Energy Use & Conservation

I am trying to get hold of Sunsynk for a faulty new inverter 0101003589 just goes to voice mail and mail box is full Got sorted Thanks

Hi I have an idea about generating electricity from the rise and fall of tidal water on my property. In theory and in my head I can’t see why it wouldn’t work but lack the calculation skills to actually see if it would work in real life. Could anyone help me please?

Hey all! I've been thinking about remote control for my Geyserwise Max setup and the other day I saw the Geyserwala Connect upgrade from Thingwala. It looks pretty cool. Having the usage graphs would be super helpful, especially since I’ve been wondering if the solar part of my system is working okay - and my wife is not always impressed with the water temperature 😒! It also looks like it has some nifty features like the boost which automatically turns off, and also setting timers looks a lot easier than on the old panel. Both would give me better control over my electricity usage. I saw some really good reviews for using the Geyserwala with automation (which I …

What are people's thoughts on these? Fireplaces are great but a decent efficiency one with flue is about 20k. Also have to deal with firewood purchases and storage. Heat pump are similar, more efficient yet rely on elec. I could get more panels of course. Are there any decent air heat pumps here in SA?

Daily heating starts at 12:00pm from the Geyserwala schedule utilising my solar without any Eskom power With a big family comes unexpected showers in the afternoon/evening and this is where HA comes in handy to watch it with some neat conditional logic to avoid me having to shower cold the next morning. Paste the text as is in your YAML editor and then switch to the visual editor to see the logic in a more appetising way: GeyserAutomation.rtf Under the visual editor it will look like this: I also put a Sonoff in front of the Geyserwala so that I could precisely log energy usage. and removed the bracket from the Geyserwise thermostat to fit my Tecron geyser usi…

What is the most energy efficient clothes dryer available?

Hi Guys Anyone have a induction cooker? If so how much power does it draw? Does it work well? P

Hi I live in a very hot area (near Kruger, think most days 35 to 40 deg C) and we're building a house with a thatch roof. The issue we find in the current house we're in, is that the hot air really gets trapped in the roof and house and it swelters. I've been reading about roof ventilation and would love some opinions from those in the know. 1) What are the options? 2) Should we be using louvres at the top of the wall, below the thatch line to help the air circulate? 3) Are there any other great ideas to keep a thatch house cool in a hot area? (e.g. insulating walls facing the sun to keep the heat out) Does anyone have experience with h…

Can anyone please explain to me what the difference is? I've looked at all kinds of stuff but still not sure. I see a lot of places in SA selling heat pumps for hot water but elsewhere in the world they use heatpumps for cooling and heating houses. I did notice they say its a lot more efficient that an AC. I'm curious to know how the pipes/ ducting works as an AC just has refrigerant run in pipes but as far as I understand theis has air "pipes" Can we buy these in SA? Do they work around CT? Is it worth the higher cost? Ducting on an existing or new built house? Where do you buy these things?

Google's algorithms are feeding me articles like this since I started reading about the energy efficiency certificates that are required in the UK for new builds or any house for sale. There is no standard that must be met, the idea is that the buyer will have an indication of running costs. So the inspector looks at window & door seals, insulation, lighting, water heating etc. So I got fed an article about a couple who have a house with a heatpump and clearly other features. The AI search on my phone tracked them down. This is how you get an A-rated home in England. What interests me is the level of integration. They can manage the energy flow of th…

The first law of thermodynamics(the law of energy conservation) states that total energy of an isolated system is constant, energy can neither be created nor be destroyed but can only be transformed from one form to another. If we consider the Earth-Sun system an isolated system we can say that the biomass gets energy from solar energy and that biomass production deducts energy from the environment. So when wood etc... burns or decomposes, it returns energy to the environment. Now wood production(oil palm trees, wooden furnitures, etc...) contrasts global warming, so greens may be in favor to use palm oil for diesel, forestry crops to produce industr…

Hello everybody, I have a Sunsynk Hybrid Inverter installed and a Conlog Prepaid Meter. When PV production is good the non-essentials are additionally supplied with solar power. When it rains, the prepaid meter (and all non-essential appliances) trips. The prepaid meter shows an overload - although consumption is very low. It happens during day or night, batteries on 50 or 80 % and recently randomly in the morning around 8.30am when clear sky. The prepaid meter trips for about 20 sec up to 5 min and will then come back on. This goes on and on until I change the setting in the inverter to LIMIT TO LOAD ONLY. As soon as I switch the inverter to LIMIT TO LOAD …

Salt, Sun and Time is an instrumental song and the fifth full-length album by canadian singer-songwriter Bruce Cockburn released in 1974. The same singer wrote 'dust and diesel' to try to help the environment. He didn't say the reason of 'Salt, Sun and Time', it sounds pretty good for sure! The fact is that the common salt(NaCl) can store a lot of solar energy with its fusion(heat of fusion: about 30 kj/mol -> 300 kwh/m3. T.fusion: about 800°C). In addition NaCl is cheap, widely available and its extraction doesn't pollute. So do you think that humans're not free to devolop cheap, green and available alternative energies?(NaCl fusion'd can sto…

Hi everyone, I'm sharing my experience with reducing reliance on Eskom for hot water heating while using solar panels. Solar Power and Winter Woes I started with a 2.7kW solar panel system, which worked great in summer, keeping my Eskom bill low (around R300-R500). However, winter brought challenges. With additional guests and heavy geyser usage, my bill skyrocketed to R2,000 for 500 units. I realised adding more panels or battery wouldn't help as the geyser draws the most power at night when there's no sun. Enter the Heat Pump After research and discussion on forums, I decided to try a used 4.7kW ITS heat pump. It's been a game-changer! My avera…

Not had much luck with Eskom on this. Wanting to go down to single phase supply. fixed costs on 3 phase currently 2.5 K. want to know if the fixed costs will drop going down to single phase. on the same Transformer

We have installed a hybrid system on the 9th of February on the first night we still used 3.8kw hrs according to data logged by system. After that we did not use any eskom units according to data logged by inverter, we have a prepaid meter and on the prepaid meter we are however using between 1kwh and 0.5kwh a day. Now I know this is nothing but I am in data analytics and discrepancies makes me wonder about all the data. I'm not the biggest fan on the Luxpower app 🤔 but it is what it is now. I keep thinking how I would design the app 🤣.

Hi Everyone I have been looking for something to give me a view of all the power circuits in my house that integrates with Home Assistant so I can get a better view as to where I am using power. I saw the Nanoview @ Builders but has no way of getting the data of the device I can see. I looked at the Sense device a while ago but the reviews of it haven't been great and the AI sounds a bit sketchy. I found this device from Emporia Energy that connects with Home Assistant and has 8 sensors for current, upgradeable to 16 if you buy the extra clamps. https://shop.emporiaenergy.com/collections/emporia-products Has anyone seen anything like this a…

World Bank Global Solar Atlas search Global Solar Atlas on google sorry can't paste link as it is "Beta" Input SA and search from there.

Found this device for energy monitoring, similar to the Emporia Vue but is a totally open system with all your data available locally (unlike the Emporia Vue) If you are in the market for something to monitor 16 channels of AC Power the Iotawatt is definitely worth having a look at. https://iotawatt.com/ Another alternative is the ESP32 https://circuitsetup.us/product/expandable-6-channel-esp32-energy-meter/

Our solar installation at home went live on Friday afternoon, so we've only been on solar for a few days. I am blown away by how useful the logger on the Sunsynk is. We need some assistance in reducing the consumption. To give some context, we're four people in the main house where we have the solar solution (soon to be five), and then two in the cottage where my folks live. We've identified some wasteful loads that we can address, but others are a bit tricky to address. The main house consumption only deviates a little bit as we have a gas stove and geyser. During the day we try to introduce the heavy loads only when there is sufficient sun and batt…

Hi guys, A bit of a weird one but can anyone recommend a good quality water saving shower head that you've used/using? Something that's fairly priced and doesn't feel like you're showering under a tiny stream of water... like my current one I've had a look on Takealot and the reviews seem quite mixed so seeking suggestions.

Hi all I've just had solar PV installed, and I'm looking for accessories that consume excess electricity. Items such as heaters which can read when the home / base load is low, and switches heating mode on during this period. Any thoughts appreciated.

Hello, Can anyone recommend a decent solution for monitoring your home energy usage? Not just an old fashioned kwh meter but something that can be checked over the web or at least have data logging for graphing and processing. I currently have a Efergy Engage, but I am not convinced it is accurate. Thank you.

Can anyone inform me what to look for to determine whether my geyser is ON or OFF? Thanks!

I have the 8 kW Sunsynk with the wifi data logger. It works very well, and the visibility is amazing. We've already managed to reduce or shift our consumption and we've only been on solar for 5 days now. However, I am concerned about the intermittend connectivity of the module. In the attached image you will notice it responds to ICMP and then disappears. This cycle happens over and over. The time on and off appears to be random. It seems to do this regardless of whether it is connected to my laptop, my phone (whether I'm in the same room or not) and even when I put a wifi router two meters from the data logger, it seems to do the same. …