Battery and Inverter Centre Pty Ltd | Pinetown

Inverters can range in power from 1KW up to well over 10KW. The power output of an inverter determines the amount of power it can provide to connected devices.

It’s important not to exceed the inverter’s capacity as overloading can occur.

However, it’s worth noting that every unit operates with a certain level of inefficiency. Some of the power the inverter uses is allocated to running its internal components. As a result, the unit often does not operate at its full power output.

For example, a 1KW or 2KW inverter may only be able to deliver 800 watts or 1600 watts respectively, falling short of its total capacity.

The 3KW is our most commonly requested unit, it’s also what we have installed at our own premises because it’s most suitable to the average household’s needs. 

With a 3KW you can power lights, entertainment devices and a fridge. In 95% of cases, the customer finds this adequate.

We do not recommend running kitchen appliances.

You could power your kettle, but in order to run it, you would have to turn off everything else in the house that is on the inverter to accommodate the considerable load that kettles draw.

As such we highly recommend leaving it off the inverter to eliminate the risk of overloading and potentially blowing a capacitor or some other more valuable internal component.

The warranty policy does not cover overloading.

We offer batteries in various types, including lead acid, gel, and lithium. These batteries come in sizes comparable to the inverters and can vary in capacity.

Lead-acid and gel batteries offer similar performance in terms of durability and charge rate. Gel batteries are essentially lead-acid batteries injected with silica to form a gel, which provides slightly better quality and more charge cycles. Both lead-acid and gel batteries are known as VRLA (Valve-Regulated Lead-Acid) batteries and are considered “standby” batteries rather than “cycling” batteries.

They serve as excellent secondary backups to primary sources like generators. Standby batteries require longer charging times, making them ideal for occasional use, such as once a week. However, if used frequently, such as twice a day, they can deteriorate quickly due to sulfation.

On the other hand, lithium batteries offer a much deeper “depth of discharge,” allowing for more usable energy before affecting performance and lifespan.

We highly recommend lithium batteries due to the charge time allowed between load shedding periods. Although they may have a higher initial cost, they offer significant long-term savings by eliminating the need for frequent battery replacements.

With other battery types, you may need to replace a 12V 100Ah battery every few months, resulting in bills of around R2500 – R3000 each time. Choosing lithium batteries can help you avoid these frequent expenses.

200Ah batteries offer twice the duration of use in an outage (load shedding, breakdowns). A load that would run for two hours on 100Ah batteries will run for four hours on 200Ah batteries.

They do however take twice as long to charge, similar to Lithium, but it’s a far cry from lead acid. It will be fully recharged from discharge capacity in a few hours.

To determine the capacity of your battery setup, you can calculate the “Watt Hours” (WH). Multiply the battery’s voltage by the ampere-hours (AH), which are usually listed on the battery’s stickers or branding.

For example, a 12V battery with 100Ah would yield 1200WH or 1200 Watt Hours. To estimate the runtime, divide the total Watt Hours by the power consumption of your devices. For instance, if your standing fan at home draws 145 watts, the calculation would be 1200/145, resulting in approximately 8.27 hours of runtime.

However, it’s important to consider the battery’s recommended depth of discharge (DoD) to protect its longevity. Our deep cycle batteries have an approximate DoD of 50%, so halving the total, we get 4.13 hours of usable runtime.

If the customer intends to power only their fan and wifi router, the runtime would be close to this four-hour mark, providing ample backup during load shedding periods.

We recommend a battery balancer because while each battery has a sophisticated internal Battery Management System to balance the individual cells, when connected in series to facilitate a 24V cell – which the 3KW inverter needs – the BMS’s are not designed to manage this newly configured cell setup. 

The use of an external balancer is required to stabilize the voltages at equal points. Without one it is possible – not likely but possible (we’ve had 6 or 7 site installations out of 100+) – that the equalization will fall off after some months, resulting in numerous irritating problems for the customer. Most common of which is a 30 second rebooting of the system when load shedding occurs instead of the intended seamless changeover.

We always encourage our customers to think of the system for what it is – a back-up energy solution to get through the load shedding period. 

Only essential items should run on the system during power outages.

The warranty policy does not cover overloading.