Birken Vogt
Senior Member
- Location
- Grass Valley, Ca
The legacy systems had a single open/closed relay on the generator input straight through to the AC output. Usually open, when it connected to the generator the relay would close and the generator would be directly connected to the load. Then the inverter worked in reverse as a battery charger. In this case the generator needed to be at least as large as any connected loads because the inverter was not engaged to help. If the load got too large for the generator+charging then it would back off charging temporarily. It could not invert and run generator at the same time but usually generators were more powerful than the old small inverters anyway.
With the modern Sol-Ark and equivalent, I don't think they have that limitation, the generator is not directly connected to the load. However, the batteries are usually large and can take a lot of power quickly so the generator might as well be large anyway.
I find it is usually best to just make the generator kw = the inverter output kw.
If it is totally off grid the Kohler 14 is the only common generator that can be used in California. If there is grid present then most any good quality generator can be used.
With the modern Sol-Ark and equivalent, I don't think they have that limitation, the generator is not directly connected to the load. However, the batteries are usually large and can take a lot of power quickly so the generator might as well be large anyway.
I find it is usually best to just make the generator kw = the inverter output kw.
If it is totally off grid the Kohler 14 is the only common generator that can be used in California. If there is grid present then most any good quality generator can be used.