you need, it can feed back into the grid.

Advantages of Solar Inverter

• The synchronous solar inverter that helps small homeowners and also power companies as they are huge in size.
• The multifunction solar inverter is the finest among all and works powerfully. It converts DC to AC very carefully which is suitable for commercial establishments.
• This inverter is cost-effective, i.e. low cost than generators.
• Apart from these, there are additional devices too, that make use of solar energy such as, solar heater, cooker

Types of Solar Inverter

There are two major different types of Solar Inverters based on the Solar PV set up:

• Ongrid Solar Inverters - These type of inverters work with ongrid solar system where the solar pv system is interconnected with the grid.
• Off Grid Solar Inverters - These type of inverters are used with Off Grid PV systems where the Solar PV system is completely disconnected from the grid.

Both serve a different function and are used for a different type of solar energy system, although each inverter still converts DC into AC.

On-Grid/Grid-Tie/Grid Parallel Solar Inverters

Image credit: Sunipod

On grid parallel solar inverters are for use in most situation where your solar array is “tied” directly and in parallel to your local power grid. These systems, known as grid tie solar systems or grid parallel solar systems, are more common and are much cheaper because of the lack of need for a battery.

In such systems, DC from the solar panels is sent to the grid tie inverter which converts into AC. In this type of system, it is necessary to have your solar unit wired to your incoming line from the grid. Thus ensuring that your load uses solar energy you produce while any excess power required is sourced from the power company.

This type of system is best suited for common commercial and industrial applications but offers no protection in case of power outages because of the lack of a backup battery. But if like most large operations you consume power during the day time, then there is no need to save this electricity when you could be using it directly as and when produced, thus saving you costs on power storage equipment.

All on grid systems are required to have a solar energy inverter with anti-islanding protection which forces them to shut down in case of power outages. Without anti-islanding protection, your solar system would continue to generate electricity and send small amounts back into the electric grid during power outages. This energy would stay in the local power grid and is referred to as an island. These islands can be extremely dangerous for utility workers who are trying to repair the gird during a power outage.

Disadvantage: It goes off immediately quickly because there is no back up battery.

Off-Grid Solar Inverters

Image credit: Sunipod

Off-Grid Solar Inverters are used in systems where the solar panels generate direct current energy which is then stored in rechargeable batteries. When energy is required, the DC is sent from the battery to the off grid solar power inverter and then converted into AC which can then be used to power your electricity needs.

Even if we want to simply charge the solar generated DC power from the solar array to a battery bank we need to “invert” from DC to AC and control the charging using the solar charge controlling capabilities of your solar inverter. This solar charge controlling capability ensures that the solar battery bank is charged using just the optimum amount of current and voltage to enhance battery life and maintain the right output voltage for the solar battery bank input.

Sizing the solar array and the batteries required is complex. Detailed analysis of your requirements will be needed to provide for your minimal critical needs. You'll also need to rewire you main electrical panel to isolate the "critical loads" so that only they are provided power in an outage. This means that some of the equipment is provided power while other non-essential loads are not.

With systems using off-grid solar inverters you will be free to consume electricity whenever you wish, provided your batteries are charged or your solar array is currently producing electricity.

In conclusion, have questions? Drop them at the comment section, we will be glad to attend to them or contact us here for your free quotation.We deal on all kinds of inverter both power & solar, batteries, charger controllers, solar connectors etc.