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That makes me wonder how often people top up their inverter batteries?

I check the float indicators on mine from time to time and it takes almost a year to approach the low mark. We do get power cuts, so the battery is used/recharged.

Good to see you Thad after long time.

If you remember I got the 3.5 kVa installed. That's 4 150 Ah in serial. It takes approx 4 months to reach lower mid & low mark. Though not all at the same time.

Power cuts in our location is short but multiple. The Singara city that we share, as you know has variable temperature with high humidity & the level floats (6 per battery) look like sigmoidal wave when I open the Inverter room after 3 months.

Thanks :) I am always here, even if not posting!

Ours is a very small inverter system with one 150 Ah battery. It does surprise me, though, how long the water lasts.

The worst thing that happens to our battery is that, occasionally (maybe once or twice a year) some fault will trip the breaker on the inverter input, and we do not notice until the battery has run out. Not a good way to treat it. But the inverter is in a sit-out area, and not seen unless we look. And I am deaf to electronic-gadget-beep frequencies.

I missed the Renewable Energy expo here this weekend. For some reason it ran Thursday to Saturday, not Sunday, and I felt a little unwell yesterday. Not that I am buying, this year at least, but I like to keep the solar-power dream going!

You have rekindled my initial talks that we all had during my selection phase of inverter. Infact, I was hell bent on getting a system in place with Solar capability. But, as fate would have it, there was a sudden spike (at that time) in Solar Panel cost and I had to put that in back burner.

Mine would require 4 300W 24v Solar Panels which are behemoths in themselves to power and replenish 3.5 kVa system.Which meant that I will lose precious real estate on my terrace. None in my family supported my idea and were strictly against it. So, the next option is to construct a Chinese Pagoda (rooftop party spot) with 2' steel pipes for frame and Asbestos / Aluminium Roof sheet with Clay tiles. And frames for holding Solar Panels on top of it.


Sunlight is not an issue in our city (though a moody sky, that astronomy enthu's curse from core of their heart), but summers give us ample sunshine. So, this is now the next project in another couple of months. I don't care about the speed of recharge, but efficiency that will reduce stress on incoming grid line and to ease my electricity bills.

I owe the pic of my inverter room to everyone who bestowed knowledge.

But for your single battery set up sir, you can easily do a plug and play over a hot cup of evening tea and vazhakai & onion bajji. Luminous has a plug play Solar Panel + Controller bundled package which is easy on pocket provided you have real estate to host the panel(s).

Depends on a number of things including battery design (tall tubular holds more acid so less frequent topping up), charge discharge cycles, temperatures, charging voltages.

I top up about 3 times year.

Between:
April to Jun - Topup # 1, 3 months, hottest time of the year, ACs are on full blast, power failures increase
July to Oct - Topup # 2, 4 months, temperatures are moderate and low # of power failures
Nov to March - Top up # 3, 5 months, coolest months of the year. lowest # of power failures

Power failures have decreased drastically in recent times, no more than twice a month for about 15 minutes. I think they switch feeder lines during this time.

Plus the Central Govt. has decided to penalise distribution companies for unscheduled power outages after 1st Apr.

Thanks for rekindling the idea of solar in my head. MH is expensive for nearly everything including power. Solar is something I need to work on.

Ahh, yes, rekindling the solar dream!

When I do it, I am going to have to do it at least at 3, 4 or more kVa. My requirement is for something that will "drive" at least a 1-, preferably 2-ton inverter AC.

Not this year. I just bought a new camera, and have other obligations, like: I get camera, wife gets gold!

I had a trusty APC 1000VA 24V home UPS which served us for about a decade and eventually died. The APC technician declared it un-repairable as the motherboard is at fault, and anyway I wanted something newer and funkier.

Eventually, bought a Luminous Zelia 1700 (1500VA, 24V) with wifi.

Now comes the trouble. Ever since, daily power consumption in my house has gone up by a huge margin. Looks like there is an increase of about 2-3 units per day. This puts us at risk of overshooting our monthly limit of 250 units per month when the electricity board starts charging a high flat rate, thereby doubling our electricity bill.

There are hardly any power cuts in our area, and the occasional cuts does not last more than 15-30mins. I was under the impression that unless the battery is charging or the inverter is supplying, the power consumption of an inverter is negligible. Also I wonder what the old APC was doing right which the new Luminous is not able to.

Any advice in this matter is highly appreciated.

It all depends on the efficiency of your inverter. For a 1.5 KVA inverter the quiescent current can be 5-15 % of the normal full load current. Typical power consumption when it is in trickle charge mode, is about 25 VA to 70 VA depending upon the efficiency.

It assumes that the batteries have been charged to the full level and they are on float/trickle charge mode.

Most inverters would not require additional fan to cool the circuits in this mode thus saving you some power.
Thus you are looking at a consumption between 18 units and 50 units for a month.



Another thing that can drastically push up your inverter consumption is the battery. As the batteries age, they induce the inverters to keep the charging rate high which translates to higher EB bill.

It may be worth your while to install a Sonoff POW device to monitor your consumption.


For my ancient inverter, I used to have a change over switch which was set to utility mains and turn off the power to the inverter for days. The batteries lasted the same 4,5 years even under such long holidays.

Thank you for your detailed analysis.

Just ordered one of this from Amazon.

amiciKart 16A/3500W Wireless Wifi Sonoff POW for Smart Home with Timer and Power Consumption Measurement (White) https://www.amazon.in/dp/B075FV84ZK/..._hMg2CbFNHNRKW

Hope I got the right device.

I will test the consumption once it arrives and post any patterns I find.

To put it simply it's better battery management and inbuilt efficiency in the charging and inverter circuits. Local brands are no patch on the likes of APC, Liebert etc. Open the unit, check the circuit board and one knows the quality. Speaking from experience with 2 APC SUA2200I UPSes (one purchased in Jan 2010 is now over 9 years old) and other APC products. When I replace my Su-kam I am thinking of buying an APC Smart-UPS that will work with 2 or 4 external batteries.

I had to make a minor adjustment to the Smart-UPS which was overcharging the battery in the interest of getting it to 100% SOC at the earliest. But that was compromising battery life. Once charging voltage (vs temperature) was adjusted via a serial port both UPSes run like a charm.

My dumb Su-Kam 1500 VA is connected to 2 x 200 AH Exide Invatubular batteries, the kit installed in 2013. 6 years old and going strong. Touch wood. But yes, power consumption is higher than I'd like. What was replaced in the Sukam? Output fuses, twice, and the cooling fan.

But consider this - power failure is becoming rare now and durations are shorter. So having a high capacity UPS system is not a necessity IMO.

You're right there! APC is the best, no doubt. We have had it for ever, and it just ploughs on. The 150 battery that they provided is VIA (German, but never heard of it), and it's quite good. Even if this thing dies I will only look at APC, again.

I was under the impression that APC stopped selling home UPS in India. Are they still available?

You had me worried there for a moment. APC sales and service is very much intact, as a quick google search shows.

Those stocks appear to be leftovers. If we follow the link, it says product is unavailable. The APC India website too doesn't mention home UPSes anywhere.

PS I was thinking of buying a Luminous Ecovolt 1550+ (1.4kVA) as it is the max capacity one can get that runs on a single battery setup, but looking at the opinions here, I might be better off grabbing an APC 1.5kVA with 24V setup while it's still available (no idea how the support would be for an EOL product though).

APC Home UPSes are discontinued but I was referring to this one: APC Smart-UPS XL 2200VA 230V No Battery

This one takes external battery packs - 4 x 12 V batteries. One can use VRLA or even flooded tubular batteries. The former is preferred.