Sol-Ark 15K idle consumption

[Xebec]

The latest 15K manual shows 60 W. I believe it was 90 W previously.

Any link to this from anyone? I checked Sol Ark's site and it still shows 90W.

90W seems pretty high - I'm kinda curious why an inverter would eat this much idling? (>2 kWh a day?)

 

[Oldphile]

Any link to this from anyone? I checked Sol Ark's site and it still shows 90W.

90W seems pretty high - I'm kinda curious why an inverter would eat this much idling? (>2 kWh a day?)

Your right. In an earlier version it was 90 W, then in a later version it was 60 W. In the latest version it's back to 90 W. I can't speak to why it's so high.

 

[myles]

idle consumption statistics are useless to me. I live off grid, my inverter is never sitting "idle".

I have seen my solark 15k inverter eating as much as 500 watts when its inverting about 5000 watts to the house, charging with whats left, and pulling in 10k from solar.

but so far its reliable!

 

[Xebec]

idle consumption statistics are useless to me. I live off grid, my inverter is never sitting "idle".

I have seen my solark 15k inverter eating as much as 500 watts when its inverting about 5000 watts to the house, charging with whats left, and pulling in 10k from solar.

but so far its reliable!

When it's not idling though isn't it still using 2kWh a day above baseline? Still something to account for when building out a system.

 

[Cronix]

idle consumption statistics are useless to me. I live off grid, my inverter is never sitting "idle".

Idle consumption is important for off grid, more so than grid-tied. It's the power it's using when the unit is powered ON, whether it's idle (no external load) or not (with load).

If the idle consumption load is 90w and you are powering a 60w light bulb, you are consuming more than 60w.

 

[myles]

Idle consumption is important for off grid, more so than grid-tied. It's the power it's using when the unit is powered ON, whether it's idle (no external load) or not (with load).

If the idle consumption load is 90w and you are powering a 60w light bulb, you are consuming more than 60w.

Sorry I should rephrase that, I am more interested in the efficiency of the inverter whether charging or discharging, how much of the incoming power is making it to the finish line, end use point. In my particular use case idle consumption of either 60w or 90w is negligible compared to the big picture.


My opinions do not necessitate the opinions of others for sure, I'm just not at the point yet where I look to gain 1-2%. I am still a little bit macro trying to save the 10-20%.

 

[Lt.Dan]

I've mentioned it before, and I'll mention it again. Some people don't take the phrase "idle consumption" literally. Its ONLY at idle. So as soon as you have a load greater than 1w, you are no longer at idle, and it is considered Efficiency Loss.

So if the inverter is a 60w idle consumption, but you turn on a 100w load, and you have 160w coming out of the battery, thats a 62.5% efficiency. Its not that you have a 60w idle consumption, its that you have a piss poor efficiency at low loads.

This is also why its very important to size your system for what your most common load is. If your loads never exceed 3kw, and your average load is 1kw, then it makes no sense to get a 15kw inverter.

 

[myles]

I've mentioned it before, and I'll mention it again. Some people don't take the phrase "idle consumption" literally. Its ONLY at idle. So as soon as you have a load greater than 1w, you are no longer at idle, and it is considered Efficiency Loss.

So if the inverter is a 60w idle consumption, but you turn on a 100w load, and you have 160w coming out of the battery, thats a 62.5% efficiency. Its not that you have a 60w idle consumption, its that you have a piss poor efficiency at low loads.

This is also why its very important to size your system for what your most common load is. If your loads never exceed 3kw, and your average load is 1kw, then it makes no sense to get a 15kw inverter.

100%! Is there an efficiency chart for inverters? showing what the efficiency is at given loads?

That would be a smart piece of insight!

 

[Lt.Dan]

100%! Is there an efficiency chart for inverters? showing what the efficiency is at given loads?

That would be a smart piece of insight!

I think I have heard of some Victron inverters having said charts, but I've never seen them before.

It's a shame because all manufactures just advertise them at the best efficiency, which could be 50%, or 100%, who knows.

 

[Xebec]

I've mentioned it before, and I'll mention it again. Some people don't take the phrase "idle consumption" literally. Its ONLY at idle. So as soon as you have a load greater than 1w, you are no longer at idle, and it is considered Efficiency Loss.

So if the inverter is a 60w idle consumption, but you turn on a 100w load, and you have 160w coming out of the battery, thats a 62.5% efficiency. Its not that you have a 60w idle consumption, its that you have a piss poor efficiency at low loads.

This is also why its very important to size your system for what your most common load is. If your loads never exceed 3kw, and your average load is 1kw, then it makes no sense to get a 15kw inverter.

Thanks Dan! This is what I was curious about with the SolArk.

I’m thinking of building a grid-tie system with it, and if I assume that my average daily usage is 20 kWh (when planning panels and batteries), then it sounds like I need to add 2 kWh to that for the SolArk. (Plus additional for conversion losses).

The other reason I asked why though was more on the technical side — is the 90W idle/waste due to transformers? Are the fans power hungry? Is SolArk using some processors or circuits that aren’t idling (software opportunity) or can’t idle (fast switching time needed)? Just academically curious.

 

[Tulex]

I can definitely say mine uses 60w. Well, my grid is always 60w higher than load. I don't think that's so bad with all it's doing. It's computing all the time. Monitoring, recording data.

 

[Lt.Dan]

The other reason I asked why though was more on the technical side — is the 90W idle/waste due to transformers? Are the fans power hungry? Is SolArk using some processors or circuits that aren’t idling (software opportunity) or can’t idle (fast switching time needed)? Just academically curious

Others might be better suited to answer this question than me.

@RCinFLA ?

 

[rustyrotors]

edit: i just realized sol ark is hf type inverter, not sure where the loss is on those

 

[Danke]

Besides physically turning them off, is there an easy way to run multiple inverters only during the day with PV production? And just having one or two on at night running from the Batteries?

 

[MaikaiLifeDIY]

Besides physically turning them off, is there an easy way to run multiple inverters only during the day with PV production? And just having one or two on at night running from the Batteries?

If they have software-accessible power features, you could potentially put them in sleep/hibernate mode with remote commands. I don't recall if you can tell the Sol-Ark to turn off remotely or if there are any inverters on the market with this feature.

Actually, my Victron Inverter can be toggled between off and eco mode which might be kinda what you're looking for.