Corneel

Hi There, Any update on how these inverters have performed over the past 2 years? Can one consider them? Any others in this price range that you would rather consider? Growatt 3 kW a better option? Looking for a low-cost solution to "keep the lights and refrigerator" going.

Chat to Grunlite Energy. They deal with >140 municipalities and Eskom. But be warned, Tshwane is the WORST of them all. Grunlite aims for a 3-month process with Tshwane, worst case 6 months. https://grunlite.com/

Here is the full page: Some key points: 1. All embedded generators need to be registered with the City of Tshwane (wish I could figure out HOW - I never get a reply to my e-mails to them). 2. You will pay a monthly fixed fee of R 270.23, irrespective of your meter (conventional vs prepaid vs bi-directional) 3. You will need a bi-directional meter if you want to feed back to the municipality (see previous post: R 10 744.03 for a typical residential meter) 4. You will be paid R 0.7851 per unit fed back to Tshwane, but you must be a net consumer. To just recoup the cost of the bi-directional meter, you need to feed back 13 685 units back to Tshwane. It thus clearly does not make sense to try to sell back to Tshwane. The cost of the bidirectional meter is the prohibiting factor.

We wish... I found these prices in the 2024/2025 tariffs:

Hi There, I am adding a Gentech GP6000iS inverter generator to a Deye 8kW system. Once done, the system will go off-grid. Is there any way that I can use the inverter to start the generator? I understand the settings on the inverter to send the signal, but I cannot find any input / connection on the generator to connect the signal wires from the inverter? Does anyone have experience in doing it with a Gentech Inverter generator?

Hi Theo, Did you maybe resolve your issue? I have a new install in an off-grid setup and it keeps tripping on EPS. DYNESS battery correctly set up.

Hi @hoohloc, does that mean that the Luxpower SNA-5000 does not push power to Non-essential loads? I was made to believe that it does?

Hi All, We are considering going off-grid for my friend's 1 000m^2 house. I am considering a 15 kVA Victron installation with 14 kW panels and 30 kWh batteries. (Roof space is a bit limited, cannot really add more panels. Batteries might be a bit small, but can always be added a bit later). My key question: We want to add a generator for cloudy days etc. 1. What size would you recommend? I was thinking 10 kVA (can thus charge the batteries in 3 hours if my maths are correct). Or should we rather go for 15 KVA to match the inverter capacity? 2. What brand would you recommend? 3. Best supplier around Gauteng?

Yes, I do. The Deye look slightly different, but same concept. "Zero export to CT" - This means zero export to the municipality. I had this wrong the first day and exported 3 kWh to the grid - oops! Now the municipal meter is showing an error message. Still waiting to hear from the municipality... But when there is more demand than from essentials and battery, it is used by the non-essentials. The next section decides to charge the battery first, or to first support the load. But I the found that the battery is full at c 10:00,and if there is a lull in demand across both essential an non-essential, production is clipped. So I put it to "Load first", now the battery is only full around 11:00. Then the pool pump (with heat pump) kicks in and all available production goes to that. By 16:00 the pool pump swith off, and very little else is running in the house and thus some production is clipped again. So it is this screen that I am still playing around with: The 80% in the middle of the day now allows a bit of the battery to be used to supplement the pool pump demand, and then the battery gets charged again after 16:00. (I previously had this at 95% and I could see this small change did make a difference) The "Grid Charge" setting is to ensure the battery has some juice in case of an early morning Load Shedding. In essence I am using my battery to assist Eskom a bit during the peak demand (16:00 to 21:00) and then use the grid during the early morning hours to recharge back to 60%. This is what today's production looked like: Black circles is probably the geyser's heat pump. The purple line is the pool pump (+heat pump) demand. The yellow circle is when we had load shedding - as you can see, production was used to charge the battery back to 100% but were clipped for the remainder of the load shedding. And this was the result:

I have 5 panels all facing North on just 1 string ( getting c 240 volts). Max was 16.1 kWh on the best day, average probably 12 to 14. I am still playing around with the "Time of Use" settings to see how to maximise production & self use. I still often get clipped when the battery is full and the demand is lower than production.

Hi there, Corneel here, this is my second post but here is my first installation. I am a mining engineer doing mining finance at a bank - no formal electrical training apart from 1 semester at varsity 25 years ago... And a one-day solar overview course a few years ago. I only got my installation's CoC this morning so I did not want to post my installation in case I made a mess! At least I have not seen any smoke yet! 😂 The main DB is around the corner in the garage. I do woodwork there and I did not want to put the Inverter and battery in such a dusty environment, hence the installation in the passageway. Comments are welcome! This is just 3 of the 5 panels, the other two are on other sections of the roof. When money allows, I will add another string of 2.7 kW and another battery. (We use about 30 kWh a day so the current system is a bit small). Even with the second string and battery I will still not be able to generate 100% of own consumption. And my roof is too small for more panels so we will stick with that final size.

Thanks, jip, the plan is definitely to use a 3 phase inverter.

Thanks @P1000, Are you saying that the 3 phase Sunsynk will be better than the 3 phase Deye? If so, why? I understand that they are basically the same (both manufactured by Deye), but Sunsynk installs their own software? Or do you mean a 3 phase inverter will be better than a single phase inverter for running the VSD?

I missed this, the equipment are: 7.5 kW hammer mill 7.5 kW feed mixer (none of them have a flywheel and they will be started "empty") 3 kW submersible borehole pump 3 kW cold room compressor 2 x 1.5 kW submersible borehole pumps All of them are on manual switches so it is possible to make sure that only one of them runs at any time.

Tx @P1000, will go for the VSD then. Just for my education - why is the soft starter not kind to an inverter? Also, what size VFD is required?