Grid Tie? or Off Grid Inverter

[Dale Marion]

oh man I have a problem. SO, we brought my 5kw turbine home, me and a small village of people set it up, and 2 days later MAN she was going... The wind was coming in strong and not one cent of electricity is being put into my home.

Here's why. apparently my inverter is a very sensitive little piece of equipment, well the power from the grid fluctuates from 199 to 209 volts very rarely making it to 210 which is the minimum input from the city that my inverter will stay turned on with.

on top of this. my charge controller sits there reading 50V and 0Amps the entire time, I think I saw it once at 50v and 20 amps when the turbine was running but that was short lived... so anyway...

since my inverter will not stay on when my batteries are down to 20% and the load is more than what the batteries can handle now, you see my inverter is supposed to switch over to the city power when the power from the batteries is depleted, but since my grid isnt supplying 220v -/+ 5% like my inverter needs, it shuts off. THis leaves my Wind turbine spinning without a load...

So Idealy, I'd like to switch over to a grid TIE inverter... what is the difference in inverters? by the way, my generator was also giving off reading yesterday of 7190 watts, this cant be correct. unless this is normal for a 3 wire AC wild generator.

what can I do??? I've spent ALOT of money on this and now because the city's power can't support my inverter, its going to waste. I've called the electric company, they came out and said that my power in my house is that low because I'm using 7kw per hour.

I think this is bunk. I went and turned everything in my house off at the breaker, and I still got a reading of 185v 50h...

I don't know what to do.

[Rob Beckers]

Dale, could you give a bit more info: What country are you in? What's grid power like most of the time (in voltage swings etc.)? What inverter do you have? What wind turbine?

-RoB-

[Dale Marion]

Well I'm in Romania. It's a Hikotchi Electric turbine inverter and Charge controller, really nice, equipment, very well made and well packaged, solid. but lacking alittle in documentation for the inverter.

The power fluctuates over the course of a given day between 180volts 50hz (i'm only guessing at the hz because its near impossible not to be 50hz and up to 208v some times during the day... I'm sooo disappointed, 2 days in a row with 14 kph wind and Im still paying my hydro company for garbage power. Tomorrow I'm expecting 19kph

I live in the carpathian mountains in Romania. in a small village not too too far away from a city.

they have 3 phase here and my electrician said the only way to get a 220v connection is to run 1 phase directly to the inverter. But I tried that today and I got a reading of 182 at about 8pm its been between 180 - 210 My input power readout kicks in the minute it goes up to 210, just like the manufavturer said.

Still dont know what I can do to be using all this power, I currently crossed the terminals from the turbine to keep it from runnning it goes super fast without a load running on it.

Help please

[Dale Sheler]

Wow! The Carpathian Mountains of legend and lore! Some inverters are capable of being set to run with a wider range of grid power, you are going to have to get in touch with the manufacturer and ask if these parameters can be changed in yours.

[Dale Marion]

When my batteries rand down to 29% the city power light went full green and everything was beautiful.

I'll have to read some more about my next problem,... I have a 3 kw turbine 3 wire wild I quess the call it.

at startup speeds when my charge controller is reading 3 - 4 amps I'm only getting 28 - 30 volts off my generator... ??? that's like 120 watts??? is this normal for a 3 wire AC generator?

I was expecting 200v at 2 amps. what could be rhe problem???

thanks.

[Dale Sheler]

There is no way we can be of any help without a LOT more information on your inverter and your mill, is it wound to charge batteries or to tie to the grid?

[Ben Colla]

This will take some digging but ...

Find out what your grid voltage is supposed to be. There will be a government requirment that it be something. Probably 230v. (it is, I checked)

Then you need to find out what the tolerances are. I know that Australia is 230v +/- 10% I was regularly getting 250v which is just within the +10%. But i called my power company and they said "It's within tolerances, do you really want us to investigate". I said yes.
They came out the next day and turned the voltage down to 240

Provided you have the same 10% tolerance, your supplied power is never meeting requirements (207v minimum).

Contact your power supplier and ask them to fix your grid voltage.

[Greg Roshetko]

I agree with Dale, just about every inverter is capable of being set to run with a wider range of grid power...