farmer barnes

I've had small scale solar for a while, but have just upgraded to a Sunsynk 5.5 inverter and Hubble AM2 battery.
I'm slowly adding more and more load to the system, but at the moment I have the whole house including 2 freezers and a fridge/freezer (we're out in the country, this saves us too many shopping trips), washing machine, dishwasher, all the standard hifi, TV & computer stuff, plus hairdryer, vacuum cleaner etc when needed. Mind you we have been careful of the years to buy eco-friendly appliances. We use solar heating, but the geyser backup is connected to the inverter and works fine. We don't have a conventional stove, we cook on gas, including boiling water, but we do have a microwave, coffee grinder etc which are all on solar now.
I put in solar for my lights years ago, and I've kept those separate, because when all else fails you can do a lot of stuff if you've still got lights. That's just one small panel, one battery and a 600w inverter (I think - I've haven't looked at it for ages, it just sits there and works).
I just tried my house pressure pump on the new system - we have to pump our own water on the farm, so we need a pressure pump (as well as a borehole pump to lift the water). Very frustrating to have no water pressure when the power goes out. But no more - it's working fine on solar. I also just put our small irrigation pump on (about 2kw, I think. It irrigates our two house gardens and our two orchards, but not all at the same time!), temporarily just to see, and it was fine, but I've taken it off again because...
My limitation is PVs now. I only have a theoretical 1.8kw of panels, although they seem to only run at about 1kw (according to Sunsynk's monitor) A lot of people seem to forget that there's two side to this game - how much power you use, and how much power you generate. I look at it like this. The inverter limits how much peak power you can take, the battery limits for how long you can take that power, and the panels limit how often you can take that power. Very simplistic I know, and ignores some of the facilities in hybrid inverters, but I've used this to explain solar to a lot of people, and it helps them "get it". The other thing that people don't get is learning to "live solar". Like a shower in the early morning? Fine, but then either have a cold shower or pay money to heat the water. The solar way is to wait until the solar water is hot enough. Similarly with appliances. You may not be able to run your dishwasher, washing machine, coffee machine, vacuum cleaner and gaming computer all at the same time. Tough! If that's important to you, cough up and get a bigger system, or stay connected to what's left of Eskom.
Now I'm beginning to look at solarising the main farm, borehole and main irrigation pump etc. I wish I could do without the inverter and use a DC pump, but there are issues with that, one being theft if the system if out in the field! I'm stuck at the moment on sizing 3-phase soft-starters for pump motors. I know how they work, I know they do work, but it's difficult to size the inverter require because I can't find by how much they limit that in-rush current when you start up a motor.
Can't find it yet 🙂
 

The fact that we haven't been babysitting our electricity is exactly why we're in the position we're in. I believe (quite strongly) that if you're going to the expense of solarising your property, solarise you lifestyle first. Do you really need your water temperature set at 65C? Do you really need to put your dishwasher and washing machine on at the same time? I've just installed a 5kw system, and I'm wondering what to do with it all. As I'm sitting here typing this on my laptop my house is using 250 watts.
(BTW I used to have a MGBGT in BRG  )

The fact that we haven't been babysitting our electricity is exactly why we're in the position we're in. I believe (quite strongly) that if you're going to the expense of solarising your property, solarise you lifestyle first. Do you really need your water temperature set at 65C? Do you really need to put your dishwasher and washing machine on at the same time? I've just installed a 5kw system, and I'm wondering what to do with it all. As I'm sitting here typing this on my laptop my house is using 250 watts.
(BTW I used to have a MGBGT in BRG  )

The fact that we haven't been babysitting our electricity is exactly why we're in the position we're in. I believe (quite strongly) that if you're going to the expense of solarising your property, solarise you lifestyle first. Do you really need your water temperature set at 65C? Do you really need to put your dishwasher and washing machine on at the same time? I've just installed a 5kw system, and I'm wondering what to do with it all. As I'm sitting here typing this on my laptop my house is using 250 watts.
(BTW I used to have a MGBGT in BRG  )

The fact that we haven't been babysitting our electricity is exactly why we're in the position we're in. I believe (quite strongly) that if you're going to the expense of solarising your property, solarise you lifestyle first. Do you really need your water temperature set at 65C? Do you really need to put your dishwasher and washing machine on at the same time? I've just installed a 5kw system, and I'm wondering what to do with it all. As I'm sitting here typing this on my laptop my house is using 250 watts.
(BTW I used to have a MGBGT in BRG  )

The fact that we haven't been babysitting our electricity is exactly why we're in the position we're in. I believe (quite strongly) that if you're going to the expense of solarising your property, solarise you lifestyle first. Do you really need your water temperature set at 65C? Do you really need to put your dishwasher and washing machine on at the same time? I've just installed a 5kw system, and I'm wondering what to do with it all. As I'm sitting here typing this on my laptop my house is using 250 watts.
(BTW I used to have a MGBGT in BRG  )

BTW think carefully as to whether you want to go totally off the grid. Eskom will always provide a useful, if expensive, backup for me. And if you buy (and configure) the right system, then you will  be able to run all of your appliances at the same time, but like I said, learning not to is the key.