Guide
Where the losses are, and why a battery still wins at part load.
Round-trip efficiency is the energy you get out divided by the energy you put in. Losses come from charging, the cells themselves, the inverter and standby consumption. LFP systems typically return most of what they store; PulseTrek inverters are rated at up to 95 percent maximum efficiency.
An inverter consumes a little power even with no load. PulseTrek Base models draw 11 W normally, 7 W in AES mode and 2 W in search mode, which matters on long, light deployments.
A diesel generator is least efficient at low load, which is where most temporary sites spend most hours. A battery's efficiency barely changes with load, which is why real-world savings are larger than nameplate comparisons suggest.
Nameplate efficiency describes one operating point. Real efficiency depends on how the system is used: long idle periods add standby losses; very high charge and discharge rates add heat losses; mild temperatures help.
On a typical temporary site, the comparison that matters is fuel against electricity. A generator at low load might deliver a small fraction of the energy in its fuel as useful electricity. A battery charged from the grid delivers most of what went in. That gap, repeated every night the generator would otherwise idle, is where savings come from.
For solar-charged systems, efficiency affects how big the array needs to be. Higher round-trip efficiency means a smaller array for the same useful energy.
Questions answered
Energy out divided by energy in, after charging, cell and inverter losses.
At low and variable loads, much more so, because generator efficiency falls sharply at part load.
Capacity fades slowly over thousands of cycles; round-trip efficiency changes much less.
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Get in touch
Tell us the site, the load and the runtime you need. Our Austin engineering team comes back with a configuration, a runtime estimate and a price.
+1 512-316-7347
info@pulsar.industries
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