In many areas around Australia and all round the world there are requirements for
power supply that is not economically feasible or are just not physically possible for mains power to be connected weather it be for a homestead or ranch or a remote monitoring station for weather or some other form of telemetry.
Many rural properties have historically relied on diesel generators to fulfil there power requirements for refrigeration and light and to run any other electrical appliances. It cost far to much to keep fueling the old generators, not only is far to expensive but at certain time of the year during the wet seasons they are unable to get the fuel to there properties.
Deisel Generators are being replaced with advanced Renewable Energy systems called Hybrid Stand Alone Systems. A Hybrid Stand Alone Power Supply is a combination of a Solar Array and a usually a Wind Generator that feed Renewable Energy supply into a battery bank via a regulator that controls the input to the battery bank to protect it and increase the life of the battery bank. These systems are sized according to the load requirements needed. These Hybrid System also have a failsafe with an inclusion of a backup generator that only need run in the case of either a failure of the system or a period of bad weather that does not supply the required amount of sun and or wind to recharge the battery bank.
Other than the components that I have mentioned above there is one more very important if not the most important piece that make up a Hybrid Power Supply and that is an inverter. Most of the modern day appliances are powered by a 240v AC(Alternating Current) supply but the problem with Renewable Energy Systems they are all very low DC(Direct Current) voltage normally 12, 24 or 48 volt depending on the size of the system required. The function of the inverter is to change the DC supply from the battery bank to a useable AC supply that can be used to power your appliances and lights etc. Other functions of the Inverter can include monitoring data in and out of the battery bank, Auto start and stop the backup generator when required and when the load on the system exceeds a predetermined set point so to protect the life of the battery bank. In hole the inverter is the brains of the Hybrid Standalone Power Supply.
There a few major components in a Hybrid Standalone Power Supply that all need to work together to achieve that desired outcome and there is a lot of money involved to set these Renewable Energy systems up but with generous government subsidies they are becoming more affordable and with the price of diesel thy are becoming more feasible.