Kloon

I found this thread today and think it's very useful. I'm not sure whose initiative this is originally, but I was wondering if someone would be keen to maintain e.g. a public Google Sheet with a list of versions per inverter. It's kind of hard to "see" what the current state of affairs is. 

Yes, you need to register with their service desk now and log a ticket for firmware upgrade.
https://sunsynk.freshdesk.com/support/home
I did request a new upgrade 3 days ago and still waiting...

Hi all, 
With my solar install I decided to get the Geyserwise PV system as well for the hooot water needs. Colleague at work had it and was very happy with his 6 person family on a 200L system. 
We are only two and 150L.
Got the system without the solar panels from LiveSystainable on special for just under 9k delivered. 
I had 9 x 540w Ja panels and 1 x 535w. 
8 panels on the inverter string and 1 x 535 plus 1x 540 on the geyserwise. 
Damnnn guys, I have not had the geyser on AC since 24 December and we had rain up to the 28th. Even with miserable weather it got up to 60+ degrees. Drops down to about 50 during the night on bad days and 60ish on good days but we are used to 50 degrees ond the old AC system where it ran 3 hours total a day. 1.5 Early morning and 1.5 afternoon before peak times. 
I know some guys use other systems from their normal PV systems and inverters but this is just so amazing. It's a saving of R900 a month. 
For most it's easy to install but for me it was a tad difficult due to where my geyser is located. Had to extend thermo cables and run around 6 meters of 2.5mm AC cabling + 6mm DC cabling. 
Fully recommended. It pays itself back in 16 months. Will still see what winter brings but since my roof is 2 stories high with no trees we get loads of sunshine. 

Thanks, have decided to go proper hybrid that is NRS approved as want to be able to top up from grid as needed. 

You basically answered your own question, off-grid vs hybrid. The list of approved inverters are only for when you connect to the grid, if you are not connecting to the grid then COCT does not have a say as it does not affect them.
The list only applies to NRS 097-2-1 which is for grid interconnection.

continuously.
 

I see the SMA Sunny Boy 5000's price has come down a lot recently, they are also fanless and from my research quite decent units. Perhaps worth a look at them, a lot cheaper than the ifini 5k, close to R20k cheaper atm.

So I posed the question about the max output to the Voltronic team and this is their reply based on the 5KW Infinisolar
 

@Kloon I was exactly where you are now. I also did not know what size inverter or even type of system I should get. I was unsure if I should cater for 6KW peak demand. I was conserned that it might not be enough. I saw the prices of 10 KW systems and they were not within my reach. But what would happen if I went smaller, would the smaller inverter work or would I have constant overload/trips?
My Prof at varsity use to say that "If you can not measure something you can not control it." Knowing what your usage is takes a LOT of guess work out of the equation. What I would suggest is move into the new place. Get your solar water system, gas stove in place first. Invest in a energy monitor. Let it run for a couple of months and then use the figures to do proper sizing of your system. At this stage you have so many "unknowns" about what your consumption will look like that its very difficult to know now what size system would be best. 
That said you are already on the right track. Read as much as you can, research all the inverters and types of system, BiDirectional/Hybrid/Grid Tied etc. Look at the different brands and find out where to get what at decent prices. Once you have have the figures about your actual consumption to get the correct sizing is much easier.
About energy monitors. Look at one that you can download the data onto a laptop/pc. When I first bought one (the cheapest I could get at the time) it only gave a small bar graph on a screen and only kept history about total daily/monthly consumption. It could not give me peak usage etc.nor could I download the data onto my laptop.
The second monitor I bought worked a lot better. I could download all the data onto my laptop. See the peak utilization etc. But as I found out this week it does not give me information about the power factor.. but thats another story. So now I have to get a third one.. Maybe save yourself the expense and get a good one from the start.
 

Um, but aren't the Infinis grid tie? My understanding is that if you have a 3 kW unit, it can supply 3 kW continuously, and more (perhaps double) for short periods of time, if you have the available solar power. But the output of the infinis goes in parallel with Eskom, right? So if you have 10 kW of load and only 1 kW available from solar, then no problem, Eskom supplies 9 kW. As long as you mostly have enough solar power to cover your day time loads, you should need little energy from Eskom during the day. The 3 kW limit in no way limits your peak load power. What it limits is your maximum power (that you have to pay for) saving.
By contrast, with say a 5 kVA Axpert (4 kW), you can only supply 4 kW, with bursts of up to 8 kW for just seconds (no large transformer to absorb heat). There is no way that you can supply a 10 kW load, except with the Axpert switching through to Eskom, and there would be a limit based on how much current the relays can handle.
Am I wrong here?