There are so many ways to install solar panels for our home use, but the most preferred method is ‘Converting our existing home inverter into solar inverter by adding solar panels and charge controller to it’
Before converting your inverter, consider some points listed below for trouble free performance of whole setup.
We recommend our visitors to read our previous article
‘How to install solar panels for Home‘ before reading this. Some readers asked about availability of automatic switching between grid power and solar power in Charge controllers. This article will clear their doubts about converting existing inverter into solar.
Buy solar charge controllers with auto switch over function
Normally solar technicians use ‘Solar charge controllers without automatic switching between mains power and solar power for charging the battery. You need to manually switch off the power supply from grid to your inverter during day time, so that your battery will be charged with current generated by solar panels.
If you forget to switch-off the grid power supply to inverter during day time, your battery will be charged by two different sources concurrently, though some batteries are capable of accepting this double charge, we would not recommend that. It would reduce your battery life if you have solar panel setup of 250 watts or above.
Some home inverters may trip frequently, if this kind of double charge happens.
Solar charge controllers with auto switching function is available in the market, ask your dealer to install such kind of solar charge controller.
Those solar charge controllers automatically cut-off the grid power supply when power from solar panels is available. It automatically switches back to grid power supply to charge the battery during the absence of current from solar panels.
This is the best suitable way to convert your existing home inverter into solar inverter.
This can be used with pure sine wave of square wave inverters.
Solar charge controllers – Buy online
For those who want to try this on their own, we recommend ebay.in for purchasing your solar charge controllers for your project.
As I already said, both automatic and non-automatic charge controllers are out there in the market, choose only solar charge controllers designed for converting normal home inverters in to solar inverter.
Charge controllers are available in different variant, select the right voltage and ampere according to your battery bank and solar panels.
Post your questions in comments section, let us discuss about this in detail.
Normal solar charge controller picture – Needs manual switch-off
Automatic Solar charge controller – for converting existing home inverters – No need to switch off grid power manually
After going through the websites I have understood solar panels installation in a much better manner.
Do you have any office of yours in Delhi / Western UP?
I want to purchase solar panel setup for installation.
Going through your site I concluded that Sukam solar panel is a better option.
I tried to call few dealers in Delhi but they are not just telling the rates on phone.
My requirements are around 500 watt.
Invertor is already installed.
(a) I want to know the approximate charges for the complete installation
(b) Want to know the cost of solar panels and charge collector with automatic switching which can be added to present invertor.
Rajeev
You can send your contact details at singh******@gmail.com and we may discuss this!
“If you forget to switch-off the grid power supply to inverter during day
time, your battery will be charged by two different sources
concurrently, though some batteries are capable of accepting this double
charge, we would not recommend that. It would reduce your battery life if you have solar panel setup of 250 watts or above.”.
Yes. And putting panel less than 250 W may be what I would call token install. Check out REhub PWM / REhub MPPT from Amberroot (www.amberroot.com) – which monitors the net current into the batteries to control this charge rate. You will be able to add more panels while keeping the batteries safe.
Karthik
Disclosure : I am founder at Amberroot.
In the solar set-up, both solar charger and inverter re connected to the battery. This will make battery to charge from both inverter and solar charger. How to disable the inverter charging in such case?