We are using the Schneiders for a few reasons. They are the only ones available that I know of in three phase from a single unit and they are the most powerful option @ 7 kW pr unit. They are also grid tie ready rite out of the box. One of the main points is to make the machines scalable and these inverters can be stacked up to 102 kW. So rather than build one giant beast of a machine that would eat fuel faster than you could feed it. You simply stack our smaller units and you get a much more reliable and versatile system with the Schnider. The largest Magnum I found was just to small of unit. We want them as big as we can get them.
The other option we offer is the AIMās power 12 kW inverter charger.But this inverter is not stackable and is only capable of two phase. This is a deal breaker for overseas and this is our largest market, the US market hardly exist anymore. We ship mostly abroad.
Very interesting, I wanted to do just that as well. The solar inverters come in much much larger units and this could make the system scalable this way. For instance some of the Schneiders are available in 60 kW and even larger. So this would make our systems scalable by building a team of them.
What do you think about rectifying around 10 kW of single phase power 240 volt? Do you know of a gadget I could get that could rectify this up to the requirements of these PV inverters. They seem to vary some but most are 600 volt up to 1000 volt DC.
Yeah I dont think most here in the US understand how things work across the waters. The reason I say this I had no idea how far ahead things are over there. Im just scratching the surface on battery off grid systems abroad, they do things much different than here. Australia, is leading the way with things like this, for instance the Schnieders have specific software built in for Australia to keep track of what you put in so you get paid for it. They are really on top of it over there.
Depending on what they use, PWM or mppt, you can play around with some parameters;
you can adjust the output voltage from the generator as well, meaning playing with the field winding, disconnecting the AVR and replace it by home madeā¦
Any high voltage diode can do in bridge congiguration available up to 1000 amps, similar as been used in rectifiers for dc welding.
only to take care of heat dissipation with a suitable cooling body
Some inverters give a great output / less losses with higher voltage input.
with todayās knowledge, many problems are easy tackledā¦
Koen I like the idea of converting to dc with a full wave diode bridge. You can add a wripple capacitor on the output side and have a decent dc converter with out much cost. As you pointed out then you can piggyback the solar industry charge controllers and not have to keep the generator running at the correct frequency and voltage. Battery storage also letās you ballance generation to the load.
To the discussion about grid tied that depends on the grid. Here the power companies have alot of fees that actually make going off grid more attractive. I think as the battery prices continue to drop this type of system will become more common.
Iāll have to look into the schneiders more closely. 3 phase is done by outback by using a 3 stack of their vfx inverters topping out at 9 kw but you can slave additional stacks. You are right magnum is focused on off grid 120/240. Our clients are all domestic. Sounds like fascinating work Matt. Growth is happening other places most people seem just too fat and happy to shake things up much. Keep innovating.
Best regards, David Baillie
have outback gs8048a professionally installed . we had rain flood basement during install . I could not get gasifier working during or for months after install . technically I have the system working . Actually the inverter is so unnecessarily complex that it is often doing the opposite of what I want it to be doing . The company said that the inverter can not operate the way the installer told me it could be operated . I donāt want to call installer back .I don"t think there is anyone else I could hire . I am hoping he put application in with power company . I just want the system working .
A bridge rectifier is what you want. They sell them for wind turbines all assembled but most of them are 3 phase so you can only use 2 legs with 220. You can stack them in parallel to get more throughput. (in theory you could use the open leg to for one of the splits, but I think that would be too much power for the output, and the board will fry.)
I -should- mention converting single phase 220 to dc results in pulsed dc and supposedly not all 3-phase to dc converters handle it well (I assume they were talking about power supplies though), and you may want a capacitor to smooth out the current. It goes to zero twice during a cycle which 3-phase input wonāt do. You -may- be better served by using an old 3-phase motor (with a tickler circuit to energize the magnets) as your a generator. You donāt really care if you are off on frequency since you are rectifying it.
Yup, many great points on this, and more reasons why I want to go this route. Sounds like it would be so much easier to control the unit it could just run free. This solves so many issues the plague any fueled generator. No synching equipment needed that needs constant fiddling with,. frequency fluctuations are solved, teaming systems solved, the machine can run free and the gasifier can do what it wants out with being forced and energy created is not wasted and input directly to load or grid/battery.
I think it is the easiest, safest, and most legit way to do it without having the utility company breathing down your neck.
The circuitry you need might actually be in the inverter itself. IIRC Some of them have an input and an autostart generator capability built-in in case of power loss from the utility. They also shut off backfeeding to the grid and run in off-grid mode. (off-grid mode also has a few settings that allow you to only draw from the utility, and not feed the utility.)
Yes these features are what we are using for the input for self run machines. Instead of using the autogen start to start the gen, we are using it as an input to initiate the ignition cycle of the gasifier. Once the machine is fired up then our system fires up the generator until batteries are charged up. This is for the 48 volt inverters, on the PV set ups more thought needs to be put in there, with out a battery system the machine would need to run fulll time. How do set up a battery bank on the PV inverters, this part Im unclear on as they are running at extreme voltages and do not seam to have input capability of lower voltage battery banks.
Yeah from what I understand the PV inverters are not designed to run off a battery bank and do not have input for low voltage they only seem to imput at high voltage 380 volts and up. When the sun is out and the array is cranking out power the inverter then supplies this to load and surplus is fed back to grid. When the sun goes down, this inadequate power is created it switches back to grid power.
Are you talking about a simple grid tied inverter? Then yes you are right. If the schneider has grid feed back capability built in you would dc feed the batteries using a mppt charge controller like the midnite solar classic line and use the inverter settings to control grid feedback. You can do micro inverters at the solar and ac couple but that gets pricey as you have 2 complete inverter systems. The Radian series does all that well but you want 3 phaseā¦
Thatās pretty much what I had gathered, that we would need to add in additional systems to make that work.I think if we were to use the PV system that type would simply be a full time machine or it could be set up on timers to feed the grid at peak hours like a solar array.
I donāt know if you are married to the schneider yet but check out the specs on the Radian series from outback. I know they make them in 50 hz models as well. Iāve been installing their opticsre stuff for some of our remote clients. You can view performance and adjust parameters as long as they are Internet connected all built into the remote stockā¦ Itās fun tech thatās for sure. The remote is very deep and Iām not done yet by a long shot.
Best regards David Baillie
Matt I would consider getting the generator and rectifier circuit from a wind turbine setup no point in reinventing the wheel in my opinion. There has been alot of engineering into taking variable speed wind rotational energy and getting it on the grid or into batteries.
Basically you have two choices first convert it to DC then either uses a grid tied inverter to dump the power out onto the grid or use the dc charge controllers to store the power in batteries.
In order to use the genorator input on your invertor the generator will have to provide the correct input frequently and voltage which will probably result in a much less efficient use of the wood gas as sizing the motor and genorator will be much more critical.
