CJW

"One bank", now that's an eye opener. The added benefit is that if one phase fails the other two inverters on the remaining two phases will automatically recharge the battery which also supply the inverter on the failed phase. Will drop you a PM when ready, thank you

First off I want to state that although I successfully installed and operate a small 900w 12 volt system, I am a newbie to solar installations in as far as inverters and AC power is concerned. I am considering an installation on a farm where 3 phase power is available in the house with (according to my electrician) 60 or 80 Amps available per phase. These 3 phases is currently distributed across all the loads within the db and there is no appliance or tool that uses 3-phase power that is powered through the circuitry of the dwelling. The main idea for now is to use the installation purely as a back-up system to the unreliable (complete outages or "phase-drops") Eskom supply. The back-up is only needed for "critical loads" such as lights, fans, refrigeration, security installations etc. and my guess was that 5 - 6kW would be ample. Geysers, stove, aircons, kettle, swimmingpool pump etc would be excluded from the back-up system. Solar installation will only follow in a couple of years. I initially opted to go for the 10kW Infini, but with all the negative comments I am a bit hesitent especially since my Eskom supply is definately not up to scratch with suspected fluctuating voltages which might damage the Infini. I also considered a Victron inverter (big fan), but it would seem that one single unit with 3-phase capability is unavailable. I simply cannot afford 3 Victron inverters for a 3-phase installation, bearing in mind that each inverter will need it's own battery/set of batteries. As I understand another option is to use a single phase inverter on one of the supplied phases to power the inverter and critical loads and use the other two phases for the non-critical loads. What are the pitfalls when using this latter type of installation, alternatively what other 3-phase inverters might be considered.

Thanks for the lesson plonkster! It would indeed seem that they are aiming for a specialised battery in the form of a “LG Li-ion” battery which is already available in SA, but quite expensive.

I saw Bonanzatech have 3 different 3phase models in stock, but none of the smaller ones nor the 36kW unit. They do seem to be competitively priced for units with a 5 year warranty. Would be interesting to see what the smaller single phase units sell for in SA. I'm still a newbie and what I do not understand is the fact that the smaller units can handle batteries of 350Vdc - 450 Vdc. Would this mean that you need to use some sort of specialized battery?

Anyone with experience with the Huawei range of inverters? I haven't seen the smaller units for sale in South Africa, but only the bigger ones. http://solar.huawei.com/eu/products Certainly looks impressive, or am I missing something? SUN2000L.pdf

That's not good!! Please keep us posted.

Hi there. I'm a newbie to this forum and this is my first post. . I have been pondering over the idea of a solar system for quite some time now and, as I studied through the pages and pages of information available here, I just cannot make up my mind and decide on a system. Everytime I think I've finally figured out how the system would be put together and function, I seem to come across a better product to suit my needs or more information to contradict what I thought I've known. Non the less, I have enjoyed the learning curve thus far. As far as the inverter goes I do believe that the Infinisolar 5kw plus, or similar, is the right choice for me. I'm not in a hurry to setup the system as I simply know to little about solar energy and electricity at this stage to take the plunge. From what I've read, this is how I understand the workings of a true hybrid at this stage: I don't need to add a battery bank for it to function properly, but then will not have any back-up should the utility fail at night. The utility can be used as a "battery" initially as the system would back feed into the grid running up some credits to be utilised at night. as Mike suggested in his post I would like to add 2 strings of 15 * 300w panels. If funds are an issue one can initially only install one string and at a later stage the second? - it seems 30 Renesola 300w panels is gonna set me back well over R100k! my geysers (all 3 of them), conventional stove/oven as well as some outlets for ac and welder will remain on the utility side in the db - all the others can be moved to the inverter side of the db. Biggest concern is whether it would be problematic if the loads spike to more than what the inverter can handle?? I understand that if there is a spike the inverter will simply draw from all available sources to supply the load? Can anyone advise if my assumptions are correct?