What is needed to Divert usable energy to a Battery ?
Assuming that the Voltage of the Battery is 48V. We need at least this voltage to Charge it.
If we are going to use make domestic use of this Battery power we will need an inverter.
Scope of this Development
The scope of diverting energy from an existing Solar PV setup to a Battery and making use of that energy is daunting ! Being at the scale of a full PV System just without the actual Panels. So we are left with the practical problem of how much of a Home Generation system we need to duplicate !
Possible approaches
- Use NRGDivert to create a 48v Compatible Charger for the Battery
- Find Component subsystems to Interface CUMon to and then program them.
- ??
Arguments and Reasoning
Regarding 1 above the simplest approach is to transform the diverted power,rectify and stabilise it.This works to fill the Battery however does not then provide a solution to make use of this power. The problem of providing the energy back into a domestic environment is that this is constrained by a plethora of regulations any Niche-tec system would have to comply with.
In the case of 2 above we would need standalone systems to work as our subsystems.
So we are looking to energy divert using a Hybrid inverter. This will ensure the existing PV system remains inviolate and allow the add on system to be stand alone. This perhaps marginalises the usabilitiy of the system for other developers.
Development Description
The aim of the development therefore is to emulate a CT (Current Transformer sensor) to interface back to a hybrid inverter and that way control the charge and discharge of the battery on the new inverter. This emulation to be completely digital by emulation of the RS485 Modbus Protocol.
This limits the scope of the development to a manageable and achievable goal. Removes the Legal/regulation conformity and produces a system that diverts Excess Solar into a Battery. Furthermore a WIFI CT RS485 Device could find other applications.