Travis

I have some updates as we move into Summer, and data is easier to find thanx to AICC! @TinkerBoy PV array size: 2.040KW Peak Energy KWh: 2.735Kw Max Power: 14.446Kw Average daily production (October): 12.280kWh Total Production since 28 June: 1369KW Max Efficiency: 7.081kWh/kW Average Efficiency(October): 6.020kWh/kW To me it look like the Thin film 2KW performs the same as other 3KW systems. Anyone care to share?

Will be interesting to see what others share.

This could work if I used 2 DC Optimisers so the voltage does not exceed 90V as the open panel voltage is 112V I also found this https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1200W-inverter-PV-Voc-input-85-130v-High-frequency-isolation-solar-inverter-AC230V-50HZ-or-60Hz/32492506480.html Fits all the criteria but $900 shipping to SA I can have it shipped to Singapore, but not sure what duties and things are there.

I am hoping we can share our real works number of our solar arrays. I went for Solar Frontier 170W panels as they are said to be more efficient, especially in low light. So I am keen to see what other people are getting. These are stats I have got from my inverter PV array size: 2.040KW Max PV input: 2.202KW - 20 September Max hourly KWh: 1.947Kw Max daily production: 14.201Kw Average daily production: 10.621kWh Total Production since 28 June: 1050KW Max Efficiency: 6.961kWh/kW Average Effieciency: 5.207kWh/kW Interested to see how Solar Frontier with their CIS technology compares to others.

In terms of charge costs. We are lucky in that we have a rotary meter that runs backwards in the day. So what we export in the day will be imported at night, meaning I do not need to abuse my house batteries to get the benefit. At the moment, we produce 12-13KW per day off the 2KW array. We use 9-10KW of that to run the house. So I have 3KW available to charge the car if I want to not export from the grid. That gives me a daily charge capacity of 33km. In reality I will install some extra panels. 4 will give me 7KW per day or 77km 8 will give me 11KW or 120km per day 8 SF panels cost R14400. R14400 buys you 1100L of fuel, that buys me 9900Km driving in the cruiser or 16000km in a eco car (6L per 100km) At 100km per day I pay off the panels in 5.5 Months. Sure when you add the R1.6 per km for battery wear (assuming it needs replacement after warranty expires) then it becomes less attractive and after you add interest from a R600k loan from the bank it becomes even less attractive, but the feeling you get when you driving at zero cost is priceless I also had a quick charger installed reducing charge time to 3h to 80% I got a quote from BMW for battery cell replacements. They are +-R16k each. Times 8 cells = R128k, but they credit you for the old cells @ R6500. So effectively R76000. Brand new battery back with cooling and frame is +-R100k after trade in The highest milage i3 is in the US @ 80000KM. The owner has charged the car 1200 and lost 5%. So he is looking 1% per 10,000 Miles. I am not worried about the capacity at 10000kms My demo has 20000kms and showing 18.8kwh usable (100%)

To those who want to do a conversion - this one turned out great. Incedently the specs are similar to the i3. Range, speed, capacity https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXsQGWWz3Is

This is a seriously hard nut to crack. Only price I can get on a Sunplug ECO 2 is R20k, and that is the last price from Current automation has, new shipment will be more. At that price its cheaper to use the money for adding 8 panels to my Infini Array Victron Multplus compact also doesn't look viable either at R16000 Infini won't work as its startup voltage is to high. My SF panels run at 82V each and are connected in parallel into the MC MPPT. Could I run 3 micro inverters from the MC 48V output in parallel? I need to try complete this project for around R10k

I am keeping the cruiser for weekends. Lucky for me its a 100 Series 4.2TDi, not a barbie Prado 4.0V6 I cover 2-3000Km's per month. Cruiser sits on 11l/100km, not terrible, still R4000 per month. I think the electric car adoption requires a total mind shift. You go from driving a car with gears and vibrations and noise ( even the best mercs have a litttle bit of it) to absolute silent, smooth drive, with instant power. Driving has become relaxing, and at the same time I am consuming 100% renewable energy. It's a good feeling. I encourage you all to take one for a drive. Comparing this to a VW UP is wrong, Interior quality is on par with a 5 series, the interior passenger space is better than a big SUV, Can comfortable seat 4 fully grown men. It is quicker off the line that a GTI+ it drives itself in traffic! Fully charges in 3.5 Hours. 78km per hour charge rate on the wall charger. Or DC quick charge to 80% is 20min Bonus that it is free to charge at BMW garages. No fuel requirement means to affected by petrol attendant strikes, Carbon fibre/lightweight construction means no possibility of hail damage. No Oil means no oil changes+Filters+Air filters+++. You change the brake fluid+cabin filter every 3 years. Regen brakes means no brake pad wear or disk replacement in the life of the car+your wheels don't get covered in brake dust. Electric AC means the cabin is always the right temp where most cars AC gets slightly warm in traffic. This is the future. I can only imagine the Tesla Model 3 is going to be even better

Good evening, I am hoping someone can point me in the right direction. I have 6x170W 82V-112V Solar Frontier panels that I am running into my DC Geyser through a Microcare MPPT. By 11-12o'Clock, the geyser is up to temp (65-75c). I want to have the panels drive a grid tie inverter for the rest of the day. I have the DC SSR's and Temp Relay sorted. Now I just need an inverter to match. I am battling to find one around 1-2KW, with grid tie that has a solar input range of The Sunplug ECO 1.2 would be perfect, but I cannot find a price http://www.currentautomation.co.za/files/sol/1445594717_SUNPLUG ECO 2.0 TL1ix.pdf?cache=5468 Are the Axpert's grid tie? http://www.bonanzatech.co.za/index.php?id_product=7928&controller=product This would also work and is cheap but I cannot find one with shipping to SA http://www.ebay.com/itm/IP65-1200W-Solar-grid-tie-inverter-isolating-transform-DC56-220v-AC110V-LCD-play-/142114884484?var=&hash=item2116b50b84:m:mbm41MFvy1ZvuLGcMOQZedw Has anyone got any ideas? I could also connect a grid tie inverter to the output of the MPPT 48V, but what grid tie will work with a 48VDC input?

Yup, knowing the 94Ah 33KW model was coming helped me negotiate the price on the one I bought down by R75000. BMW SA already has the 94Ah model on their website. Range on the BEV 94Ah is 183km EPA vs 130km of the 60Ah. In the most efficient mode the 94Ah will get 290km vs 200km on the 60Ah Under the right conditions you could push the 94Ah REX to 430km (290EV+150REX) and the older 60Ah to 350km(200EV+150REX) Also interesting that the new Samsung 94AH model is 160KG heavier, hence the 50% increase in capacity not being an exact 50% increase in range. Also interesting is that the new battery will fit the old models if you have R100000 sitting around. But you can get a credit of R34000 on the old battery + it will come with a new 8 year warranty

I had the same feeling about cost. But then I considered I would be saving R4k a month on fuel + zero maintenance cost and suddenly the instillment for example R9500pm (R535000 on a 2016 REX used with 9000km + R100000 deposit on a trade, just an example) becomes R5k pm which is a bit more reasonable.

Morning, So after a few years of using my Land Cruiser as a daily driver I decided to bite the bullet on a electric car. I have chosen the BMW i3 REX It has a 22KW (18.8KW usable) 60Ah Lithium battery giving you a range of 130-160km (200km in ECO PRO + mode) and with the REX (Petrol range extender) you get 260-290km I got the model with all the drive assist options, so it has active cruiser control and can drive itself in traffic upto 60KM/h I ran the battery to 6% yesterday as a test. Drove 157km. Used 18kw to charge. At the peak price of 0.81c per KW, it cost R15. That is 1.1L of petrol equivalent or 0.7L per 100km I am chuffed. As a bonus it is comfortable to drive and quicker off the line than most car at the robots! Shout if you guys have any questions of want a test drive

Interesting views being shared on this thread. My reasons for choosing the PV system were; Works with any existing geyser Will not boil EVER, regardingless of any component failure Can be turned off when on holiday 25 year warranty on panels No possibilty of water leaking as a result of heating component failure No plumbing required Unaffected by ambient temp, works on cloudy days (Solar Frontier panels) Can be expanded into PV inverter system All in all cost is not bad. PV system can be had from R10k excl install. That buys you a 20 tube EV right? Which also works with a 200L geyser

That maths is correct but do you empty 150L of hot water from a single geyser daily? We have a 200L geyser and mostly shower. We have a water saving showerhead (6L/min) so if we each shower for 10 minutes then we use 120L to shower. Divide that by 2 because you don't use 100% hot water and you get 60L of hot water for 2 showers. So 60x40x1.16 = 2.83Kwh In reality we don't shower for 10 minutes so we need even less power. In our case we have 1020w of panels on the roof, currently producing roughly 6kw per day in these winter months. Our geyser reaches 75C by midday on most days. I have noticed the system is heating 200L by 20C daily which means the energy going into the water is 6.7KW (200Lx20x1.18 - 2KW for thermal loss). This is perfect since our geyser never goes below 50C even with 3-4 people showering.

Thats right, I paid R3800 for the MPPT from geyserwise.

Hi Cobus, There are a second pair of terminals on the MPPT, so once the geyserwise tells the MPPT the water has reached the desired temp, then it turns off the element terminals and switches to the battery terminals. The battery terminals can also be connected to a second geyser (impracital ifs far away - Long DC cable run) or to a 48V grid tie inverter. In terms of performance, last night I showered, this morning geyser temp was 39 degC, at 6:38 there was enough light to activate DC element, at 12 the was was at 52 degC, by 1PM it was at 56 DegC. So it can spend the rest of the day running other 48V components. On a day where I don't show in the evening, the temp is at 60 degC by 11AM. Max temp I have seen was 72 DegC. Will be even better in summer

It was R19000 which included; PTC AC/DC Element + Element Cable and Anderson plugs ( 7 Year warranty) Geyser Flange Geyserwise Dual Controller+4ah backup battery. 20 Amp Microcare MPPT (modified to communicate with Geyserwise Dual Controller) ( 3 year warranty) 6x170W panels+Mounts ( 25 year warranty) Install was costly at R6000. Because the panels were setup in parallel, 5 MC4 branch connect sets were needed. Install included all connectors, solar flex, mounting, element replacement etc. So R25k all in. You could save a lot by using low voltage 300W panels instead. About R3000-R4000 What I like about this system is that no plumbing work needed to be done and once the geyser reaches a defined temp of 55 to 75 degrees, the MPPT can charge batteries or run a grid tie inverter or something. Also, no water lines on the roof, so no leaks or pipes that perish after 5-10 years and no explosions when you go on holiday and the recirculation pump dies.

Hi Guys. My solar system has been running for almost a month now System comprises of; Renesola Replus 3KW+ Hybrid inverter (Rebranded Infinisolar with 2 year warranty)+SNMP Card+Mecer A890 Tablet 12 x 170W Solar Frontier CIS Solar panels (3 strings of 4 running at 350-450V and 6.6 Amps) 4 x OmniPower 180Ah AGM+GEL VLRA Lead Acid Batteries with 100Amp Terminal fuses Victron BMV702 + Temp Monitor 6 x 170W panels + Geyserwise MPPT connection to Titanium PTC Element in 200L Geyser producing 70 Degree water on most days. House is currently producing 10-11KWh per day and consuming 10-15KWh per day. DB Board with transfer switch and Red+Blue light showing Eskom and inverter status.

Some other pictures Blue and Red light show if inverter and Eskom are live. I wanted Green light for inverter and Blue light for Eskom, but alas I got ended up with Red for evil Eskom and Blue for inverter. I am glad I asked them to install a transfer switch, handy if any work needs to be done on Inverter or something. An extra 2 panels were installed the roof picture was taken.

Here are some pictures of the finished install. The BMV702 sits inside the house. Rest of the equipment is in the garage. I am happy with the install, though I had to neaten up cabling afterwards. I do wish they used better quality circuit breakers. I am also extremely impressed with these Solar Frontier panels. They are producing for 12 hours in winter. Peak power has been 2.1KW on a 2.04KW array so they peak at over 100% their rated capacity. I have had days with over 11KW production which is 5.4KWh/KW in Winter. I was told to expect under 4KWh/KW in Winter. I can't wait for summer. We have had some net export days where house consumption has been 10KWh and we have generated 10.5-11KWh. I think they system is the perfect size.

So I got the Geywerwise MPPT system. So far I am impressed. Working well, even in winter. We using a 1kw array (6x170W 85V panels in parallel) making roughly 5kw per day for the geyser. I have the geyserwise set to only 45 degrees on AC, and timers are from 6am to 9am and 7pm to 9pm. AC element goes on for 45min max on a day where we both take long showers at night. Most days AC element doesn't come on and infact I left the breaker off for 5 days with no noticeable cold showers. The DC element heats the water up by around 20 degrees a day. We have a 200L geyser. We "use" around 3-6 degrees per shower. So on a typical day geyser is around 48 in the morning. At around 6:30am geyserwise senses enough light and turns DC element on. DC element heats water at +/-3 degrees per hour peak and at 5pm temp is around 65-70 degrees. By 8pm when we shower geyser has lost 3-4 degrees (We haven't installed a geyser blanket yet). After showers geyser is 50-55 degrees and by 6 the next morning its in the high 40s and the DC element turns on again. The only time the AC element comes on is if we had long showers the night before and the temp drops below 45 degrees at 6am. I have ordered some 40amp DC SSR to play around with on our 100L kitchen/out building geyser. One thing to note with the Titanium PTC element: We got the 2200W AC/DC version. When the AC side comes on, it initially draws 4kw and over the space of 30 seconds it slowly decreases to the 2.2kw stated spec. Must be something to do with PTC chips resistance

What software are you using to do this?

Wow, that software is looking great. I just watched the video. I am happy to test on the Infini 3KW. I have a Pi lying around, also have the serial to USB, USB obviously, SNMP card, Mecer A890, Mac Mini, BMV702, arduino and IT knowledge so if you want to test on different platforms. Any software currently working on the Infini 3KW? I thought I found some that works via serial cable, but by the time the serial cable arrived, I had forgotten the name of the software.

I have joined the Team on PV solar http://pvoutput.org/list.jsp?id=50630&sid=46057&v=0

Ok, maybe the side by side combo units are an issue. When I googled the issue with mine there were thousands of threads. eBay even did a dedicated post on them and there 3rd parties now making kits to resolve the issue because Samsung will not. My comment about the stickers is based on Samsung branded store at Cresta, Hirsches and Hi Fi corp. Maybe Makro has a policy to add the sticker? Some of them had the star rating, but none the yearly consumption. Maybe I am just Samsung hater at the moment because of the issues I have had with my Samsung dishwasher this year. They not even replying on twitter anymore for my complaints. https://twitter.com/Tsponge/with_replies