{"id":94944,"date":"2025-10-04T07:05:29","date_gmt":"2025-10-03T21:35:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/?p=94944"},"modified":"2025-10-02T15:50:00","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T06:20:00","slug":"the-truth-about-ac-dc-coupling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/the-truth-about-ac-dc-coupling\/","title":{"rendered":"The Truth About AC & DC Coupling"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"PeopleA few years ago I was invited to an “energy roundtable” hosted by the South Australian government. The idea was we’d all sit around and hatch some big ideas to push the energy transition forward. This was peak excitement in SA – Elon had recently cut the ribbon on the Big Battery in Jamestown<\/a>.<\/p>\n

All I remember from it was the state energy minister in charge at the time telling us of one idea suggested to his department that we might consider: changing the default electricity supply from AC to DC. The logic? We’d save the conversion losses when running modern electronics off DC.<\/p>\n

This was probably the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard in all my 25 years as an electrical engineer. Yes, converting AC to DC does cost you some efficiency. In the real world about 5-15%. But ripping up an entire state’s grid to claw back that sliver, while simultaneously losing efficiency in all the appliances that actually run on AC, is brain-meltingly dumb. I walked out at the first smoko and never went back.<\/p>\n

A flashback of this experience hit me between the eyes while browsing the comments on our latest YouTube video about home batteries.<\/p>\n

Critical Comments<\/h2>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

We got a few viewers pointing out that the video didn’t mention how AC-coupling “has a LOT more loss” than DC-coupling, because of the extra conversion step.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s worth tackling this furphy of inefficient AC-coupled batteries, because this is a favourite trick of some battery salespeople who only sell DC-coupled solutions. They\u2019ll bash AC-coupled systems to steer you toward the model they are set up to sell. The pitch sounds technical, it’s factually correct, and seems important. But just like the Minister’s big DC dream, scratch just below the surface and it’s readily apparent it doesn’t matter in the real world.<\/p>\n

A Quick Explainer: AC & DC Coupling<\/h2>\n