Inverter Power Consumption Question - Single Phase vs Split Phase vs Parallel

[girfold]

I recently wired up two inverters, the EG4 3000 yellow ones and was curious about inverter power consumption expectations.

Before: 1 inverter power consumption + general things like the freezer/fridge/etc would take around 10% of the battery capacity over the night.
Now: 2 inverters in split phase power consumption + general things like the freezer/fridge/etc would take around 18% of the battery capacity over the night.

I understand that the second inverter constantly being on would consume more, but was curious if there was additional losses when the inverters are trying to keep the sine waves in split phase vs. just a parallel mode. I wouldn't need the 240V often, so I could swap modes before flipping on that breaker and leveraging 240 if that would help with the power consumption.


Since % are kind of meaningless, and 10% for 1 and 18% for 2 actually seems reasonable if there weren't really any other loads, I'll give a little bit more detail. It's a 15,360Wh battery array so 10% would be ~1536Wh and 18% would be ~2765Wh. Looking at about 14 hours where it stayed mostly idle to use up that amount - 110Wh/hr vs. 198Wh/hr. Idle power consumption (though not truly idle? Plus added strain of making sure phases are aligned?) for this inverter is listed as <50W.

Question: Think putting it in PAL mode instead of 2P1/2P2 would reduce power consumption?

 

[sunshine_eggo]

Question: Think putting it in PAL mode instead of 2P1/2P2 would reduce power consumption?

These things have notoriously high idle power consumption. Single phase vs. split phase won't matter.

 

[girfold]

Thanks @sunshine_eggo , I have a lot of solar input so it hopefully won't be an issue, just curious if the communication between the two inverters to keep the phases aligned was taking a lot of extra energy. Typically even on cloudy days it'll get back up to 98% (not sure why it chooses 98% instead of 100%) and flip off the input to match current load.

 

[sunshine_eggo]

Thanks @sunshine_eggo , I have a lot of solar input so it hopefully won't be an issue, just curious if the communication between the two inverters to keep the phases aligned was taking a lot of extra energy. Typically even on cloudy days it'll get back up to 98% (not sure why it chooses 98% instead of 100%) and flip off the input to match current load.

Nope. The bandwidth is very minimal, it's basically just a control signal to keep the two signals in phase or 180° out of phase.

Failure to achieve 100% is likely due to some design, configuration or battery issue.

 

[Egkingjr]

@girfold i’m considering the same solution with the Eg4 all in one 3000 W. I’m planning to start with a single inverter. I’m new to the forum and studying to finalize my design and purchasing. I see a lot on the forum about High idle consumption while the inverter is on with these systems. I’m curious what is the idle consumption while in standby with the inverter off, but with PV still charging the batteries through the charge controller side of the system. Would you happen to have any information about the idle consumption in that mode with the inverter off and charging?

 

[Samsonite801]

Doesn't this inverter have the energy saver mode like a lot of the other models? Perhaps you could try that out...

 

[girfold]

@girfold i’m considering the same solution with the Eg4 all in one 3000 W. I’m planning to start with a single inverter. I’m new to the forum and studying to finalize my design and purchasing. I see a lot on the forum about High idle consumption while the inverter is on with these systems. I’m curious what is the idle consumption while in standby with the inverter off, but with PV still charging the batteries through the charge controller side of the system. Would you happen to have any information about the idle consumption in that mode with the inverter off and charging?

Sorry, missed this. After a period of time of the light going away, the off/charge-only Inverter will turn off completely once the sun is completely gone. There's a period of time when the sun is waning where the Inverter will end up having a net-loss on the battery from what I've seen. It's minimal, but I do notice a few hundred watt hours getting vampired because of this behavior from what I've seen. It's still a LOT less than leaving that secondary inverter on all day.

Doesn't this inverter have the energy saver mode like a lot of the other models? Perhaps you could try that out...

Missed this too, I can try that, I'd like to see how it'd do with the steady load of the Fridge and Freezer. Now with the cooler weather, the freezer probably won't kick on as much so may could work.


Other update since this last one: Just ordered that latest EG4 6000XP which fits my above needs perfectly. From the looks of it, I'd have the idle consumption of 1 inverter with the capabilities of 2 of these 3000 inverters, plus all the new features of that web interface that track PV input/load/etc.