RichardZA

I'm still thinking that a very dark shadow cast by a chimney or tree branch cast cuts out my panels more than diffused light in overcast conditions, where you can't get a heavy, dark shadow. Or am I on completely the wrong track?

I've discovered that when the sun is really bright in the early morning, my panels perform much worse. Must have something to do with casting "hard shadows" on the panels. I live in Johannesburg and on Wed 20 Dec, 8am, was getting 2kw out of the panels. On Thur 21 Dec at 8am, getting 0.8kw. Anyone else experience this? I guess the mitigation is cutting some branches from the tree

The only thing that nags at my mind is another 4.8kwH battery because load shedding is getting worse and power outages more frequent. Some additional cover would be great - but this is a pure lifestyle purchase because I'm not going to make the money back easily on it! Other than that, start saving for when the inverter packs up. Hopefully in 10 years, and hopefully the tech is even better and cheaper then Unlike some other posters, I started out just wanting to reduce my crazy electricity bill. Load shedding was definitely a secondary consideration (I already had a small batter backup for internet, computers etc). Now I've gone 180 degrees - protection from load shedding is definitely the #1 reason for having solar, and then the secondary benefit is getting some of that money back in reduced bills.

Hi all An update one year on. Please read my original post here: A reminder of the setup 8kW Deye inverter 18 x 540W JA Solar = 9720W 3 x 4.8kW LifePO4 (80% DOD) 4 solar geysers(!!) The 4 solar geysers definitely would affect the performance of the solar system as I need less electricity production to heat water, so please bear this in mind with the stats. In retrospect, I would not have purchased the solar geysers, panels are far more versatile and with proper load management a much better deal in my opinion 4 Solar Geysers R76,253.34 Solar Panels, Inverter, Batteries R212,000.00 R288,253.34 For the sake of this comparison I’m going to leave out the solar geysers. I'm assuming they "break even". I’m also going to assume an interest rate of 9.75% over the full year (can’t be bothered working it out properly) and likewise I’m going to assume the current electricity tariff over the year. Due to the tiered pricing it’s hard to calculate the exact price per KWh, so I’m using City Power Block 2 as a calculated guess (most of the electricity would be saved within this block), so my rate is R2.31 per KWh (incl VAT). The solar system cost R212,000.00. The interest on this is R20,689.50. The production of 10093W @ R2.31 per KWh = R23,361.31 Net gain: R2,671.81 There are a few factors that have prevented me doing better than this. The first is my family is not keen on lifestyle changes and I’ve also got a little more lazy with this over time. Secondly load shedding and other power outages has led me to be super conservative on the battery - I don’t let it go under 40% overnight for instance, so I've been not utilising my full production overnight. Thirdly, we just don’t use a lot of electricity during the day, and seem to use a lot at night (see point #2 lifestyle changes). The positives have been amazing. I’m not sure how people survive load shedding without a solar system. I’ve loved every minute of owning this system and recommend people take any spare cash, any money in their mortgage, heck anything they can find, and buy a solar system, the payback will get better every year with increasing electricity prices and the lifestyle benefit is incredible. If you work from home, it's essential. My break even if I make NO adjustments to lifestyle, interest rate remains constant and electricity price rises 9% a year, is in 11 years, assuming no maintenance costs. My guess is there will be some maintenance costs that may shift the payback to 13-14 years (the compounding effect on even a small net gain is amazing!). I don't really care how long the payback is, the lifestyle benefit and the carbon offset are enough for me to say this is better than the money sitting in the mortgage.

So glad for my investment in solar over the past few weeks - really paying off. Sometimes it helps being a pessimist.

Hi all I've got about 30 staff in our business using this model of inverter. After a couple of years they are starting to fall over (constant loadshedding does not help!). What do you guys recommend as a good replacement battery (lead acid and alternatives?) https://ellies.co.za/product/720w-1200va-inverter-with-trolley-modified-sinewave/

hehe thanks. I don't think they are "wall heaters". Noted on the aircon not a bad idea

Hi all I watched a video recently on this and was wondering if anyone has seen this type of heater in SA. I'm interested in this form of heating as I have a lot of excess solar power during the day that I'd like to use to heat up the walls/floors of the house and that heat can then gently emit after sunset. Currently when the sun goes down I have to turn off my oil heater or pay for electricity - which I don't like to do. My house is just badly designed when it comes to the best form of infrared heating (the sun) and it's ironic that it's hot outside and cold inside in the middle of a winter day.

Wow, well done for taking the plunge. This is my dream as well, but a couple of things need to happen for me. #1 car needs to feed back to the house so the battery pack is dual use - this makes the purchase much easier to justify (a portable battery bank). #2 - SA gov to stop penalising and start encouraging purchase of these vehicles.

If I had the choice again I would go with only solar panels and no geyser EVT. I really think the extra solar panels is more versatile than the tubes.

The BMS should take care of all of this - for instance not charging at very high or low temperatures.

That is why we need the early adopters on this thread so we don't need to extrapolate!

I think a lot of it is marketing. The battery manufacturer looks at the curve and says I will market 6000 cycles @ 80% rather than 3000 cycles @ 100%. They're not saying you will blow up the battery if you take it to 90% or 95% DOD. Nothing on my batteries says the warranty is void if it take it to 95%. I will ask the installers after the break. So basically I think they say do I want to market this at 100,000 cycles at 25% DOD or 3,000 cycles at 100% DOD. Of course there would be minor differences in technology around the battery, but the fundamental chemistry of all these brands is the same. This paper which compares LFP with NCA and NMC cells, gives real world results. Their problem is by the end of the study most of the LFP batteries were still going strong! "Most of the LFP cells had not reached 80% capacity by the conclusion of this study for the NCA and NMC cells, and their longer-term degradation will be reported in a later work." https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1149/1945-7111/abae37

Deye 8kW inverter around R30k.

Please see my other thread - we need to start crowdsourcing real world data I think