Backup is a list of circuits. Not a bigger box.
A hybrid inverter coordinates solar, battery and grid. It only becomes useful during an outage if the circuits you care about are on a backup board, and if power (kW) and usable capacity (kWh) were specified as two different numbers. Techengy designs that architecture around the building, then installs and commissions it as one scope.
Five stages, after the load is known.
Start from the assessment
Storage is not sized from a panel count. It is sized from the essential-circuit list, the surge those circuits actually draw, and how many hours they must run. If that work has not been done, we do it first — see load assessment.
Specify power and capacity separately
Kilowatts decide what can start at once. Kilowatt-hours decide how long it runs. A quotation that advertises only one of those numbers is not describing the evening you will actually live with.
Place the equipment where it will survive the climate
Heat shortens battery life faster than ordinary cycling. A sealed cupboard, a roof space or an afternoon wall in Accra sun is a design error. Shade, ventilation and room to work around the enclosure are part of the specification.
Install protection and changeover with the electrical scope
Isolation, switchgear and the logic that sheds non-essential loads are not accessories. They are specified with the inverter, not added afterwards when something trips.
Commission, then define monitoring in writing
We test changeover, essential-board behaviour and the monitoring interface the selected hardware actually supports. Cleaning, review and call-out sit in a project-specific service plan — not as an open-ended promise on the website.
Three terms that get sold as the same thing.
Grid-tied is not backup
A grid-tied array offsets the bill and shuts down when the grid does. It cannot legally or safely energise the building during an outage.
Hybrid with backup is a chosen board
Selected circuits run from the battery during an outage. Those circuits are agreed at design stage and wired to a separate backup board. The rest of the building waits for the grid.
Off-grid is rare on purpose
No grid connection at all is a different architecture and a different cost. For buildings that already have a supply, it is seldom the honest answer.
Inverter, battery, board, monitoring.
- Hybrid inverter architecture — coordinates confirmed solar, battery, grid and backup requirements within the approved design
- Battery power and energy — checked separately against the agreed loads and duration, at usable capacity rather than the nameplate
- Essential-load backup — prioritises agreed circuits rather than assuming every building load belongs on battery
- Protection and changeover — isolation, switchgear and load-shedding specified with the electrical scope
- Monitoring — generation, consumption and battery information where supported by the selected equipment and configuration
Hardware, yield and maintenance commitments are confirmed in the written project proposal. Photographs of inverter equipment on this site are product and installation references, not evidence of a named Techengy project’s capacity or performance.
Need the load sized first?
If you do not yet have a written essential-circuit list and a year of bills in the conversation, start with the assessment. Storage quotations that skip it are guesses.
See load assessmentRead these before you send the drawings.
Tell us what must stay on.
The rooms and circuits you refuse to lose, and for how long, matter more than a round kilowatt number. Send that list and we will tell you whether you need more power, more energy, or neither.