Introduction to home solar inverters

What is a solar inverter?

We all know that solar panels produce direct current (DC) power, but the appliances in your home use alternating current (AC) power, so you have a problem: how to convert the DC power converted by solar energy into the AC power that your appliances use every day. We need to borrow a device to complete this conversion, which is a solar inverter.

In layman’s terms, a solar inverter converts the variable DC output of solar panels into AC power that can be used by appliances or fed back to the grid.

Common household solar inverters

One way to classify solar inverters by type is into grid-tied systems, off-grid systems, and hybrid systems.

Off-rid inverters (battery inverter)

This type of inverter is used in independent power systems (also called stand-alone inverters). The inverter draws DC power from a battery that is charged through a solar panel (the inverter is connected to the battery). It has no connection to the public grid. Many standalone inverters also come with an integrated battery charger so that the batteries can be charged from AC power when the batteries are unable to draw sufficient power from the PV system.

In an off-grid system, solar panels transmit DC power to a solar charge controller, which distributes power to solar cells or solar inverters depending on whether the priority is consumption or storage.

Grid inverter

Grid-tied inverters can be connected to both the PV system and the public grid. When your solar power system generates more power than your home consumes, the photovoltaic inverter can feed the excess power back to the grid. If the power of the grid is cut off, the grid-connected inverter needs to quickly go offline with the grid. This is a requirement of the National Electrical Code (NEC) in the United States to ensure that when the power grid is out of power, the grid-connected inverter will not provide power to the grid, so that workers repairing the grid will not be electrocuted.

Hybrid inverter

Hybrid inverters are also known as multi-mode inverters. A hybrid solar inverter is a combination of a solar inverter and a battery inverter in one device. So a hybrid inverter can rationally manage power from solar panels, batteries (charged through solar panels), and the public grid.

The huge advantage of this type of inverter is that it offers a lot of flexibility in power delivery by choosing between solar, battery backup, and grid connections (you can also set the priority supply option yourself). In addition to this, you can reduce the need for separate batteries by opting for a hybrid converter. This is possible because it acts as both a battery and an inverter.
When the solar energy generated is not enough to run the load, excess power can be drawn from the grid. In addition to this, batteries can provide backup power in the event of grid failure. Therefore, hybrid inverters can provide constant power, and you don’t need to worry about power outages.