I come today to discuss a very delicate issue which has always been the problem of Installers of Inverters and the End Users themselves.
Believe it or not your installation is as good as the battery you are using for the installation. often times people tell me that the heart of an installation is the Inverter/UPS but I always tell them that that is wrong. To me the heart of the installation is the Battery.
What is a battery, a white man once told me that battery is just Lead and Acid and that is basically true.
For every backup system (Solar UPS and Inverter), if your battery is not standard if you like spend millions in acquiring the inverter you will surely fall to square zero. little wonder when you visit some clients, they wont let you mention an inverter system before they condemn you because one installer who is ready to make quick cash has duped him by giving him batteries that are not good enough, sometimes used batteries.
In our society today what is erroneously reffered to as Inverter Battery is the 200AH battery(mind you we have two types of 200AH) one is rated for 200AH/10HR the other 200AH/20AH.I wont be going into details to explain these as that is a topic for another day and time.
I am promted to write this because of a discussion I had with a Client who returned Hes battery on the bases of warranty claim as it did not last more than 4 months. I decided to interact with him on the technical specifications of the inverter and he told me its a 2kVA inverter (mind you thats is a 1.4 inverter system) and has a charging current of 10Amps.
I shook my head and took him to the battery to show him the battery specifications, On top of the battery it is clearly written C/10. I took time to explain to him what that meant and brought out the battery brochure and we read together.
Many will argue here that the lower the current used in charging a battery the better, that, i do not dispute but do you have that time and fuel to charge at a low current(Amperage). Many installers will tell you a Xantrex inverter is a rugged inverter and batteries dont fail when used with these inverters, why you might ask and that is because it has a charger. That is why you see it labeled Inverter/Charger, same as some other good ones.
The point I am trying to make is that we take time to size our battery not only by the runtime required but also by the charging capacity of your inverter.If 10Amps go for the 100AH or 65AH. At Idyllic Technologies, the sole importer of FullRIver batteries, we always advice our customers on the best way to handle their batteries for longevity. Because the customer says he wants 24hours backup, you give him batteries but because of the huge cost of the inverter/charger that will handle such capacity, you see installers use 30Amps on a 16 battery(4*4) arrangement.
I will stop here to hear your comments in the meantime you can reach me via 08030675746 (Idyllic Technologies Limited) Be wise and let no one cheat you of your hard earned money