Grid tie inverter question.

[tinman]

I have found an excellent deal my local electronics supplier has ATM -A 1.5kVA grid tie inverter. Normal price is $1399.00 AU dollar's,and on special ATM for only $165.00 AU.
http://www.altronics.com.au/index.asp?area=item&id=M7977

My question is this-dose a grid tie inverter have to be conected to the grid to work?-dose it need the 240 volt ac(in my case)signal to opperate. Or can i use this as a normal inverter off grid?.

Thanks
Brad

[MarkE]

I have found an excellent deal my local electronics supplier has ATM -A 1.5kVA grid tie inverter. Normal price is $1399.00 AU dollar's,and on special ATM for only $165.00 AU.
http://www.altronics.com.au/index.asp?area=item&id=M7977

My question is this-dose a grid tie inverter have to be conected to the grid to work?-dose it need the 240 volt ac(in my case)signal to opperate. Or can i use this as a normal inverter off grid?.

Thanks
Brad

Grid tie inverters will not operate without a live utility connection.  They incorporate a feature called anti-islanding where they specifically work to detect the utility and if they don't find it, stop producing power.  This is a legislatively mandated safety feature directed at preventing the inverter from energizing the utility lines when they are being serviced. 

[tinman]

MarkE

Indeed ,i totaly had forgotten about that point.

Thanks for the reply.

[mscoffman]

Well, small grid tied inverters generally don't because they assume that you are doing grid-tied only stuff, that
is you would not expect to run your whole house on this inverter if the utility line went down because this is too
small to support the total household load. But this is a bad precedent to set for larger inverters.

The other hand I would insist that a 7KW or more grid tied inverter have a stand alone mode
so that in event of a power failure your house could stand alone and run on it's back up battery
bank. The grid connection will be severed in any event. It should cost only a few dollars more
to have the frequency generating circuit added.

Not doing (b) will penilize people who are grid independent and want to use that type inverter, and would
prevent you or someone else from becoming grid independent should they want to in the future. I predict
that grid interconnect benefits are joing to go the way of a July snowstorm in the Northern Hemisphere once
electrical utilites find out what they are up against.

:S:MarkSCoffman

[MarkE]

Well, small grid tied inverters generally don't because they assume that you are doing grid-tied only stuff, that
is you would not expect to run your whole house on this inverter if the utility line went down because this is too
small to support the total household load. But this is a bad precedent to set for larger inverters.

The other hand I would insist that a 7KW or more grid tied inverter have a stand alone mode
so that in event of a power failure your house could stand alone and run on it's back up battery
bank. The grid connection will be severed in any event. It should cost only a few dollars more
to have the frequency generating circuit added.

Not doing (b) will penilize people who are grid independent and want to use that type inverter, and would
prevent you or someone else from becoming grid independent should they want to in the future. I predict
that grid interconnect benefits are joing to go the way of a July snowstorm in the Northern Hemisphere once
electrical utilites find out what they are up against.

:S:MarkSCoffman

You are simply wrong.