Skyelmad

check the inverter manual if you have one.
It differs from brand to brand but most have a screw/bolt on the panel where the wiring is connected. 
 

My 2c' worth. I'm going to see it the other way around, and start with the maximum charge and discharge currents on the inverter. For the 5kW inverter it's I think 115A, and on the 8kW inverter it's 190A, so it's based on the power ratings of the inverter at approx 48V. So under normal operation except for transient surges you should not be exceeding that Amp value significantly, and accordingly they've specified the fuse rating at 150A and 250A respectively, with wiring sizes to match. No matter how much battery capacity you install, for me it's the inverter and its rated power that should dictate the maximum discharge limit in the event of a fault, even if the batteries could comfortably push out more current.
The magnetic ring you're referring to - if you mean the CT coil - is not intended to be fitted to a battery cable. It must go onto the incoming AC mains wiring. I think you need to re-read that section of the manual carefully.
 

Your correct @GreenFields, we have to choose full off grid or pay eskom. Corruption may be rampant on government but that doesn't mean ESKOM must provide power to our houses for free. It costs to bring power to our doors, the least we can do is pay a connection fee if we have a grid feed. We can debate about the price. I think R200 to R300 Max then +R1,50/kwh but less than R2,50/kwh for usage. If you select off grid then R0,00 payment but meter and cable must be removed from property.
If the freeloaders were minimal then R100 Max connection fee would suffice to cover their transmission costs.
 
 

OK. I'm out the country right now, and it seems I missed something? 1K for a connection? What sort of connection? 
Flip side of coin: 1K is about what residential users in Jhb are paying in fixed fees on the default tariff. So what's new? Also it is the City charging that, not Eskom. 
I'm on prepaid in Jhb. Currently no fixed fees, though that is about to change. And a comparison with my neighbour illustrates the problem. He pays ±1K per month just for being connected. I pay more per kWh but no flat fees. Yet the City must provide us both with the same infrastructure. 
Consumers will always play the tariffs game to get the lowest price. We're silly if we think the providers will not react to that. 

I wasn't planning to reply to this topic again, but the article below is touching on the same topic. Basically Eskom is saying solar users can't get away with freeloading, ie. can't be subsidized by the paying customers for their connection to the grid.
One can try to blame politics or corruption, and I'm certainly not saying I condone any such reasons, but I'm seeing a simple economic rationale behind it.
Nobody is forced to use Eskom, and anyone who doesn't like the proposed R1000 monthly charge is surely free to provide his own infrastructure, which would be in the ballpark of R150K-R200K upfront for a roughly equivalent 12kW hybrid inverter kit.
https://www.moneyweb.co.za/news/south-africa/eskom-tariff-structure-changes-here-are-the-winners-and-losers/

Well, according to your logic, the patient should watch what the doctor is doing, and then stop the doctor before he/she makes an error.  Also, according to your logic, it is the patient's responsibility to know how to do a knee replacement.  That means, if the patient stands on the operating table and the doctor does the procedure, it is the patient's fault. The manual clearly stated that you should not stand while the doctor is operating on your knee. LOL

Remove 1 panel from ground string. 

Must say this is exactly the sort of conversation I thought we would have. My team that works with me is broad & diverse. From a youngster that does a lot of roof planning & PV installing all the way up to a semi retired railway signalling engineer. 
We are better than the sum of our moving parts but alone we are but mere individuals. We all support each other & we are all open to ideas on how to accomplish a task. Because we have learnt it's about perspective. You have a different angle of view so hence can have a good suggestion. We carried out that installation of 100kW Inverter system with 96 solar PV modules on a 3 storey roof with a team of 6 including myself & accomplished commissioning according to spec in 11 working days. 
 

There is no such qualification for installation of inveters, solar or batteries. 
There is a qualification for testing and certification of electrical installations known as Wiremans licence. 
This wiremans is required by many companies for warranty purposes as it proves the system is operating correctly with required electrical protections. It also is required by insurance incase of 
You can install and hire a qualified person(Wiremans licence) to certify and write the COC. This is what most companies do. They have a in-house Wiremans person who certify what their labourer did and fix any mistakes.
You can add your own certificates from inverter/solar/battery companies to better understand their system and prove to customers your legit otherwise learn as much as you can online and manuals.
 

As you are not using grid just be careful with the cycling if those batteries. They work great for a few months but not good for off grid daily cycling. 
If you can only cycle down to 12.3V per battery and move as much as possible load to day time. 
Yes the Must happens to be one of the few inverters that start their 1 fan below a set temp. Some others are triggered by increasing temp or a set load or charge rate. 
Sorry I cannot be of any help. 

Random 2c. This could be borderline, but it may just work -
1. Does one single 650W panel produce power when you connect it to the inverter alone?
2. And will 2x300W panels in series produce power when you connect it to the inverter alone, without any of the other panels?
If so, if you connect only two of your 300W panels in series, and then put that string in parallel with your two 650W panels (and those panels not in series to each other, but all in parallel, that would give you a setup that operates Vmp of around 42V, just over the inverter's minimum Voltage. Voc could be around 45-55V - heavy thumbsuck. And total current of around 40A.
Why? Basically to have the panels operate close to their maximum values, with very little pulling down of performance due to a mismatch in panels.
Best case, you could get equal or better performance like this, by using one less 300W panel, than what you could get with the setup as you have it. And if it works, you could get another 300W panels to add in a second string of 2x300W panels in parallel to the 650W panels.

I can't read the article linked to the in the OP because it is pay-walled. Could you?

This is important because I have read other reports on this same issue, and the way editors choose to present it varies a lot. Some are neutral, merely reporting what was said. Some use much more loaded language. Many do not directly quote Eskom, but paraphrase. So, as is so often the case, the version of the story that you read is going to effect your reaction.

I've seen nothing to say that Eskom are blaming. Unless we take the position that they have previously blamed people with geysers.

Indeed some of what has been said doesn't seem to come from Eskom at all. Under a report headlined "Eskom wants you to delay charging your inverters after load-shedding", the Sunday Times quote Ted Blom (who was actually speaking to Jacaranda FM) and one Dirk Groenewald who is the CEO of Mid-City Utilities who advertise themselves as an energy reseller. This highlights another problem - a lot of these people who are reporting weren't there. They got information from another media source. They also get input from non-Eskom sources, but the headlines don't tell you that.

Mid-City: “When power is restored after load-shedding and all appliances are still connected, the appliances start up simultaneously, using a lot of energy and causing a 'spike' in usage and demand.”
Mid-City, it seems, do a lot of work with smart metering, which would mean that they are in a position to monitor lots of properties in near real time.

Blom: “Heavy equipment that surges on and off can more than double your monthly account."

So this is clear, and it doesn't come from Eskom. Control your big loads and you can save your own money. Also, as we've long known, there is a spike on restoration. This is not a new concept, and Eskom and municipalities have been saying that we can help by, for eg, turning off the geyser at the DB and waiting a short while after restoration. Doing this staggers the demand that the geysers make, and reduces the chances of a trip during to high demand. 

Now, that's not Eskom telling us to do anything or getting heavy handed. That's them saying that this is what happens, and you can help reduce that by doing these things. 

I agree that really we shouldn't have to do these things, but the reality is that there is load shedding, we all know it, and maybe we can all pull together and draw a little of the sting. I like the way that COCT do this with their Power Heroes program. They incentivise those who sign up for reducing their load at certain times. So there's an actual carrot. There were similar schemes in the UK last winter.

OK... so what did Eskom actually SAY? Most reportage really seems to quote from an interview given to Jacaranda FM, so I've used their report.

Eskom’s group executive of distribution Monde Bala: “We believe that we can all reduce our electricity consumption just by using what you need. We need to switch off what we do not need at the time. We need to protect the infrastructure that we have, we need to stop the illegal connections and make payments of what we use.”

OK... so here he is making an appeal to all of us to do our little bit for the general good. Also he is mentioning illegal connections and non-payment, both of which are known to be persistent problems. 

Then Bala adds: "We have seen the phenom with the increase of the stages of loadshedding whereby immediately after loadshedding we are seeing a new peak now this is largely attributed to when the batteries charge up, so we are going to be running a program that seeks to shift the charging of the invertor systems to other periods and not immediately after loadshedding."

So there you have it. They are saying they are seeing a change in peaks after loadshedding, they attribute this to batteries, and they are going to address this. How do they address this? It can only be by means of an appeal to the public, with advice about what we each can do.
Additionally Segomoco Scheepers of Eskom said “This is going to be a very difficult winter and hence our plea to customers to reduce as far as they can to use only what they need and this goes to households, business, industries and so on as we are in a difficult space and we all need to make efforts to contribute.”
And that's about it. If you want to say that this is pointing a finger of blame, I suggest that they are saying that we can all do our bit so that this bad situation gets a little less bad for all of us. Of course we should have power all the time, but now that we know that ain't going to happen for at least the rest of this year, what do we do?

There's been a suggestion that all PV owners should have a co-ordinated strike and switch off their PV at the same time on the same date so as to cause them problems. But what if everybody played the game of controlling their geysers and, where possible, their inverters? Might that make a positive difference and allow Eskom to not eliminate but to reduce load shedding? Which outcome is the more desirable?

I sometimes do recharge my batteries from grid. My mother has a little UPS that does the same. There are two differences. Firstly her little system draws 500W at charge time. Mine, with the current settings, draws more like 4kW - so it's like having a geyser turned on. Naughty me. 

The second difference is that her UPS just starts charging immediately the power comes back. That's the way it's made and there's not much she can do about it. I can set my system to charge at a specified time. So I can avoid peak hours and, as long as loadshedding is done to schedule, I can avoid the post restoration peak. Anybody who has (EG) a Deye inverter and batteries but no PV can do the same.

I am great believer of the power of one. Because lots of ones become a big number. EG I am trying to control my water consumption. By myself I achieve virtually nothing. But if we all do the little bit we can easily do without actually inconveniencing ourselves that much, then the cumulative effect will be significant.

That's the light in which I think we should see what Eskom and these other experts have said. They are not blaming us for anything. They are saying that if we all take some simple measures, and, which may not apply to the average user of this forum, we all pay our bill and pay it on time, then we are contributing towards a reduction of the problem (and, according to Blom, we can save some money too). They are not coming for us. they are not blaming us, they are saying "you can help us, and in helping us you help everybody else."

It's not perfect. They shouldn't have to be saying that. But now that we're all in this situation, it's not an unreasonable request.