Anybody with any experience in grid tied MH ? At some times of the year, like right now, we have a LOT of water pouring off he mountain.....I could run a 2" pipe with 50-100' of head without a problem. It is intermittent, but I'd sure like to back feed the grid when it is like this. My question is the inverter. Since I want this REAL simple ( no batteries/etc ), I want an inverter that will simply take the DC off the turbine ( I'm thinking 48v ) and turn it to 240AC to feed back to the grid and turn my meter backwards ( it is a bi-directional meter ). Problem I see with every inverter set up to do 240AC off solar is the high DC start up.....most of them won't even start without 150 or more DC input. So is there an inverter out there somewhere for 48v DC input ? ( and I guess it could be less depending on the water feed as it winds down )
I piped water down a 70' drop to my cabin and ran a caterpillar alternator that I rigged to a water wheel. It kept a bank charged for about three years until it caught fire finally but I'm sure there are more efficient ways of doing this. I just used what I could scrounge for my system, the inverter I used was one a scrounged from a ship. I did this because the grid fired me.
There are Inverters that will do what you're talking about but Battery Connected Inverters are a better solution.... You just use a Charge Controller like the OutBack MX-Series, to take care of the MicroHydro, and let the OutBack do the Grid-Tie.... Lots less problems, and UL Approved....
But then Bruce, you HAVE to have battery(s) in the system.....that setup won't run without them ( I know, that's what I have on my solar now ) I wanted more simple for this....just like a "normal" solar grid tie. Somebody has to make one.
I have seen a few, but most were not UL rated in the US.... and they were smaller, like less than 1Kw.... I haven't been aware of any recently released, new technology, type units, since the SunnyBoy Units were marketed a while back. There may be some European units, that I haven't found, but i doubt that they would be UL Approved, and may be 50 Hz... Best to run a Google Search and see what is around.... and in production...
