Wiring your Equipment and Accessories

How to get a Behind the Meter Power Grid working:

For TOTAL power & energy independent all you need is Solar and Energy Storage matched to your consumption, then a small 48kg, 4.5kW Silenced Generator would obviously provide 24/7 black-out security, and any other forms of Generation like Wind & Aqua will assist.

The correct Wiring of a system is the most important step in getting the system operating and correctly generating the required power, if you are handy you can do most of this work yourself, if unsure you should ask a qualified electrician to inspect & approve the system before going live !

Once your Solar & Energy Storage installation is complete you will instantly start saving, by not having to pay the 300% Retailer mark-up for importing power back from the State Grid.

Investing in an oversize Energy Storage (battery bank), reduces the reliance on a fuel generator as back-up, especially if your Solar array & Battery bank is sufficient to cover your Daily energy consumption, as that is what Power independence is all about.

However, being able to use the state grid as your go-to for Back-up power, means you have to pay $30 per month ($90 quarter) for the connection fee, and if you happen to receive a feed-in tariff, you will have to Gift the first 800kWh of energy to just cover that annoying & deceptive connection expense, all while the Retailers sell that 800kW to your Neighbours @30c kWh, making 300% profit on your energy, as well as any other energy exported into State grid.

Remember: It's simple to calculate totally power independent, when using correctly sized Solar array & Energy storage!

Dual Axis Tracking (DART) Control Modules: (with or without battery's) 

There are 3 Tracking Control Modules as follows;

1. Radiation Tracking is irrefutably the Best by a long shot !
   There are Two Types of Light Sensors, the Chinese Made & the Polish Made DART Control Modules;
   
   1. The Best Light Sensor uses 4 miniature Solar Cells mounted in a domed Waterproof housing, that Reads the Brightest area of the Sky.
   2. LED Light Sensors, are nowhere as accurate as the Solar Cell Type, and LED Sensors are said to become inaccurate in a few short years.
      NB: We don't use LED Light Sensors. 
2. GPS Tracking is inferior to Radiation Tracking, largely due to Pointing to Dark areas of the Sky during Cloud Cover & Bad Weather.
   We no-longer supply GPS Tracking.
3. Passive Solar Tracking if the oldest type of Solar Tracking, and one of the most reliable Trackers that are still working after 30+ years!
   However, during Cold & Windy Weather this system efficiency falls well below the two above DART Controllers.

Solar Array Wiring: (with or without battery's) 

First Stage of Wiring all Micro Grids is the convergence of Solar Array (PV) Power by using the Correct Solar Cabling Size to Run to the Inverter(s), as that will improve the PV power efficiency.  

If the DC Cabling running from Solar Array to the Inverter is less than 150mt, commonly 4mm² Twin Core Solar Cabling (1x Red & 1x Black) is used.

For Cabling running Cabling over 150mt you should be using Single strand Cabling concerned with energy loss or running the wiring over 100mt, you should use 6mm² Solar Cabling.

Hybrid Inverters comes with all the system management tools you may ever need, and Pre-Installed/wired Lightning/Surge Protection & pre-tested Module.

Battery Bank Wiring:

Wiring batteries is very simple as long as you use DC isolator switches, using AC isolator switched on DC voltage is NOT safe, especially high DC voltage can arch across an AC switch terminals causing a short, with a high possibility of the AC switch gear catching on fire!

Once you have decided on your battery bank DC voltage and kWh capacity that should largely depends your power usage after sunset to the next sunrise.

Remember: Commonly the higher the DC voltage the better, for either charging/discharging for any system.

It is more common that newer 'Hybrid Inverter', have multiple MPPT PV connections, MPPT control PV shadowing or low light conditions, thus keeping your PV power more stable.

Fuel/Diesel Generator Wiring:

This subject is covered in more detail on the Diesel Generator page, basically a Hybrid Inverter with Automatic Generator Start (AGS) feature is standard on many newer Hybrid inverters.  Recently, using Bio-Gas for generation is becoming a serous player in the renewable energy market.