Information on Inverter Wiring

Thread Starter

Sats

Joined Jan 4, 2012
3
Dear All,
I am a novice in electrical things. I want to install a UPS at home. I had doubt on wiring required for inverter.


Option 1: Is it sufficient we do wiring from our inverter to/from the mains..so that UPS gets charged from mains when utility power is there
and supplies power VIA mains to appliances(fans,lights,TVs, 5A power sockets) in the house when utility power supply fails THROUGH the existing domestic wiring from mains?

Option 2: Apart from wiring from/to UPS - Mains , separate wiring is required for appliances needing power from inverter and we CANNOT use existing domestic wiring to these appliances for supplying power running on UPS? This will involve addtional labour and wiring costs for separate inverter wiring.

Please clarify in a layman language which of the below options are workable and efficient so that I know the electrician I am going to hire is not taking me for a ride.

-Regards,
Satish
 

thatoneguy

Joined Feb 19, 2009
6,359
How big of battery will the UPS have?

What is the VA rating of the UPS you will be installing?

Is this for a single outlet/circuit, or a whole house UPS with a disconnect switch at the breaker?

Most UPS systems will condition incoming power for a pure sinewave output, as well as "hold up" the voltage if the line voltage lags. Otherwise, if line power is present, the battery is typically float charging. A 10mS switchover time, or "single cycle" switchover is fast enough so computers won't glitch.
 

praondevou

Joined Jul 9, 2011
2,942
Dear All,
I am a novice in electrical things. I want to install a UPS at home.
What's wrong with these two sentences? :rolleyes:

As was said before you need to know a few things first:

- can the UPS provide the power you need? If not do you want a different UPS or use an electric panel to automatically switch off unnecessary loads when switching from mains to inverter?
- desired battery runtime to calculate the battery capacity needed

If you are new to "electrical things" as you mentioned it would be advisable to have this work done by someone with more experience.
 

thatoneguy

Joined Feb 19, 2009
6,359
He mentions that he's going to hire an electrician, and wants to be sure he isn't "taken for a ride".

Before we can even guess at how much money would be "a ride", we need a bit of a hint of how big the installation is going to be.
 

Thread Starter

Sats

Joined Jan 4, 2012
3
I will decide on UPS capacity based on my load (appliances I would like to connect to UPS) later.

But initially I would want to understand..is it mandatory to have separate wiring for UPS (apart from existing wiring for utility power supply) to all those points which I want to connect to UPS driven power?

or

is it ok if I get wiring done "UPS to/from Mains" only? My doubt in this case is can power from UPS be supplied thru' the existing wiring for utility power supply?

Hope its clear.. and gurus will read through my question before shooting off "digs"/pun... ;)
 

praondevou

Joined Jul 9, 2011
2,942
I
is it ok if I get wiring done "UPS to/from Mains" only? My doubt in this case is can power from UPS be supplied thru' the existing wiring for utility power supply?

UPS' have a mains input and an inverter output, or an output from the static switch in case they have a bypass.

So in your main electric panel of your house you will probably have several branches for the different loads. You just open the branch you want to be supplied by the UPS' output and connect the UPS in between.

Main circuit breaker --> branch circuit breaker or fuse --> UPS --> load.
 

thatoneguy

Joined Feb 19, 2009
6,359
In case it wasn't clear, you can't "backfeed" the mains, it needs to go through a switch, so that when the UPS goes online, no power goes back out of the house.

This is to protect everybody in the event there are people working on presumably dead lines, and the fact that neighbors would be using your UPS as well.

When getting to that level of UPS, it's often much more feasible to have the UPS run for only a couple minutes until a genset powers up to restore power to your house. Electricians are familiar with these types of setups, as they are very common. Unless you have room for a basement full of batteries, and want to spend more on a UPS than a genset would cost, the UPS+Genset is the way to go.
 
Top