On Apr 10, 3:54*am, David Nebenzahl wrote:
On 4/4/2011 6:16 AM Home Guy spake thus:

You are paid 80 cents / kwh for *any* electricity leaving your array (a
billing meter is installed right after your invertors). *It doesn't
matter if your own home (AC unit, etc) will suck 100% of that solar
energy with none of it going back into the grid.

and

But still - you can't push more electricity onto a network than the load
is asking for (given that your invertors are functioning correctly I
guess).

Are you sure about that first statement? Pardon me if I misunderstand
what you wrote, but don't you only get paid for the *net current*
leaving your meter? If you're generating 5KW but "sucking" 6KW into your
AC, etc., then you have a 1KW net draw, so you're not gonna get paid
anything, correct?

That second statement is correct: you can't "push" electrons into the
grid. But it doesn't matter *how* your inverters are working; it's a
basic law of physics.

If you apply more volts to a line than what it is carrying what do you
think happens? I run machines that use regenerative braking. They
draw energy from the line to set things in motion. To slow or stop
them the electric motor acts as a generator producing a higher voltage
than the grid, forcing power back into the grid. An inverter can do
the same thing using solid state circuits. The inverter in my Prius
takes DC current from the battery and converts it to whatever voltage
and frequency is needed at the time to run the variable frequency AC
motor. When slowing down the motor becomes an AC generator and the
inverter converts the output to a DC voltage just a bit higher than
the battery, pumping charge back into it.