Difference Between Solar Panels And Inverters

Most homes use alternating current ac energy not dc so the energy produced by your solar panels isn t useful on its own.

Difference between solar panels and inverters. Check it out if you are considering buying batteries with your solar power system. Not going through the same inverter then a separate battery inverter is a good but expensive choice. A home ups or home inverter take the dc power from the batteries and convert it to ac power used by appliances. If you want to retrofit batteries to your solar power system or simply keep your battery system separate from your solar panels i e.

Each string carries the dc power the solar panels produce to the string inverter where it s converted into usable ac power consumed as electricity. Inverters are a very important component of any solar panel system. While solar panels convert sunlight into electricity inverters ensure that the electricity they produce is usable in your home there are three primary types of inverters. Micro inverters on the other hand convert dc to ac power at each individual panel and allow for monitoring and power regulation at the panel level.

Solar panels are installed in rows each on a string for example if you have 25 panels you may have 5 rows of 5 panels. In case of grid connected the dc power is from the solar panels and ac power is given to the grid. They send the power produced by solar panels to a central inverter that changes it from dc to usable ac power for your home. A solar inverter also does the same if it is an off grid solar power system.

String inverters inverters power optimizers and microinverters. The big difference is that a solar panel installation with microinverters will have the same number of microinverters as there are solar panels. Multiple strings are connected to one string inverter. While a conventional string inverter might have 1 to 3 internal mppt units with a power optimizer system there is one mppt per solar panel.

Although modern solar technology allows individual panels to continue producing power even if a part of the panel is shaded without module level power electronics string inverters can only optimize power output at the string level not at the individual panel level.