A power conditioner called “power conditioner” required for solar power generation. Since it usually drives automatically without any operation, many people may know the name but do not know what it is doing.
Power conditioners play an essential role in making solar-generated electricity available at home. This time, we will explain in an easy-to-understand manner from the basic knowledge of power conditioners to the points of how to choose.
What Is A Power Conditioner?
Power conditioners not only convert electricity that cannot be used just by creating it with photovoltaic power generation into electricity that can be used at home, but also play an important role in operating the entire photovoltaic power generation system effectively and efficiently. ..
Power conditioners are called power conditioners or PCSs (Power Conditioning Systems), and convert the power generated by solar panels into power that can be used at home. Overseas, it is mainly called a PV inverter.
PV is an abbreviation for Photovoltaic, which means “to generate electricity with light”, and an inverter refers to a device that “converts direct current to alternating current” or “converts direct current / alternating current to alternating current with different frequencies”.
Home appliances that we usually use at home use electricity called “AC power” that is transmitted from electric power companies. However, the electricity generated by the photovoltaic power generation system is “DC power”, so it cannot be used at home as it is. Therefore, we are working on converting DC power to AC power with a power conditioner.
The DC power generated by the solar panel is sent to the power conditioner, converted to AC power, and sent to the distribution board. At this time, the conversion efficiency from DC power to AC power is not 100%, and a small amount of energy loss occurs during conversion.
The conversion efficiency of power conditioners used in residential photovoltaic power generation systems is generally around 95%, and the higher the conversion efficiency of a power conditioner, the more effectively the energy generated by the solar panel is used.
The conversion efficiency is also a numerical value that indicates the performance of the power conditioner, and the higher this numerical value, the higher the price of the product tends to be.
Not just conversion! Role of power conditioner
Power conditioners have an important role other than converting power. Although it depends on the manufacturer, we would like to introduce the role of a typical power conditioner.
Maximize The Amount of Solar Power Generated
The disadvantage of solar power generation is that the amount of power generated depends on the hours of sunshine and the weather.
Especially in cloudy weather, the power generated by the solar panel has large fluctuations in voltage and current, and the amount of power generated becomes unstable, but even under such conditions, more power can be stably supplied. The power conditioner is adjusting.
That is the function called MPPT (Maximum Power Point Tracking Control). Photovoltaic panels are designed to generate electricity only when the current and voltage are in a certain combination.
MPPT is a function that the power conditioner adjusts the combination of voltage and current so that more power can be stably supplied when the voltage and current fluctuate due to the weather and the amount of power generation is maximized.
MPPT has the function of automatically finding the combination of voltage and current (maximum output point) that maximizes the amount of power generation from the voltage and current that constantly fluctuates depending on the amount of solar radiation and temperature, and controlling it so that the amount of power generation can be maintained.
Since it is often purchased with the same manufacturer or set as the solar panel, it is important to select the optimum one not only for the panel but also for the performance and price of the power conditioner when considering the introduction of solar power generation.