Inverter

An inverter converts direct-current (DC) electricity to alternating-current (AC) electricity. DC Is what most turbines produce with the wind (technically, your turbine produces with AC, but it's changed to DC); AC is what you use in your house and what the grid supplies to you.

In a system that's connected to the grid and that has battery backup, the inverter effectively acts as the charge controller, selling excess energy to the grid to maintain the battery bank at the set voltage when the utility grid is available. In a grid-tied system without battery backup, the inverter sells all the energy that it can to the grid, because it has no batteries to care for.

In a batteryless grid-tied system, the inverter lives and works between the wind generator and grid. In a battery-based system, its home is between the battery bank and the house loads and grid. With higher-voltage wind generators, there may be power conditioning equipment between the wind generator and the inverter or charge controller. This equipment keeps voltage from going too high, so it's often called a voltage clamp.

There are two basic types of inverters:

• Battery-based inverters: These inverters need batteries to operate. They work in backup systems, the ones that give you protection from utility outages, and in off-grid systems.
• Batteryless inverters: These inverters convert the wind generator's DC output to AC without batteries involved. These systems provide no backup. When the utility grid is down, you can't make any electricity, no matter how much the wind is blowing.

Some of the Application of Inverters is as follows:

• DC power source utilization
• Uninterruptible power supplies
• Induction heating
• HVDC power transmission
• Variable-frequency drives
• Electric vehicle drives
• Air conditioning
• The general case

Questionnaire:

• What is Inverter? Explain.