A Comprehensive Guide to Help you Choose the Best Inverter for Home. With the scorching summer just a few weeks ahead, frequent power cuts are expected as usual. Inverters are one of the most demanded products of the summer season, as they offer uninterruptable power supply to run appliances during a power failure. Today, there are different types of inverters available in the market, and you can shop for the best inverter for home based on your power backup needs.
So, if you are planning to buy a new inverter for your home, then instead of falling prey to marketing gimmicks, be your own educator. Understand some basic factors that you should know before purchasing the best inverter for home: A Comprehensive Guide to Help you Choose the Best Inverter for Home.
- Analyze your Power Requirements
Power requirements can be defined as the total load you want to run on an inverter as a backup. First you have to calculate the daily usage of your electrical appliances which you want to run during a power cuts. The equipment can comprise your kitchen appliances, fan, CFL/LED lights, television, and tube lights. You cannot run all the devices simultaneously whenever there is a power cut, so, carefully analyse the devices that you would want to run during a power cut. You can refer to the table mentioned below for calculating the total power requirements:
| Appliances | Power Consumed |
| Fan | 75 watts |
| Computer | 200 watts |
| Refrigerator | 400 watts |
| Microwave | 1700 watts |
| Television | 120 watts |
| LED Light Bulb | 10 watts |
| Tube light | 25Watts |
Consider a situation where you want a backup for 6 hours and say you want to run 2 ceiling fans with a 2 tube lights and a television. The total will amount to 320 watts. Now, multiply the load by 6 because the power requirements of an inverter is calculated on per hour basis. Therefore, the total load requirements would be 1,920 watts for 6 hours. This would mean that you will need a total of 1.92 kilowatt-hour units of electricity from your inverter.
- Choose the Right VA Ratings
Once you have total the power requirements, you can easily determine the right VA rating of an inverter. VA rating stands for the volt-ampere rating of an inverter. It refers to the total voltage amount that is supplied by an inverter to a group of appliances. An ideal way to determine the VA ratings is by dividing the total power requirements in watts with the power factor, which is mostly, 0.8.
Your total load requirement will be 1,920 watts. So 1,920/0.8= 2,400 VA. So, you need to buy an inverter with 2.4 KVA for your power backup needs. Always remember that the VA rating of any inverter will always be greater than the power requirement measured in watts.
- Consider the Battery Size
When deciding the battery size, the only factor that you need to take into account is the Ah value. The Ah value of the battery indicates the total amount of power a battery can store. The most common variants of Ah values are- 100Ah, 120Ah, 150Ah, 180Ah, and 200 Ah. The higher the Ah value, the stronger will be the battery.
- Different Types of Inverters
There are three different types of inverters available in the market:
- Sine Wave Inverter
A sine wave inverter is one of the best inverters out there, and the output waveform of the voltage is a sine wave. All the appliances that we are using are designed with a sine wave inverter. These types of inverters are efficient and used for residential and commercial purposes.
- Square Wave Inverter
A square wave inverter is the most popular inverter which is used everywhere. Square wave inverter is an ideal choice for areas where voltage fluctuation is more frequent, these inverters are pocket-friendly and more durable
- Check the Power Ratings
Traditional and modern inverters come in all size ratings, arising from 250 watts to 50,000 watts. If you live in a joint family, using an 11,000 watts inverter is an ideal choice.
You can shop for the best inverter for home from a reliable brand like Luminous. They offer a range of different inverters designed with the latest technology. They also offer excellent after-sales doorstep services and have been doing it effortlessly for the last 30 years.
