single phase house with three supplies

[Thys LOW Elektries]

Good day, inverters are busy making a plain "wire the house please" job into a nightmare.
I have an engineer for a client, his house will have Eskom, a Dedicated supply from an Inverter, and an Auxiliary supply from the inverter.
I now must remember which supply must go where and not cross-feed the neutrals.
I guess this will be happening more and more as people rely more and more on the inverters for their main supply and only need Eskom as a backup or to power a flat in the backyard or the outside plug...
It is like wiring a house with 3 phase supply
Stay safe and enjoy the new year.

[Isetech]

It is simple:

1/ Mains power (fed from the road)
2/ Non essential
3/ Essential
4/ solar power
5/ battery power
6/ Generator power

You dont want to mix any of those power supplies.

It gets more complicated if you add a single phase inverter to a 3 phase power supply.

I sort of follow some of the technical groups and skim through the 10 000 messages a day.

A solar/inverter/backup system is a very simple job which can and has been done by many Diyer, it's the lack skills in the electrical industry that creates most of the challenges. In many cases I would trust a Diyer who has taken the time to research, than the idiots dumped and left on site to perform task well above their pay grade.

[Thys LOW Elektries]

Thanks Isetech.
The plot have a controlroom that supplies the plot with power. The owner now also have an Eskom supply, they did not have it previously.
He now want some stuff to run of Eskom, some directly from the inverter and the third from the inverter if there is enough power.

So there will be three supplies coming into the house. The plot have a large Victron system with plenty of panels and batteries.
When it rains here by us for three or more days, not frequently though, the system don't work very well. Hence the need for Eskom

[Derlyn]

Good day, inverters are busy making a plain "wire the house please" job into a nightmare.
I have an engineer for a client, his house will have Eskom, a Dedicated supply from an Inverter, and an Auxiliary supply from the inverter.
I now must remember which supply must go where and not cross-feed the neutrals.
I guess this will be happening more and more as people rely more and more on the inverters for their main supply and only need Eskom as a backup or to power a flat in the backyard or the outside plug...
It is like wiring a house with 3 phase supply
Stay safe and enjoy the new year.

I'm not the smartest when it comes to PV installations, inverters etc. but would like to think that I understand the basics.

Could you explain what a Dedicated supply and an Auxilliary supply from the inverter is. I was under the impression that inverters only had one output.

[Thys LOW Elektries]

Some of the newer inverter have an auxilery point that can be use for a generator input or be programed to be a limited output.
When Eskom work the point work as a normal output, but when Eskom is off the point will supply power for a limited period of time.
The time will depend on your programming of the inverter. For example an aircon can be put on auxilery and it will work from the inverter as long as the batteries is above the programmed point. Once the programmed point is reach the auxilery switch off. The rest of the house can then still run of the inverter.
Fancy function that is not used alot since the generator must work from this point
Using the generator point as an auxilery point means you must have a big PV system and no generator

[Thys LOW Elektries]

The dedicated supply is when you split a db into an Eskom and inverter supply, some ppl call the pv supply a dedicated or essential supply. The dedicated supply, supply the things you want to work when the power is off with electricity, the rest won't work, like maybe a stove or aircon