Solar power inverters

[JayT]

I have a photo-voltaic solar system on my roof that is connected to my electrical system through an inverter. I do not have any kind of battery storage or any way to disconnect the solar system from my power. I've noticed that my system sound cleaner in the evening and assumed that this was due to cleaner power. I started to wonder what was contributing to the noise on the power line.

We have a lot of LED lighting with dimmer switches, but these are on a lot more in the evening than in the middle of the day. There are other potential culprits, such as the pool pump (which only runs in the day), but as I did a little research, I came across a few articles about how bad the AC generated by solar system inverters is. Apparently, many of the inverters commonly used generate more of a square wave than a sign wave, which can introduce a lot of high-frequency artifacts into the AC.

I've been looking at a PS Audio Power Regenerator anyway, but I wondered if other members have solar systems and if you've noticed similar issues, and if so, how you've dealt with them.

 

[BlueFox]

I have had solar for 5-6 years now, but don’t know about the inverter part. I haven’t detected any negative sound during the day, but the stereo definitely sounds better later at night. I always attributed that to the background noise being lowered, and the air cooling down.

 

[Speedskater]

Yes, Ham radio operators often complain about noise & interference generated by solar power systems in their neighborhood. It's the inverter converting the solar DC to 60Hz AC that generates the interference. The same type of problem can happen with regenerators and UPS units.