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Off-Grid Trial For August/September 2022
WannabeSolarSparky posted a topic in Beat Load Shedding ,
With all the confusing talk of new eskom tariffs with R900pm fixed fee from next year, my wife and I have decided to trial going fully off-grid for the month of august using our modestly sized DIY solar system.
For the next 6 days till the start of August I will be doing some trial test runs just to fine tune timings of everything.
For starters I am running Loadshedding from 9am till 9pm.
My crypto mining rigs will now only run from 9am till 3pm everyday to give the batteries a fighting chance
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- 117 replies
Picked By
Energy-Jason, -
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Earth leakage not working when mains down
dionvdberg posted a topic in General Discussion,
Hallo Gents,
Can someone enlighten me on this issue, I have a plug tester showing correct plug wiring and correct earthing. When there is power 3 lights are on and all good. But when there is load shedding or I turn off my main feed the earth leakage light goes out. I do this test on a plug that is coming from a solar inverter that is wired into the db’s earth and neutral and live going through a cb.
Where do I start looking?
Thanks!
Dion-
- 29 replies
Picked By
Energy-Jason, -
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Powerforum Store
Craig Pottinger posted a topic in General Discussion,
Evening,
Has anyone purchased items from the power forum store? I am struggling to see if items are in stock or not. Would like to know before making payment (60K).
Have tried calling and emailing. No response.-
- 11 replies
Picked By
Energy-Jason, -
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R65k to install solar? Need to lower elect bill
McGuywer posted a topic in Starting In Solar? Feel free to introduce yourself,
Hallo,
As so many previous threads, I need your advice.
My elect bill is about R4k per month, I need to reduce that and minimize loadshedding.
I only have R65k to do this. I will DIY what I can but need advice.
I was thinking a Sunsynk 5KW inverter and a small battery for starters. Something like this:
https://powerforum-store.co.za/collections/batterys/products/pylon-us2000b-plus-2-4kwh-li-ion-battery-excl-brackets
Budget is now at around R38k.
Is it possible to add panels and get all the cables/mounting/DB board/sundries?
My idea is to run most of my load during the day, when we have sufficient sun and only to use the battery during loadshedding (running only essentials). During night/cloudy days, I will use grid/Eskom.
I am hoping that the above would save me about R1500 per month on my bill? If it saves me R1500 on the bill, I can spend the money.
I have the following:
- 2x 200litre electrical geysers
- 1x Stove
- 1x 750kw swimming pool
- 2x Front loader washing machines
- 1x Dishwasher
- 1x 1.1kw borehole
- 1x Electric fence
- 4x fridges
Only using LED lighting and I do not have any power monitoring. I take a picture of the electricity meter daily at 06h00 and I see the most I have used during a day is 45 units. The least is around 17 units. We do not use the stove/oven since we have a airfryer and a deepfryer. I know I need to reduce my daily consumption but spending R7k for a gas geyser (times two), leaves me with R51k. Adding electricity monitoring, reduces my budget even more.
What do you suggest?-
- 16 replies
Picked By
Energy-Jason, -
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Help me
palpale2 posted a topic in Inverters,
hello, sorry for the translation but I'm Italian. I expose you my problem, I have a 3200w 24 volt inverter I noticed that the battery Zavoltage reading is wrong. When I am taking 1kw the difference in reading with the tester also reaches 2v. Is there any advice or any component to replace? thanks to all cordial greetings-
- 12 replies
Picked By
Energy-Jason, -
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I have 3 x Pylontech US3000Cs Total discharging energy is 2.63MWh over 314 days. So 8.38kWh per day out of a potential 10.65kWh of capacity. -
It's harrowing out there. So many dodgey installs lately. One would think it would be limited to some hit & run smaller installs. Totally not the case. In the last 6months I have seen a range of poor installations ranging in overall Solar plant cost from R140k all the way up to R800k. Solar is relatively a new hot property space at the moment. Beware people & do your homework on who you get into a business relationship with. Get a track record, speak to previous clients. Have a good feeling before hand & go into it with your eyes wide open. We need to regulate our work in Gauteng especially & quickly. -
Remote monitoring is an open term. I would guess putting the right VSD on ethernet could work. I think a Raspberry Pi will work but I suspect an Arduino will be cheaper. For power you could look at the Sonoff PowR3, Efergy meters of even LifeSmart. -
Sorry to call this out. I'm an installer. That is bonkers pricing. R54k to install. What is so special about his work 🤣 @zsdeis spot on. Everything else is pretty reasonable except the last 2 parts. I would say the R18k seems like a reasonable price for the work done full stop. This type of installation should not take more than 5 days depending on the site challenges.
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Thanks for posting this, I did not expect that at all. I ordered the King (Kodak OG Plus 5.48) which is advertised as an off-grid inverter because I am off-grid and was planning to add a genny at a later stage, but now I read this: "In rural or end-of-line locations, the AC grid voltage can fluctuate across a wide range. Voltage that is sufficiently far from the nominal 230V can cause appliances to run much less efficiently, or make them unable to function. Kodak’s King Off-Grid inverter is perfect for areas where grid electricity is less stable because it produces smooth 230V AC at all times, whether the grid is available or not." So, an off-grid inverter that requires grid and not a generator seems a little counter-intuitive, but I suppose it wouldn't be possible to have 'zero transfer time' with a genny that has to start up and phase-lock anyway, now that I think about it. You have probably saved me a lot of time and money I would have wasted buying a generator, scratching my head for days and having to try and return it 😅 -
Just for laughs... Solarman tells me, I have used 6.55MWh from my 5kWh battery in few months.. 😀 -
Hello everybody. What is the cheapest option for remote monitoring of electric motor starters like Soft starters & Variable frequency drives. Is the Raspberry pi feasible? Thank you -
Except for this, the rest seems within the going rates. how many days does he envisage to do the job? -
By madness_za · Posted
I'm sure installers are making hay while the sun shines (pun intended), but on the other hand it is fairly labour intensive to be lugging panels onto a roof and doing all the draad trek -
Is the demand creating a great time for installers. A quote I received, ex VAT. 8x Canadian Solar 540W @ 3550 = 28400 Railing & cables 3900 600V Protection Box 5450 Battery shelving for 4. 5650 5K Sunsynk. 23150 Batteries: Kodak 3.6kWH 48V x 3 pack: 68000 Transport: 1800 Electrician Installation: 54000 Supervision and organisation: 18000 Total ex vat = 204450 Incl = 235118. -
You might be able to use PV voltage, but it won't be easy. Perhaps augmented with solcast data will get you there. -
Can anyone recommend a supplier of LiFePO4 DIY kits? Middle of last year I bought a 24v 5.1kWh DIY kit with Daly BMS from lithiumbatteriessa but seems they no longer sell to the public and they say none of their resellers are selling the kits to the public I'd prefer another 5.1kWh kit over buying individual parts and, if possible, to buy from somewhere in Cape Town so shipping is not necessary. Thanks in advance. -
A Geywerwise PTC element is advertised as 2000 watts AC and 1100 watts DC (48/72 VDC) and costs R2490,00 Yet the picture (on Livesustainable) only shows 2 wires Anyone used one of these attached solely to PV panels? -
I'm not an expert but if you overlay consumption and SOC on the chart you will see it clearly like the crudely shaded section on the graph below. The MPPT wont give you all the answers - don't you have BMS and consumtion data that you can query? -
Hi guys, May I please have some advice on selecting a generator to back up my Victron inverter. I live in a one horse town in the Western Cape where we are loadshedded by Eskom, and also regularly have power outages due to Overberg weather and fynbos fires. Add to that, sometimes our town is out due to other “technical issues”. Eskom is quite snappy to sort out technical breakdowns but sometimes parts or mountain access are an issue. In any event, Eskom is unlikely to improve significantly in the near future. I run 6 * Canadian 460W panels with 5kVA Victron Mulitiplus II and a 5kVA Freedom Won eTower battery. My DB is nicely configured for essential and non-essential. Technically, I’m loadshedding proof unless we have impossible weather for two days and Stage 6 loadshedding in that time. When things do go pear shaped I’d like to start up a generator for 2 or 3 hours to charge up. To drive that Victron I’ll need at least 8kVA generator, according to Victron. Which brand and model is best for this size application please?
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