PB15

Thank you so much.

I also experienced the same with my CIU. I have conventional meter and I use CIU for the reading. It stopped working post the solar installation as the plugs are on essential load. I then connected the CIU to the plug in domestic room that is on the non essential load and it worked. I don't understand the science behind it though.

Nice, all the best and do share your experience.

Thank you all.

Thank you. I will start with 5A. Does it mean that average wattage would be 5 * 230 = 1 150. Is it possible for the tenant to unplug the fridge and run microwave or heater etc if someone decides to misuse the facility during load shedding. To avoid the misuse, I was originally thinking of 3A circuit breaker. So if someone runs non fridge item, the breaker should trip. That's what I was trying to achieve.

1kw per hour on rainy days, that sounds too high unless I am missing something. Can you please help me understand what do you mean by domestic plug? The fridge is in the granny flat. I see you mentioned 130W in the second message, I also had similar number in mind about 100w per hour.

Hi All I am using hisense fridge and want to add it on the battery backup. Can someone assist with the wattage it may take per hour and if I have to use one circuit breaker for fridge, what should be the minimum amp circuit breaker? Would something like 2amp or 3amp circuit breaker work?

Hi there, I am interested. I would need a few panels and battery with one of the MPPTs and BMV702, am I correct?

Hi there Does this act like an inverter? Regards

Can you PM the details of this and price?

Hi there, it's 4 years old, right? What is the remaining warranty? Did you use it with battery and panels or battery only?

Thank you @Scorp007. I will send you PM.

Hi there, Is this still available?

Hi there, can you please explain how does the smart switch work? I have 5KW solar setup installed in the main house and want to share the power during dark hours.

Morning Good People!!! I am also looking for an advise please for the granny flat. Quick background - I recently installed 5KW solar system (panels, inverter and battery) and one cable runs through Mains from main house to the sub DB in the granny flat. The lights in the granny flat are on essential load and the rest is on non-essential. So during load shedding, the granny flat lights work as they are on battery backup but the plugs are off. The reason why I never added the plugs on my solar because my system (5KW) is small and I was afraid that I won't be able to control tenant's use of these plugs e.g. if he/she connects motor appliances like hair dryer, microwave, heaters in the winter., it will drain my solar battery out quickly. I am now thinking of providing power backup for a few additional points such as TV, wifi extender, laptop/cellphone charging plug and the refrigerator in the granny flat for the tenant living in the flat. The option I considered was a GeeWiz inverter (500wh) that can power wifi extender, TV and laptop/cellphone charging. However I wanted to check with the experts here if there is a better way to handle this requirement?

Thank you for the feedback. I have asked the solar installer to come and rewire where necessary. In the meantime, do I have to set a setting in sunsynk work mode 2 in the attached picture? I want to achieve the following as a start (tactical solution for now) 1. Use the battery from 6pm to 6am next morning for essential load. No non essentials; neither main house nor cottage/domestic room. So I ticked 'Limit to Load only' and have setup battery soc as 30%. 2. 6am to 8:30am; battery soc is setup as 80% to avoid non essentials pulling power from the battery and should get it from grid. I think 'Limit to Load only' still works for me here. 3. Now from 8:30am to 3pm, I want to non essentials and essentials to use solar power, battery and grid and I can setup soc as 60%. I think one option is, I untick 'Load to Limit only' setting. But I have to manually do this every day for essential and non-essential to be on solar. 4. From 4pm to 6pm, I want to charge battery and plan to configure soc as 95%. The non-essentials to go the grid for the energy needs. Again if I untick the 'Load to limit only' setting per point 3, I have to tick it again from 6pm to 6am per point 1. I hope I am not complicating my life here and there is a simple answer to handle these scenarios specially point 1 and point 3 which manually ticking or unticking 'Limit to Load only' every day two times.

Hello Good People I finally got my solar installation done i.e. 5kwh inverter, 4,6kwh panel array and 5kw battery. All the items in the main house are added as essential load. The solar retrofit geyser 4kw element, oven and the appliances in the cottage and domestic room are excluded from the setup. The cottage and domestic room have sub-db and prepaid meters. My day consumption for past 3 weeks is about 10kw including the battery recharge. The panels can generate about 18kw, so I am losing about 8kw each day. I want to add my solar geyser 4kw element and oven as non-essential. Per the installer, the moment I add these two items of the main house, the appliances in the cottage and domestic room will be added as well. Here are some of the settings the installer remotely tried without changing any wiring 1. Add solar geyser and oven on non essential, but in the evening I realised that oven and the hot plate in domestic room was pulling power from battery. 2. The installer then changed something and only the essential load was pulling power from battery as original setting but then the next morning my geyser was taking power from panels first, then battery and lastly from the grid. I also realised that the microwave in the cottage and the hot plate followed the same pattern. I asked the installer to revert the setting again because I didn't want the appliances in the cottage or domestic room to pull power from the battery say about 4pm and I end up having half charged battery for my essential load for the night. Hope I explained it well. The questions I have are as following 1. Is there a way to add just my geyser and oven on the solar as non-essential? 2. If I add the cottage and domestic appliances along with my geyser and oven as non-essential, is it possible to avoid pulling from the battery? It should just be solar and grid for non-essential and solar, battery and grid for essential. I am attaching my system flow chart and the current setting

@system32 Q1. What's your monthly & daily kWh usage? [PB] The main house daily usage is about 16Kwh during summer. I am hoping it would be about 60% more in the winter. My 200L geyser is converted to solar. The daily usage in cottage is about 9Kwh during summer. I don't have the stats for winter period but 150L geyser is conventional. Q2. Have you made your home efficient? [PB] The lights are changed to LED, we use gas burner stove. Q3. Which direction(s) (North or East+West) will the panels be installed and what angle? [PB] The panels will be installed in East+South directional. Not sure about the angle. Q4. Which appliances will you run on the "Essential Load" (Will stay on during Load Shedding). [PB] Here is the list of essential appliances and the count. It includes some of the appliances in the cottage. If you have excess solar, you can use a simple timer to heat your geyser(s) during the day and run your pool motor. [PB] The poop pump runs between 10am and 4pm everyday and I am planning to change the thermostats on the geyser to run it on solar (non-essential). Hope this helps.

Thank you all for the feedback. @GreenFields: You are right. The plan is to split the load in essential and non-essential for both the main house and the cottage. The LEDs and Fridges are considered as essential. I am also planning to change the thermostat 150L geyser in cottage to 2Kw so that it can run on Solar during the day. However the one thing I am not sure about is, can I stop the supply to non-essentials in the cottage when enough energy is not generated especially during winter and on cloudy days as the main house is the primary focus and excess solar energy (non essentials) can be used in the cottage.

Hi All, I have been reading most of the discussions here for last couple of months and now finally made up my mind on the installation. I want to achieve the following and reduce the electricity bill 1. Power during load shedding 2. Daytime energy savings and 3. Use the battery to meet the evening demand We are a family of 4 (us two and two kids) and a family of two (tenant) in the cottage. I am thinking of the following configuration 1. Sunsynk - 5Kwh 2. Panel - 455w * 12 3. Battery - 7,2Kwh Please let me know if this should be sufficient to generate enough power during the summer and winter. I am aware that I will still have to use grid for the shortfall, but I am hoping it won't be too much. Here is the list of some of the things we use, 2 geysers (200L which I recently retrofitted to solar geyser and 150L), 2 fridges, 2 washing machines, 2 microwaves, 2 electric ovens, 2 toasters, 2 TVs, 2 electric kettles, 2 irons, 2 grinders, pool pump, electric motor, electric fence.

Thank you for your inputs @FixAMess. You asked a simple but an impactful question that what do I want to achieve; it forced me to think. I mean I know my longer term goal. The reason for considering the solar option was the high electricity bill (short term) and reduce dependence on the service provider (long term). Looking at the indicative numbers you posted, I guess I should consider daylight energy saving option to start with i.e. panels and inverter setup and consider options to effectively use electric geysers.

Hey Good People, I am new to the solar topic and need some advice please. I am seriously thinking of going solar route for my household usage which I think is quite average (happy to be corrected). See the picture below for my last month electricity usage, the maximum consumption was about 2,400 two or three months ago. Can someone recommend the solar system size I may need to consider to meet the electricity demand and how much it may cost me including the installation charges? After reading few articles on this website, I realized that there are very cheaper and way expensive brands too, so it may be difficult to suggest the installation cost. I am looking for decent brands such as sunsynk etc. Your inputs and guidance is highly appreciated.

Hi All, can you please recommend good solar installers? There are many inexperienced out there and don't want to take chances.