The final step in using solar power is to actually power something. In our case, we have an off-grid system with battery backup. Off-grid means we are completely isolated from the national eastern interconnection electric grid and we only get power from our own sources
At this point, one can transform the existing direct current (DC) to alternating current (AC) for already existing or new AC circuit(s) or continue with DC.
If enough power is available, multiple load controller and/or inverters can be run along side each other, if it won't break the hardware, according to the manufacturer. This would allow both DC and AC power.
We cannot run an inverter alongside the Tristar load controller as per manufacturer's instructions, so we will be using DC power exclusively. The picture below is only for illustrative purposes.
For a grid tied system, where the solar panels are connected directly to an inverter which in turn are connected directly to the main breaker, the choice is already made. The DC power from the panels and/or batteries must be converted to AC.
Our goal is to run our garage mostly on DC power, and start removing any unnecessary AC transformers since that step can be skipped. These include any electronic equipment, like laptop and cell phone chargers.
Of course, not all electronics can take our 24V from the batteries, so we must transform that to a lower voltage, like 12V or 18V.
The Tristar in load mode is connected to the batteries. So we take a positive and a negative from the battery bus bars and connect it to the appropriate connectors on the Tristar.
Then two wires are taken from the Tristar in load mode and carried to another set of bus bars, where we can hook up circuit breakers and continue the circuit to whatever is using the power. In our case, we have 4 DC lights. They shine like the equivalent of 100W incandescents but only use 15W of power. In the near future, the fan of a solar air heater will be powered too.
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