Analytical

Thanks SOLARWIND. Yes, I will definitely need to block that. I just hope there won't be issues with that. Sorry to hear that your install is now missing.

Hi Guys I’m looking to start my own solar install. I’ve been browsing this forum on and off for the last 3 years (I think) trying to better understand some of the concepts and to think about how I would like to implement a setup for myself. When I first looked at this my daily usage was about 15KWh a day, with most of that in the evening, so due to low usage during daytime, it required me to have a battery setup which made the whole concept uneconomical for me, considering my monthly usage was only R500. I kept on checking back every now and again to see if things have changed but kept getting back to the same answer that financially it doesn’t make sense (yet). Recently my circumstances changed and started some cryptocurrency mining, and my electricity usage is up significantly, which also means that my daytime usage is now significant. This got me thinking that I should relook at the solar option. It also happened around the time that the Renesola Infinisolar 3KW inverter went on sale at Bonanzatech. I bought one of these and I am in the process of purchasing solar panels and the mounting brackets. I haven’t decided on what I am going to do on the battery side yet. We have a weak substation that feeds our area, so the electricity trips every now and then, and some battery backup would be useful. I’ve done a fair bit of research, but now that it is getting close to the execution, I’m finding that there a lot of details I am uncertain of or just need confirmation on. I think this is a long first post already so I’ll keep it limited for now and later add more to the thread as I progress. Right, that was the intro, let me get to specifics. My goal is to use as much of the PV power generated as possible. Area: Fairland / Northcliff, Randburg. Inverter: Infinisolar 3KW (Renesola branded) Panels: 12x Canadian Solar CS6K-270P Mounting: Renusol Metasole+ The way I’m reading the spec sheet for the 275W panels, I should put the 12 panels in series (Voc 38V x 12 = 456V, which is within the inverter’s max DC voltage of 500V. Inverter:I guess most of my uncertainty is on how the Infinisolar works. It seems there are a lot of people with Axperts, but not Infinis, so information is thin. My understanding is that the Infini will combine PV and grid to supply the load (which I like, so there is less wasting of solar power if it’s insufficient to power the loads). My understanding is also that the max output is 3KVA / KW (13A at 230V). As mentioned before, I have some mining rigs in the house which gives my house a current baseload of approx 4.2KW (I’m using an Efergy monitor to track this and also on pre-paid). My thoughts are to split my DB to keep the Oven (Stove is gas), geyser, dishwasher and washing machine on the grid, and then to also move a mining rig or two to the Grid side to keep my baseload somewhere closer to 2KW – 2.5KW, so that I can selfconsume most of the PV generated during the day, but still gives me headroom when we start using appliances and lights in the house. My uncertainty is how careful do I need to be on exceeding the 3KW rating and how much can the inverter handle for short periods of time, i.e. if someone switches on the microwave, would it cope for the 2 minutes or do I need to make sure the load doesn’t exceed 3KW ever? Also, what does the PV power generation look like throughout the day? Will a 2KW baseload be able to consume most of it due to the “semi-bell shaped curve”, or will there be significant overproduction and wastage? I’m also curious on whether anyone has experience with how nicely it plays with a Landis pre-paid meter? I see another thread on an Infini and a Conlog and it doesn’t sound very positive. Thanks for reading so far. I’ll keep it limited to what I’ve written so far and add more later. Regards.