Any work around to island PV system when grid is not active

venkat1259

We are having unique issue, there is a problem with one of PV plant , we need to turn of PV plant when grid is INACTIVE. Is there anyway to run plant even while grid is in active( using ISLANDING procedure). This is a netmetering project.

BB.

Really unclear what you are asking... I guess you mean "turn OFF pv plant when grid is inactive". That is the normal operation of a Grid Tied Inverter/Net Metered system. They cannot and will not feed power to the grid if there is not the correct voltage, wave form, and frequency on the mains.

I think you will have to supply some more information (you are in Florida? How big is the system? etc.).

-Bill

bill von novak

venkat1259 said:

We are having unique issue, there is a problem with one of PV plant , we need to turn of PV plant when grid is INACTIVE. Is there anyway to run plant even while grid is in active( using ISLANDING procedure). This is a netmetering project.

Grid tie inverters turn off when the grid is inactive.  If you want to run the inverter while the grid is out you have three basic options:

1) Intentional islanding, using a bidirectional battery backed inverter PLUS one or more grid tied inverters.  This is NOT easy to do and will require additional relays and/or specialized equipment to allow you to do this.

2) A full hybrid system.  In this option you replace your inverters with charge controllers.  These charge a battery, and the excess energy is sent through a hybrid inverter to the grid.

3) The SMA "secure power" option.  This allows you to get a moderate amount of power (~1500 watts) when the grid is down via a separate outlet.  This is intended for emergency power for lighting, fans, phone chargers etc and not for facility or home power backup.

Dave Angelini

1)  above this is called AC coupling and it is not hard if you just want some basic level of battery based power. The whole plants PV would be hard/ expensive.

2) This would be wasteful but possible and really begs going back to 1)

3) would work if you just needed basic power only when the sun was out.  I saw that SMA has a new 3 phase TL series and so I assume it would have the secure power option for basic power when the sun was out.

If the OP ever comes back, and 2 out of 3 like this one seem not to, it is really unclear what you want, as Bill stated.
Maybe they want to use the PV first locally and then sell because of pricing. If this is Florida, I would not be surprised at much
Just guessing...