Lee2

If you want to add a solar pv geyser in Cape Town you need a SANS2 and 4 form filled out by a "competent person". For solar thermal geysers you just need a plumbers letter. I am exploring the idea of prefeeding a gas geyser with an Elon100 system. Where do I find someone to sign these forms though, the only electrical engineer i know who signs off most of Cape Towns PV installs doesn't do geyser PV systems. The building inspector is adamant i need these forms even if i run the elon 100 in offgrid configuration which would obviously make it 100% energy efficient

So for a new build i am ordering a 2x15way board for essentials, a 2x15 way for non-essentials, and 1x18 for solar and the electrician is going to build them in and lay conduits etc so no trunking Are those boards big enough or should i get bigger?

If money is tight get a trolley inverter and run a few extension cords Dont consider anything other than lithium as my sole experience in gel batteries resulted in a total write off after 90 days

Do you have hourly stats you can share comparing the bad times to a normal yield?

Is there not supposed to be a 10cm gap between the panel and roof or is that just for tiles or is that just hearsay?

Where is it stated that you get a 15 year warranty on the battery when used with a Sunsynk? I tried to google it and can't find anything?

I was watching a random solar documentary on the US and they were installing products with 25 year warrantees. Most of our products sold here don't come with anything near, most inverters only offer a 5 year warranty with a handful offering 10 and many stories on forums suggesting they don't honour them and blame the user/installer/location/weather etc So are we being sold inferior products here or are we just not getting good enough warranties. If you are paying all this money for a system including now engineering signoffs you would expect the system to be warranteed for a long time else you are wasting your money, imagine every five years having to repeat these large payouts, this scenario is very possible given solar is a very recent mass phenomena in SA and are just a handful of years old, and most of the products on the market are new/untested and sadly many already have a whiff of won't be honouring any warrantees. Maybe I am just a being stingy skeptic but I don't think a five year warrantee is good enough for anything requiring professional sign offs that i have to pay for because my government can't supply me with electricity

Other than Victron does anyone else make a reasonably priced 24v NRS certified inverter Given I already have a 24v battery and don't need more as long as I am grid connected a 24v NRS inverter would make great sense for me

Roof is a 35 degree pitch

Where on this roof is the best place to put some panels, at this stage i don't know how many I want, if grid tied about 5 probably, but if offgrid then 10. The DB is by X. I was thinking 5 would fit nicely by the red and that might be my best location but is it and where is the next best location if I want to add more. And if I wanted to cover my roof with panels where are the best locations? The area in front of the cobbles is flat roof and a future proposed version of estate rules does not allow panels there so best to avoid. I was also thinking on a pergola over the cobbles but that might run into hassle with the muni as pergolas cant be covered without signoffs due to structural concerns [wind etc]

As in even if you fed it from the hot line the water in the pipes would still be cold and by the time it has pulled in 8 liters it has only just gotten warm? i.e a waste of time?

If you have n0 Eskom connection on the property I would like to hear what tech you using, any data you have to share around daily generation, dealing with winters etc. Any lessons learnt and tips you have? I use so little power that I am considering it, but winter remains an issue.

Does anyone have detailed data comparing the two. On my Sonoff 63a I can see the dishwasher uses 0.7kWH per wash on eco mode How would that change if i fed it from a hotwater line? My washing machine used 0.2kwh on 30 degrees, a dishwasher seems way more energy inefficient given it only needs 10l of water and a washing machine around 50 iirc

I would have thought one would just use a dedicated charger attached to a multiplug connected to the generator. Though if you dont have one then it might be very useful indeed

Just wondering what sort of installation costs you looking at. Assuming I buy the Elon 100, 3 panels and mounting kit, what sort of cost am I looking at for balance of system and installation with COC? I saw elsewhere on the forum a guy was quoted 20k excl panels to install 2 panels and that is a no go for me.

Seems pretty useless, would rather snip the wires and attach it to a 12v light and cable tie it to the handle or something. All the new portable battery packs all come out with lights built in

Came with a Gentech 2kva Inverter Generator. It has a 12v receptacle in the front using this plug Is this a standard plug that I can buy at an eletronics shop? What is the purpose of the entire unit with the battery clips on it?

yeah currently we got mr16s and replacing them with gu10s but I was just wondering what on earth that weird bracket shape is for. Good to know so now i can verify the electrician has earthed the holder correctly So you just connect and LNE to the chocolate block, slot the springs of the downlighter into the two grooves in the bracket and they just stay in contact by friction ?

So it looks like a glorified chocolate block. L and N aren't labelled so I assume either terminal will do The earth terminal connects to some metal. What is the metal for? A mounting bracket to screw into the battens? Why does it have such a funny shape with two slots? Then why does the strain relief have two holes? How would flat twin and earth fit in either? 1.5mm2 wires are too small as well for it to be effective

A businessman once told me you can fix all problems with pricing. Interestingly in Cape Town they wont sell you smaller connections. If I could purchase a 20amp connection instead of 60amps and had enough financial benefit i would do it.

I like what you suggesting as it is their problem and they must go fix it. They can stagger the power returning to homes with some sort of jitter algorithm. How is not our problem. Instead of talking solutions they just whine, citizen blame and shame and come up with utterly ludicrous ideas like don't charge your UPSes

The arrogance of these elected officials is staggering [I have been to the local government offices a few times for my own taste of them apart from your friends experience which does not surprise me in the slightest]. They now want us to not use any power but pay for that privilege. They in particular seem to hate those fortunate enough to be able to keep the lights on. Reminds me a little of why open toed shoes and hot chicken were banned for my own protection not that long ago. if the government hate our batteries so much it is a good indication we need to buy more of them

Imagine being paid to find ways to restrict how people may attach a solar panel to their trolley

I read this the other day https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/05/solar-a-risky-waste-of-time-and-money/ , does not take into account loadshedding though, one thing if it costs more compared to other sources and another thing if your alternative is no fridge, home office and lights

The regime must just fail and sooner rather than later rather than dying by a thousand paper cuts like it is currently. New regime must create a business friendly environment, get in more tax revenue, cut out corruption and build some more power stations