To be more specific, I have seen when solar is installed in a home, the output from the inverter is fed into a breaker which is attached into bus bar in the service panel and the mains remiain live. How does the system decide where to draw power from? How does it know to use power from the solar panels/batteries but then use power from the grid when solar/battery power is unavailable?
In: 1
A grid-tie inverter measures the incoming power, then generates a matching sine wave of slightly higher voltage in order to be able to back feed power into the grid (electricity will flow from higher to lower voltage). Most of the electricity will take the path of least resistance, so if the household uses a lot of electricity (which makes it appear to have lower electrical resistance), what the inverter makes will go there instead. If it uses more than the inverter can provide, the inverter will be unable to overpower the grid voltage, and the excess power will be drawn from the grid.
Latest Answers