Inverter Protection Against Eskom Grid Fluctuations

Power fluctuations is a serious problem

Because of Grid instability, power fluctuations is becoming worse every day. These fluctuation can damage your inverter and house hold appliances severely and cause major costs.

What is Fluctuations

Power fluctuations happens when grid power supply voltage don’t stay stable during power connection. This happens excessively after a load-shed period as the demand for power increase on the supply by a large amount of electrical equipment that comes on at the same period. This results on the incoming power is that the supply voltage becomes unstable for a period of time especially when the power connects back on after load-shedding. A power fluctuation is a sudden surge or drop in the current through your electrical system. While this typically lasts just a fraction of a second, you can often see the effects of the fluctuations, especially at night with your lights on. When the current spikes, you might notice lights getting very bright. When it drops, you’ll notice the lights dimming.

Other Causes of Power Fluctuations

Wiring and Grounding Issues

Wiring issues within your home can also cause power fluctuations. Damaged, faulty, improperly grounded, or exposed wiring can cause a current spike through the wires. You can’t typically see issues with wiring like bad connections since they’re behind the wall, but you can look for signs of an issue, such as burn marks on outlets, a burning smell, buzzing from outlets, and frequent breakers being tripped. If you suspect you have a wiring issue, call a licensed electrician immediately to inspect the wiring and make necessary repairs.

Overloaded Electrical Circuits

Your home has multiple electrical circuits to balance the power demands, each with an amperage limit. If you run too many things on one circuit, you can experience an electricity fluctuation due to overwhelming the circuit. This can be a problem on the circuits for large appliances that draw a lot of power. Some appliances draw a large amount of electricity when they start up, such as a refrigerator or air conditioner when it kicks on. If anything else is on the circuit, it can be too much. Using several extension cords with multiple items plugged into them can also cause issues.

Pay attention to what you have plugged into the outlets on each circuit breaker to avoid overwhelming any one outlet. Use dedicated circuits for appliances that draw a lot of power. Limit your use of extension cords, and be careful when you use things like space heaters that use a lot of power.

Storms With Lightning

Lightning can create beautiful electrical shows in the sky, but it can also create damaging power spikes in your home. If lightning strikes your home or nearby power lines, it can cause a massive power spike that flows through your electrical system. This not only causes a major electricity fluctuation, but it can also severely damage anything plugged into outlets at the time. Surge protection devices can help protect the items plugged into outlets if you experience a surge due to lightning.

Protecting your Inverter and Appliances from Power Fluctuations

The use of an Auto Voltage Protection device , to switch off the mains supply if unstable is a approach that can assist greatly in limiting damage to Inverter and other equipment. Suggested Devices should incorporate test for checking stability of the grid and load safety tests. As well as build in surge protection to assure additional protections against common troubling electrical events

Further features as an On/Off override switch and clear power indicator will assist with operation of the device.

Some devices utilize a micro processor that offer further features that can be beneficial for protection against power fluctuations. In addition, an start-up delay provides protection against
power-back surges commonly experienced after resumption of power in a power cut situation.