How to choose the right inverter & battery for your home?

Guidelines to choose right inverter

Are you planning to buy a new inverter or upgrade your old one? Whatever maybe the reason, it is very important to understand what is the right inverter for your home. The power requirement at your home can be different from you neighbor’s home. So do not just blindly install the same inverter (in terms of power) in your home. Before buying an inverter for your home do a little homework and understand the basics.

At the end, we’ll also recommend some reliable and secure batteries from sellers that you can trust on Amazon.

First understand your Power Requirement

One of the most important factor that you must know before buying an inverter is your “Power requirement”. In simple words- what all electrical appliances (like fan, tube lights, television, CFL etc.) you want to run at the time of power failure. The power requirement is addition of the power consumed by various electrical equipments.

Suppose you want 3 Fans, 3 Tube lights, 1 CFL & 1 television to operate at the time of power failure. Below is the power consumed by these items:

1 Fan – 70 Watts

1 tube light – 60 watts

1 CFL – 25 watts

1 Television – 120 watts

Therefore your total power requirement is ( 3*70 +3*60 + 25 + 120) = 535 watts

Find the VA rating of the inverter you need

It stands for the Volt ampere rating. It is the voltage and current supplied by the inverter to the equipments. If an inverter operates with 100% efficiency, then the power requirement of the electrical items and power supplied by inverter is same. But we all know that 100% or ideal conditions don’t exist in real.  Most  inverters have the efficiency range from 60 % to 80%. This efficiency is also called power factor of an inverter and is simply  the ratio of power required by the appliances to power supplied by an inverter. Power factor of most inverters ranges from 0.6 to 0.8.

Hence Power supplied (or VA rating of inverter) = Power requirement ( power consumed by equipments in watts) / Power factor( efficiency).

Here average value of power factor or efficiency  is considered i.e. 0.7

Power of inverter (VA) = 535/0.7 = 765 VA

In the market 800 VA inverters are available. So an inverter with 800 VA will be the right choice for your home.

Know the battery your inverter needs

 Battery is the backbone of an inverter system. The performance and life of an inverter largely depend upon the battery quality. The next big question is “how much back up will an inverter provide?” or for “how many hours it can run all of your equipments?”. This is what is called the battery capacity. It is the battery capacity that decides the back up hours. It is expressed in Ah (Ampere Hours).

In the market batteries with capacity of 100 Ah,150 Ah, 180 Ah etc.  are readily available. So how to decide which one do you need? To find this out lets do a reverse calculation. Consider that you need a battery that provides back up for 3 hours.

Battery capacity = Power requirement  (in watts) * Back up hours ( in hrs) / Battery Voltage (in volts)

Battery Capacity = (535 * 3) / 12 = 133 Ah

** Value of Battery voltage is taken 12V

Therefore a battery with a capacity of 130 Ah will work for you.

So if you want to run 3 fans, 3 tube lights , 1 CFL and 1 TV for 3 hours during power failure you would need 800VA inverter and 130 Ah battery.

By understanding this simple calculation you not only save yourself from the misleading information shared by inverter dealers but also  help yourself in taking correct decision.

Our Pick

Here are some batteries on Amazon that we highly recommend.

Mr. Right believes in making its customers smart and aware of the home repair and improvement. For  inverter repair in Delhi, Noida, Gurgaon, NCR, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Pune contact Mr.Right.

Our Pick

Some of the other best selling Inverters available online are:-

  1. Luminous Cruze 2KVA Inverter with RC 18000 Battery (2 Batteries) 
  2. Luminous Zelio 1700 Inverter with Red Charge 18000 150 Ah Tubular Battery 
  3. Luminous Zolt 1100 Inverter + RC 25000 200 Ah Tall Tubular Battery + Trolley

Updated

Which is the latest inverter technology in 2022 in India?

As the technology is evolving in the inverter space, higher efficiency and reciprocative solutions are making the overall energy ecosystem far more stable. For the less than 2KW to 3 KW requirements, MPPT based inverters are the best for smaller residential applications. With the efficiency as high as 96%, MPPT based inverters are most preferred solutions.

As the power requirements are on the rise, so are the solutions, like high frequency inverters or string inverters, which are customizable and are capable of delivering stable results under stress conditions. These high frequency inverters have amazing capabilities with lead acid batteries and Lithium ion batteries alike. Further more the high frequency inverters are light weight and hence can be mounted on walls, and more importantly are IoT based which makes them smart and efficient. These high frequency inverters are best use case for large to very large solutions like bigger homes or commercial locations.

To make the best quality inverter solution reach the last mile, Loom Solar is offering a complete range of inverters from 50W to 100KW, making it a one stop solution for inverters

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185 Comments

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    Hi,
    nice.Thank you for the sharing this wonderful information, they are very helpful.I have problems with most of the things mentioned above.You have provided some good solutions to prevent these problems.Thanks for sharing I appreciate that!

  8. 8

    Sir, i have amron 700va inverter…i need backup for a laptop and a airtel modem for 6/8hours…which battery is good for me please suggest

  9. 9

    Very helpful calculations. Thank you a lot. In India, we need a back up of at least 8 hrs, so it will be better to include all calculations for at least 8 hrs.

    • 10

      The author is talking calculation of 1 battery so if you require higher duration then you need to add 2 more batteries in parallel to last of 8 hrs provided that your inverter supports adding batteries in parallel.

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      I basically means that your inverter runs either adding 2 12v in series or 4 12v battery in series. These are for high 3 or higher VA inverters

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    Mr. Right.

    Thank u very much for ur time to share ur knowledge. U saved my money n effort.

    Thanks once again

  16. 18

    I am planning to get an inveter and battery for my home.
    2 fans ,
    2 (9w LED),
    1 Modem/Route,
    1 Laptop,
    1 50″ TV,
    1 Refrigerator,
    1 mixer grinder
    usage :2-4 hours
    Could you please suggest the best product

    Thanks
    Jagan

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    ur articles r really honest clear and helpful.keep up ur good work.nw iam planning to get an ups and battery for my home.
    4 fans ,4 (20w) cfl,2(5w)cfl back up should be for 12hrs can u plz suggest me wat to buy
    after reading ur article i have planned to go fr exide tall tubular battery and ups.
    should i buy 850w ups n 150ah battery
    or
    1500w ups and 200ah battery.plz suggest me

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    now iam aware of battery capacity inverter from ur demo part,very useful information, i appreciate u, iam being civil engineer, now iam confident to calculate /choose the req. of me

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    Sir,
    One system and 1fan ,and 1 tube light, operating purpose so what is capacity of battery and inverter i will choose please suggest me

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