Inverter water heating

[kevin123]

Hi all I wonder if anyone could give some advice on water heating with an inverter. I have a 2000 watt inverter putting out 240 volts and want to run a water heater which is 1500 watts 240 volts. Will the inverter handle it.battery bank is 900 amp hours 800 watts of solar plus two wind turbines giving me 50 amp hours per day

Thanks for your help

[LoudMusic]

I have a 900w water heater (booo, need to upgrade) and run it from a 2800w inverter just fine.

How big is the hot water tank? Running at 1500w on a 2000w inverter should be fine, but could potentially build up heat in the inverter and wiring running at high load for the amount of time it takes to warm up a large tank of water.

[kenbo]

If you use solar to make electricity why not consider using solar to make hot water directly. Much more efficient. https://heliatos-solar.myshopify.com/

[kevin123]

Thanks for your reply it’s only 6 litres so I think it would be hot enough for a quick shower in about 30 minutes it would only be a warm shower that I needed I am hoping to be somewhere warm so I won’t need it to be too hot.

[kenbo]

At 50ah/day replenishment you will bring those batteries to an early demise. Do the math, it will take several days to replace one warm shower.

[kevin123]

Thanks Kenbo I was under the assumption that I can generate 300 amp hours each day with 800 watts of solar and 2 wind turbines am I missing something?

[kenbo]

At 50ah/day replenishment you will bring those batteries to an early demise. Do the math, it will take several days to replace one warm shower.

[kenbo]

Sorry, I misread your post. I thought the total was 50ah/day

[kenbo]

But the power required to heat 6 gals of water 20°F (a warm shower 75 to 95) is 350 W-hrs. That's assuming 100% efficiency

[kevin123]

No problem but you had me worried for a moment

[kevin123]

6 litres not 6 gallons

[kenbo]

Oh my, time to get my reading comprehension up a bit lol. More power to you if you can shower with 6 liters of water!

[dougweibel]

The answer is going to lie in your inverter manual/specs and your battery spec sheet.

On the surface it sounds like your inverter should be OK - if it is rated for 2000 watts it should handle 1500 watts for an hour or so just fine but sometimes the marketing people get involved and mark things in an optimistic manner. Just check your manual or spec sheet for the inverter and see what the continuous use rating is.

If you are putting 1500 watts into the water heater, plus some overhead for the inverter, your battery voltage will likely be drawn down below 12 volts during this load. Optimistically 1500 watts divided by 12 volts is 125 Amps. The actual draw will likely be a bit more. Check your battery spec sheet to be sure they are OK with that kind of a continuous load for an appropriate time period.

I suspect you will be fine, but check it out.

[kevin123]

Thankyou I will check the specs out

[kenbo]

For 6 liters of warm water you could use an electric tea kettle