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Induction cooktops are however not compatible with self-consumption of electricity produced by solar panels. The required draw is too high.
by LunaSea 5y ago
Induction cooktops are however not compatible with self-consumption of electricity produced by solar panels.
The required draw is too high.
- pjc50 5y agoThat's a very categorical statement for a comparison of two quantities, both of which vary (cooktop power and solar power). And ultimately if you're using a lower-power cooktop it .. won't cook properly. The all-electrical all-self-produced setup probably isn't viable without a large enough battery and inverter.
- YATA0 5y agoI've ran our induction range on our solar panels for about five years now. This is news to me.
- LunaSea 5y agoWhat solar capacity did you have installed? If I remember correctly, my comment was based on an average household with about 4 to 5 KW installed in western Europe. This represents about 12 panels which is roughly the maximum amount of panels a regular house has space for.
- YATA0 5y agoRoughly 15kW, so quite a bit more than that.
- Zanfa 5y agoThat’s still enough for a peak of 2kw for an average induction range. Granted you can’t probably run a heater and a vacuum on full power at the same time.
- sokoloff 5y agoIf the peak power is only 2kW (8.3A @ 240V), why do most induction cooktops have a 40-50A beaker (32-40A/7.5-9.6kW continuous)? The first one I looked the specs up on at my home center has a 4.8kW largest element and 8.6kW total. https://images.thdstatic.com/catalog/pdfImages/d9/d92c8678-a46e-4ae2-b66a-55ed28b52236.pdf https://images.thdstatic.com/catalog/pdfImages/d9/d92c8678-a...
- dTal 5y agoYeah, 2kW seems low for a multi-burner stove. That gets you an electric kettle or a large toaster. Maybe a single element might draw that.
- Zanfa 5y ago2kw per element is plenty of power, though you could definitely find more powerful ones. In my 3 years of owning an induction cooktop, I don't think I've ever had more than 1 element at full power at one time, it's really only useful for bringing water to boil, waaaaaaaay to much heat for anything else. I'm not even sure if my entire house has a breaker for more than 32A.
- Gravityloss 5y agoYeah, indeed, this is not esoteric physics. If you have a 10 kW electric induction stove (you can see the rating from the specs) and you want to operate purely on solar panels, you need at least 10 kW of solar panels and inverter etc. Also maybe you want to use the oven and AC and charge the car at the same time etc. As far as I understand, it's a plus and minus calculation. It's not any kind of compatibility issue... Naturally big electric power sinks need bigger voltages, otherwise the current and thus the cabling would get very thick.
- namibj 5y agoIf you want to run it just on solar, use one that can be legally fed with DC (almost all work fine, anyways), and hook a battery with suitable voltage between it and the solar panels.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- reissbaker 5y agoWould using a whole-home battery in conjunction with the solar installation solve this?
- JKCalhoun 5y agoSeen RV build-outs with an induction cook-stove (and solar). I think the issue has more to do with battery capacity/current-delivery than with your solar capacity. Maybe a home however is lacking the battery intermediary.
- jgtrosh 5y agoInduction is way more energy efficient than electric though (and therefore draw less), so what are you suggesting?
- LunaSea 5y agoYou are talking about overall power consumption, not the instantaneous draw which is the one I was thinking about.
- avianlyric 5y agoWhat do you mean by instantaneous draw?
- EricE 5y agoIf you are concerned about instantaneous draw you can always start low and ramp up. You don't always have to start out with every burner on high!
- Ballas 5y agoOnly if you use the higher settings, which you typically don't unless you are boiling water. Source: I have induction and solar and my stove-top is 90% solar (with BESS). The oven is a different story. Another thing to keep in mind: with gas about half the energy heats the air and flows around the pot or pan, so it ends up being about 50% efficient. But with all said, the carbon monoxide buildup issue was what swayed me in the end.
- LunaSea 5y agoI definitely think you are right about efficiency. I was rather talking about the required instantaneous draw which is usually too high for an average household's Solar setup.
- biztos 5y agoIs there a simple trick to make this work? I’m planning to install solar and was thinking around 3KW with battery backup. I definitely want induction cooking. Should I get more capacity? Bigger batteries? Fewer burners? [Edit: bigger batteries seems to be the answer, also because of cooking at night.]
- namibj 5y agoIf you can get the required parts in the single quantities you'd need, you may want to consider a battery voltage suitable for the induction stove to run directly off of, so you wouldn't need the dance with a bigger inverter and that. Just need a grid-powered charger for the battery to replace the sun with if you worry about running out of electricity to cook.
- biztos 5y agoThanks, I will keep voltage in mind. I have ample wind so my long-term plan is solar plus small windmills on the roof. For bigger cooking sessions I will have an outdoor grill, might add some burners too. This is Spain so big LPG tanks for the home are totally common. [Edit: it's off the grid, only gets water, and I want to keep it that way in principle.]
- chii 5y agoWouldn't a battery bank/wall be the buffer that would solve this problem? The battery bank could be supplied by an electric vehicle, plugged in when at rest for such a purpose.
- LunaSea 5y agoDon't quote me on this but usually, regular batteries usually don't allow for such an instantaneous draw. Lithium batteries like you find in electric cars probably can support this but it does require a certain additional upfront investment.
- chii 5y agofair enough - i did just assume that this could be built "easily".
- kwhitefoot 5y agoIt can be built easily, but perhaps not yet cheaply. Just buy a Tesla PowerWall or similar.
- jrapdx3 5y agoThat may be true but gas cooking isn't available everywhere. So if electricity-based cooking is necessary, induction is likely more efficient than conventional resistance coils. In our kitchen we have both. Items heat faster with less heating of nonessential surrounding areas vs. standard burners. My guess is cooking aside solar generation is probably not going to be by itself a sufficient source of household power for the foreseeable future. In any case optimizing use of electric energy requires taking advantage of the best available technologies.
- tenuousemphasis 5y agoNeither is gas, or I assume resistive electric. An energy storage system solves that problem.
- hadlock 5y agoInduction cooktops are wildly popular on solar powered sailboats, do you have any sort of information to back this claim up? There are tens if not hundreds of sailing vlogs on youtube who are exclusively using induction cooktops because they don't want to carry propane onboard.
- BatteryMountain 5y agoThis doesn't sound right (correct me if wrong)... but we've ran a small one plate cooker off of a camping solar system + battery kit & off of a petrol generator and it all seemed fine and working as normal. Usually when putting heavy load on the generator you can hear it work harder, but with this plate it barely makes a difference. I have to note that it is rated at 2000w at max setting (6), but due to it being so potent, we've never had it set to more than 3 out of 6, anything above that is way too aggressive. So make it 1000w typical draw.
- jvvw 5y agoWe have solar panels on medium sized house in the UK (15 panels - half east, half west roughly) and an induction hob and use it without needing power from the grid!
- bocytron 5y agoI would like to know what is your point here? You can't consume locally produced gas either, can you? Or are you comparing with non-induction electrical stove?
- Angostura 5y agoI find that quite surprising. I don't have an induction hob, but I do have an electric fan oven, and I find my batteries, charged from solar cope with that just fine, or a 3kW electric kettle.
- idontknowifican 5y agolower draw than IR or coil
- ZetaZero 5y agoInduction stoves are anywhere from 1200W to 3800W for the larger ones at full power. Looks like the size just needs to be considered when building it out. https://www.inductioncooked.com/how-much-electricity-does-induction-cooking-use https://www.inductioncooked.com/how-much-electricity-does-in...
- namibj 5y agoThey are particularly suitable to be run directly off of a battery with no inverter, because they are essentially a switched mode power supply with the pan as the secondary winding. They already have a rectifier front end.