Solar Power

What range of direction should you face your solar panel to even out the spikes? Let's say you are concerned about going over what your house is consuming or what your inverters are able to handle. Instead of facing all your solar panels directly to the south. Could some be placed a few degrees South east or South West? I have seen that power production can vary wildly. So what if each panel was generally facing in the south direction but a few degrees off from each other. Is that something that people do to even out the power production and reduce spikes?

Good morning I am currently running 1 x Luxpower SNA6000, 1 x Hina 14.3kw Powergem Battery and 6 x Longi 555W panels on a single string. Due to my energy usage, I have bought 2 more identical panels to up my production. Is it better to add all 8 panels on to a single string (panels are rated at 49V open circuit, in practice the 6 string setup runs at between 220V and 240V) and to bridge the MPPTs, or should I run 2 x strings of four panels per MPPT? Also, does anyone have experience with bridging the MPPT's, and advise in this regards? Thank you in advance.

Can anyone recommend someone knowledgeable?

Hi all, We’ve just moved into a house with a Kodak OG 5.48 inverter (VMIII) and a Pylontech UP5000 battery. A few nights ago, I simulated loadshedding to test the setup. With just the fridge and a few lights on, the battery only lasted about 2 hours before everything shut down. That felt too short, so I started digging. I reached out to AI for guidance and checked some inverter settings. I briefly switched Menu 05 from PYL → USE → back to PYL, and also adjusted Menu 12/13 voltages (then reverted). Since then, the system is still on PYL mode, but I keep getting Error 69 (battery comms failure) after a while. The battery shows no ALM light and seems to charge/discharge, but…

End of an era for EskomSouth Africa has taken its first steps towards a traded electricity market that will give consumers a choice of power products along with a range of pricing options. However, Eskom is fighting the thr

An interesting Ai calculation and input regarding a power plant design. However I still need support to verify if Ai's suggestion is correct or an overkill. I asked Ai the following question: Question to Ai: If I use 3x 5.5kW heating elements to; 1.) boil 240L of water from 30 degrees C to boiling point, and 2.) then ad another 440L room temperature water and continue heating now all 680L water again up to boiling point. 3.) when all 680L is at boiling point I need to keep on boiling it for another 1 hour; 4.) If I apply a water turbine which can generates 16.8 kW/day 24/7 what size kW three phase inverter, batteries and solar panels should I add to do the above Ai's …

Please help. The 8k solar inverter gives an error of E90. Thank you.

My 5kva afritech inverter goes into error 08 this high bus voltage if the grid is on . Now my question is what is the maximum acceptable input voltage for ac that won't send it to error mode and is it acc based error or it's battery based error ?

Hi, I have good friend who has a solid concrete roof on which he wants to install 4 x rows of 6 x 550w solar panels using A-Frames. The main point here is that he does not want to drill into the roof and would prefer to use Concrete ballasts to hold the A-frames down. Can anybody advise how much ballast (weight) he would need to use per A-Frame to hold the panels in place (not to blow away in the wind). He stays in Cape Town where the wind is gusty and can be relatively stong, especially when the South Easter blows. Below is a picture of the A-Frames he wants to use (note: this is not a picture of his installation....just a picture of the A-Frames…

Hi I have a problem I live in Virginia Free State and the municipality came and installed a new Hex 115 kp prepaid meter to my house.i have also got a Deye 6kva hybrid inverter connected to the house . The problem is since the new prepaid meter has been installed I can not put the breaker on the dB board on inverter as the whole house has no electricity then. So the house is just running on Eskom and the inverters battery. What should I do?

What's the general experience or advice with doing roof maintenance with solar panels installed? I've reached a point of needing to have my roof repaired, sealed and painted. I have an existing set of panels that's around 10 years old (and I've been toying with the idea of adding more). How does this process best work? Do I need an electrical contractor to remove and later re-fit the panels, or can the roof contractors generally handle everything and work around the panels?

Bom dia a todos Podem me ajudar tenho meu sistema a funcionar aparentemente bem , mas quando a bateria fica descarregada tudo funciona perfeitamente mas o solar assistant nao informa a potencia em consumo , desde já agradeço , abraço

I am using an Eastman ES6KW-HY-P inverter with a Dyness lithium battery. I am experiencing an issue with the inverter’s behavior at night when set to SBU mode: Initially, the inverter works in a kind of hybrid mode, where the battery supplies the load while the grid remains ready to support. However, this only lasts for about 10 minutes, then the inverter automatically switches itself to battery-only mode, and the grid stops supporting the load. In case of overload at night, instead of falling back to the grid, the system completely shuts down. Additional notes: The Overload Bypass function is enabled on the inverter. During the day, the Hybrid mode works correctly with t…

Good day, I’d appreciate some advice regarding the use of solar power (PV panels) in combination with the Inge MPPR PV Geyser Element Controller. System details: Geyser: Kwikhot Superline 150L Dual Geyser (600kPa) Element: Kwikhot confirms it uses a 3kW spiral element Questions: Is the Inge MPPR controller the best option for this setup, or are there alternative models I should consider? Should I opt for the 3kW or 4kW version of the Inge controller? How many PV panels would you recommend? I’ve been advised to use 2 × 460W panels—does that sound sufficient? Would this setup be able to power just one geyser, or could it support more? Can the Inge controller be mounted near…

Good day all, I have 2 Atess HPS50 in parallel, with 2 Atess 8 string combiner boxes. My roof faces East and West. I have 6 strings (12 x 550watt per string, 500voc) facing East and 6 strings facing West. My question is, should I place all East facing strings into 1 combiner box and all West facing strings into the other or should I mix them evenly, across both combiner boxes? Thanks

South Africa is blessed with some of the highest solar irradiation levels in the world, making it one of the best countries for solar energy adoption. But did you know the amount of sunlight your solar panels can harvest actually depends on which province you live in? The measure used is kWh/m²/year: kWh (kilowatt-hour) = the same unit you see on your electricity bill. m² (per square meter) = measured on a flat surface (like 1m² of solar panel). year = calculated over 12 months. So, kWh/m²/year simply tells us how much solar energy (in kilowatt-hours) falls on 1 square meter of surface in a year. The higher the number, the more energy your panels can produce. Solar Irradi…

To bypass the 13A limit on a 5kW Sunsynk, can I add a 60A MicroCare MPPT and run the panels through this? System is not installed yet, nor have I bought panels yet. Thanks, Peter

Hi, I recently had a brand new system installed with 12 kW SunSynk inverter and 20 * 555W panels (10 per string, one facing east and the other north). Initially the 3rd string was not used. The technician informed me soon after installation that the voltage was operating too close to the inverter’s max of 500V. We could see it climb to 480V once batteries were fully charged. When there was high load, the voltage dropped to under 430V According to him and also to ChatGPT, the MPPT safe range is between 130V-425V. He then disconnected 1 panel per string until a later date to rewire and rearange things. With 9 panels per string, the voltage would climb to approximately 433V …

I have 8x 0,375W panels,but this is not enough to go off the grid.Ihave a single string inverter so I have to match my panels to increase my capacity.I cannot find 0,375W panels!Is it possible to use 0,380W & introduce a slight efficiency loss on input to cause a match? If so ,how woud I do this?

Hi, Does anyone know why this is happening? I cant see any trees etc which might be shading the panels. Please see pic Regards

Good day everyone, I would like to get information on the procedure to get disconnected from Citipower (Joburg). I have seen some people here mentioning that they have done it but haven't found the process of how to do it. I am in the process of upgrading my system with more panels (an additional 3.2KWp) and the geyser is the only item left which will be taken care of next month (adding a solar geyser controller to it and a gas geyser as backup). It has been a bit over 6 months since I have touched the grid with the house excluding the geyser so I am fairly confident that I will be fine with just a backup generator. From my research it seems I just have to go to Citipower…

Hi guys. I need a little assistance please. Thinking of adding a few panels to my system if possibel I have 10 x Canadian solar panels (420W) on a 5KW Sunsynk inverter. I have attached pics with specs of the panels and the inverter. I remember reading that there is either a voltage limit or amperage limit or both????? How many more panels can i attach without stressing or risking the normal operation of the system? What is the effect of mixing the capacity of panels where watts, amps and voltage are different?? Will the new panels only give a max of the lowest capacity panel in the system??

I need advice to get my Solarman logging to start working again. All was working 100% until this morning when my Solarman app on my android phone displayed "All devices offline". I have done the following to attempt a fix: - restarted my wifi router. - disconnected and reconnected the wifi dongle from my Deye 5KW inverter - turned off / on my actual inverter - Unbinded the datalogger in the Solarman app and re-add the same datalogger. When looking at the physical datalogger, the Power and Com lights are solid green while the Ready light on the right steadily flashes every couple of seconds. I also ran a diagnostic on the datalogger via the Solarman a…

Hi all, with all this new BS from Eskom I am planning to bid the grid farewell soon. My installation is pretty new (Nov 2024) so far I have not switched on the grid again (although Eskom is charging me around R4500 for electricity per month). I have made it through the cloudy days pretty well with the batteries being at about 40% the following morning. When there is full sun my batteries are around 48%. My question is how will the system perform in the winter? What will I need to add to make it through? I am planning on having a standby generator just in case, but obviously don't want to use it. This is my setup currently: 16 x 545w panels, 2x 5k…

Hi Guys I got one of these, but would like to charge it from Eskom. Is it as easy as connecting a 12-18v power supply? Sorry for the ignorance.