Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

To: eyeamok
I decided to make my own battery backup system modeled after my Solar powered well that has been working for over 10 years flawlessly.

Do your inverters have an emergency power feature? My inverters let me have 3 electrical panels for 3 purposes: 1) one is the main panel, 2) one is called the "critical load panel" which it'll power if the grid power is down, and 3) one is the "smart load panel" which it'll power when the home batteries are charged to X percent (currently set to 70%).

I have virtually all of my circuits on the "critical load panel" and only a couple of hardly used circuits on my "main panel". The idea being that if the grid is down (which doesn't happen often), my solar and batteries will provide whole house backup. You could do the opposite. You could put the power circuits for your servers on the "critical load panel" so that your solar and batteries would power the servers even when the grid is down.

Unless, of course, you sell power to the grid and your inverters don't have the feature to automatically not put power onto the grid if the grid is down. My inverters aren't like that. My inverters are tied in between the grid and my electrical panels and can power my home panel separately from the grid (I'm not selling power to the grid anyway). Some inverters are tied so the electrical panel is between the inverter and the grid (thus the inverter can't power the panel without also powering the grid, which the power utility can't allow when the grid is down for fear of harming linemen, which means you inverter has to be set to automatically shut off when the grid is down, which means you don't have power to your home when the grid is down even if there's plenty of sunlight).

18 posted on 07/08/2023 9:54:43 AM PDT by Tell It Right (1st Thessalonians 5:21 -- Put everything to the test, hold fast to that which is true.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]


To: Tell It Right

I just made a stand alone system to run my servers and nothing else. My well is basically the same setup but with a 40 amp 240 volt inverter, 8 batteries and 8 panels and will run my well FOREVER, I have no electricity to my well because it would cost about $100K to run power up my mountain to the well. I could set it up easily to start a generator when the power goes out if I wanted to, but I don’t think it will be necessary. So far it has been working great for about 6 months now.


23 posted on 07/08/2023 10:11:54 AM PDT by eyeamok
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson