Solar inverter to be installed at Thanal

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM:  A little farmhouse by the Kalindi River at Kattikulam in Wayanad, that functions as the agricultural office of the NGO Thanal, will over the weekend, implement the innovative solar inverter that will also function as a solar peak load optimiser. This will be one of the first such attempts in the state.The solar inverter, the patent application for which has already been filed, comes in a sleek white box along with a storage battery and solar panels. Conceived by Shyamkumar, who is the technical consultant for Thanal, and technically supported by Megabyte, the inverter can be connected to KSEB line and at the same time is compatible to solar energy.During the daytime, the inverter is just a bypass for the KSEB line while the solar energy gets stored within the battery. When the daylight dims, the inverter senses it and switches over to the battery automatically, thus reducing the load on the KSEB line during peak hours in the evening, explained Shyamkumar.When the inverter uses up to 70 per cent of the solar energy, it switches back to the KSEB line. Having tested and certified by the Electronic Regional and Test Laboratory (South), the equipment was tested and tried for over a year to come out with a fool-proof model.“We needed an inverter at our Wayanad office as we have frequent power problems there. So instead of the usual inverters which add on to the KSEB load, we decided to go in for a solar inverter, which minimises the KSEB load during peak-time,” said Shibu, programme co-ordinator of Thanal.The production cost of the inverter is a whopping Rs 60,000, but with a subsidy of Rs 18,000 from the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy and a ready loan available for Rs 30,000 at 5 per cent interest, the customer will need to pay only Rs 12,000, said Shyamkumar.This solar inverter is not only cost-effective, but could turn out to be a totally green solution for at least a part of the energy needs of the state. The testing by the ERTL has found that the total harmonic distortion of the output is much less than the international limits.More the number of homes that switch to solar inverter in the state, higher will be the hydro-electric power saved.