The grid tie solar panel systems with battery backup are similar to batteryless

systems, except they can additionally provide electricity for critical loads in
case of a utility power failure. When sun is shining, the solar panels generate
power, which reduces the consumption of electricity from the grid and cuts
electric bills accordingly. If this power is not enough for your home, the required
balance is automatically provided by the utility. If the solar panel system
generates more electricity than your house is using, it will feed the excess back
to the grid after the batteries are fully charged, and may spin your electric
meter backwards. Under normal conditions, a small portion of the energy is also
used to keep the storage batteries charged.
Conventional batteryless systems do not provide any backup. An
obvious advantage of a PV-based generator backup is it provides a certain
protection against short-term blackouts. Its disadvantages are larger up-front
investment relative to a batteryless system and lower reliability due to the
batteries limited lifetime. In addition, if "wet" batteries are selected, they need
to be periodically checked for fluids.

Sealed batteries do not need any maintenance but may not last as long as the wet types. Fo
comparison,

a typical warranty for solar panels is 20-25 years, inverters- 3-10 years, batteries 1-3 years.

SOLAR PANEL WIRING AND PRINCIPLES OF OPERATION

This simplified solar panel wiring diagram illustrates the system's operation.
Note that earth ground for the DC circuit have to be provided in a single point. A DC ground
interrupter

disconnects the DC input when a certain leakage current from the ungrounded bus is detec

The storage batteries should never be connected directly to solar arrays since it may result
frequent

overcharging that reduces useful life of the batteries and can cause their damage. Also, wi
direct

connection, the battery will determine the voltage level at which the solar array will operat
level

most likely will not correspond to the peak power point of the cells (see characteristics of P
panels).

That's why a solar charge controller is normally put in between the PV array leads and the
bank.

If nevertheless you chose to not use a charger, you need to connect the batteries via a bloc
diode that

prevents their discharge at night due to reverse leakage current of the PV cells. Note that s
practically the

batteries never share loads equally, it is not recommended to run too many (probably more
four) parallel

strings of the batteries unless you use special circuits for the current sharing. You can use

battery life calculator for estimation of the runtime capacity.

In practice, a grid-interactive inverter for solar backup systems usually includes a DC groun
interrupter,

DC-AC inverter itself and a charger all in one package. It often also has several pairs of fus
inputs, which can eliminate the need for an external combiner. For the basic principals of it
operation see grid tie inverter

fundamentals.

The above schematic diagram shows an example of a wiring configuration when the inverte
low-

frequency center-tapped output transformer for 120/240 VAC. Often a low-power residential-
inverter

provides only 120VAC. In this case, you need special "stackable" modules. You will need to
series

two modules to get 120/240 output. Note that some models provide isolation in a high-frequ
DC-DC

converter stage and do not have a bulky low-frequency transformer. There are
also transformerless models

which require ungrounded DC busses and additional protection devices.

The shown system allows excess electricity that is generated by solar panels to be exporte
grid. Under

normal conditions, the grid acts as an additional energy source to keep the system's batter
charged. If the

grid fails, the inverter will automatically disconnects from the grid and supplies energy from
batteries to the

critical loads wired to an auxiliary panel. UL1741 standard requires a grid tie inverter to dis
from the grid within 0.1 second when input voltage goes off or drops below 60 VAC. When th
voltage returns, an internal AC

contactor will automatically transfer the wiring system back to the utility. Note that in gen
NEC® codes allow PV array voltages up to 600VDC. However, if the battery connections are
60V, you need to make "live" conductors not accessible.