How An Inverter Can Be Your Clever Answer To Power Outages
Evaluating The Inverter As A Superior Solution For Power Supply Gaps
Power outages! Power failure! Irregular power supply! These and more are common Nigerian expressions of the same festering and nagging problem. Ask them how serious it is and many will use characterisations like 'enemy no. 1', 'biggest obstacle to economic empowerment', 'worst headache', most-serious drawback to economic growth', and many more phrases to capture their feelings. The disruption to economic and social activity from many years of abysmal power delivery has been a debilitating albatross impeding growth and wealth creation. A near-zero level of capital investment in power generation and transmission for decades, even in the midst of huge revenue inflow from oil, has left a deep-rooted energy crises - protracted authoritarian military rule has its price, you know!
A New Dawn Of Hope
After a detailed evaluation, the current government has realised the huge scope of this problem and has initiated far-reaching measures to tackle it frontally. Currently, various power-plant projects (for the first time in decades) are in progress, aimed at capacity building. More interestingly, the monopoly status of the national utility company, PHCN, has been broken through legislation. As if to concretise this monumental development, the government has in August, 2006, issued four licenses to private sector companies for the construction of independent power plants. It equally has in the works, plans to extend this process to power transmission and distribution phases, as necessary adjuncts of a total solution. An effective regulatory process has also been instituted, with the power regulatory agency already structured to deliver on its mandate.
The Future Is Not Yet Here
Great! It's all really encouraging and you'd possibly wonder why a discussion on inverters as a power supply solution is still relevant. Well, promising as the future looks, the reality is that it will still take months and years for these measures to substantially address the extensive damage done over several years of absolute neglect. Their initial impact will merely ameliorate. Nigeria is huge, in land mass and population, you know. That's why it's a market that remains an untapped gold mine, as its needs will take time to satiate. So, if you're expecting a miracle, it's not likely to come that way. Power supply will take several months, possibly years, to stabilise. You must also expect much higher costs that are more market-determined. And the culture of non-payment of consumer bills, perhaps enamored by the past poor performance of the national utility, will not feature in a deregulated setting. The bottom line here is that complementary power systems will remain relevant, going forward. Interestingly, people and businesses in very developed societies with no serious power deficits, like the USA, still use inverters and other back-up systems.
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The Practical Options For a Back-up Solution
While there are those who will argue that the public supply system is the real back-up in today's setting, recent improvements have possibly restored its position as the primary source. That makes power generating sets, solar energy systems and inverters the front-line back-ups.
The Problem With Running Generating Sets
A power generating set could easily be a solution for all users and uses, but it has many downsides that can't be readily ignored:
- Fuel/diesel consumption: Even for the smallest, least-consuming units, this comes to a substantial monthly budget and for the big guzzlers, it's a bill only the wealthy and corporate bodies can afford.
- Maintenance Costs: This also grosses to a huge outlay, over the life of a generating set. If you include the cost of engine oil, you have a major expenditure head, even for a few hours of use per day.
- Noise Pollution: Is one of the major downsides of a gen set, being a nuisance factor. Across neighbourhoods all around us, it's simply deafening whenever the public supply is gone. In certain commercial areas, it's a special disaster since each business unit, even in a row of shops, feels compelled to use one, leaving an ear-shattering buzz.
- The Mess: oil leaks, fuel drops and the messy environment. If there wasn't a problem to solve, who would want all that trouble?
- Air Pollution: Except for new units which may not generate much fumes, most generators produce fumes and this could be dangerously high when aging has taken its toll on the engine. That's a pure health hazard.
- Bulk: Many generators of any meaningful capacity have some bulk and can't be moved easily. Besides, the occupy significant space and require special provision for storing them. For people in small apartments, this is a serious issue and cases of deaths from generator poisoning, when kept in living rooms, are common.
- Operation Headaches: Starting manually-operated systems is a task. Changing over from and to the mains is an inconvenience, especially when outages are frequent. Changing oil, refilling fuel, repositioning are all difficult handling problems which we cope with because of the need.
Overall, a generating set is a bitter pill, a complete nuisance, only endured because of the functional need for it. Obviously, an alternative system that could eliminate many of its negative effects would be welcomed.
The Solar Energy Option
This has always looked good on paper, given our special gift of abundant tropical sunshine. It however remains a theoretical solution as nobody has succeeded in 'domesticating' it. Even corporate entities that could afford an expensive but efficient solution have not lined up for it. Which says that something is yet to fit into place, regarding the under-achieved potential of solar energy systems. Ordinarily, it overcomes most of the drawbacks of a generating set. But implementation cost appears to be the major obstacle to its widespread use. For now, this remains a solution on the shelf, waiting perhaps for our engineers to get more purposeful and see the need in developing engineering solutions to our everyday problems.
The Inverter Solution
A viable back-up solution, good for basic domestic and office use and scaleable to support some levels of heavy use, is the inverter. An inverter is a power device that converts DC (direct current) voltage to AC (alternating current) voltage to power appliances like televisions, radios, microwave and other kitchen appliances, computers, power tools and lighting bulbs, ATMs, etc. DC power is derived from a battery unit, which can indeed be an automotive battery. The unit is connected to a charged battery and presto, power for domestic or even office use is available. Different capacities of the product are available to meet varying levels of need. It's always easy to determine what capacity of inverter you need since the consumption of each appliance you want to use with an inverter is known (usually written on its panel and general charts are also available). All you do is to sum up the consumption rating of all the items and, for good measure, allow a buffer of, say, 10 - 20%.
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Recharging Your Inverter
The only major concern with an inverter is how to recharge it. Well, I use one and can speak from experience. For as long as the public utility has not completely broken down (off for whole days), my inverter gets recharged each time that supply is back. If my inverter is fully charged when that supply is available (and this is possible in two hours of steady supply), it could run, on my economic use plan (I will explain this term later) for up to 8 hours or more. If it's not fully charged, it will run for less, depending on the level attained and appliances on it. The practical effect is that, for as long as the PHCN supply comes and goes during a day, your inverter gets charged and will fill the gaps, providing you 24/7 steady power supply. If it is the type of inverter I use, this whole process is automatic, so you don't get involved, at all. The inverter switches to charging mode when the public supply is available and goes automatically into 'inverter on' mode the moment that supply is disrupted. That way, if you are working (say on a PC) or using for any other purpose, you possibly will not realise that a change has taken place. Now, my economic use recognises that this is a finite resource, when public supply is gone (I'm using what's already stored), so I apply common sense: put on only what is needed.
When the public supply is completely down for an extended period of whole day or more (fortunately, this doesn't seem to happen again), you have a problem. The inverter works with stored energy (in the battery), and when exhausted and not replenished, it can't power your systems. One answer here is your car but unless a recreational or big vehicle with a big battery, you may need to keep the engine running. Not an attractive option. Your generating set is the best solution, in that circumstance. Run it for a while, recharge your inverter and off it goes. So, your generator will still be useful, occasionally. From real experience, this will come to less than .1% of your regular use, if you need 24/7 supply with a generator as the only back-up. Effectively, your saving is huge. If you are concerned about wealth creation and financial security, such material expenditure differences will count strongly.
What You Gain When You Use Inverter
The inverter offers unimaginable benefits, better experienced:
- No Fuel/diesel, Oil, Or Other Consumables: Your inverter does not require any of those, and if you still keep a generating set for emergencies (complete failure in public supply), the generator consumption will become insignificant .
- Absolutely No Noise Pollution: The inverter is like other appliances in your house and could literally be in your bedroom. Absolutely no noise.
- No Mess: This is clean in every respect. No oil, no fuel spillage, you have a clean environment.
- No Fumes: Simply a healthy source of alternative power. It generates nothing.
- Clean Power: This is the most important. People don't realise that sensitive equipment require clean power, called 'sine wave' power. There are pure or true sine wave inverters (like what I use) and modified/quasi sine wave inverters. The former gives the purest power quality, needed by important, sensitive equipment (like PCs, some medical equipment, etc) while the latter approximates that and can be safe for basic equipment like kitchen appliances. Most generating sets can't deliver this as you possibly know (you get square wave) and this is bad for equipment.
- Handling Convenience: Storage is no problem - it is safe to keep within, with no carbon monoxide death fumes. Operation is bliss. My type is automatic, requiring no attention. It automatically switches to 'charging/mains on/inverter off' mode when there is public supply and to 'mains off/inverter on' mode when public supply goes off. You have no part to play than continue with your activity.
- Maintenance: Well, I know I will change the battery some day, but I expect battery life of up to two years (I hope), but that is the major expenditure. Mechanical faults? I haven't had in the months that I've used one, but I'm assured that any fault can be handled. Because I save heavily on my generating set (benched and seeing no action), I know I'm financially miles ahead in benefits.
- Running Cost: In summary, this pales into insignificance, from my experience. For the inverter itself, it has remained at zero since I bought one and my use is virtually all day. On generator, certainly below an average of
N2000 for fuel, monthly, for the occasional use to recharge.
The Choice Is Yours
There are always those who will not bother about their expenditure, possibly because they earn unlimited income. Even to such people, the protection of sensitive equipment should still be important. For others who worry about expenditure levels either out of prudence or insufficiency, a solution that hits that factor squarely should be a boon. Add the other advantages of an inverter and you come to the common sense conclusion that this is a solution that should attract everybody's attention. In the end, it's up to you.
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Read More On Inverters ...
» Choosing The Inverter You Need: Type, Capacity And Brand
» Getting The Best Result From Your Inverter
» My Story: How I Became An Apostle Of The Inverter Solution
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