SilverMane

Thanks for all the responses everyone - what I've decided is: I will move the geyser to the essentials circuit and manually control with a timer - this is so that the system can get at least some hot water during extended outages. I will change the 4kw element in my geyser to a 2.5 - 3 kw element so as to better utilize my average PV I have set my system to only allow the batteries to provide up to some limit - right now 1 KW which I may reduce - during my main geyser charging periods so as to prevent over working the battery In time, if I have the money, I will look at adding another battery or a few more panels to increase my maximum wattage and allow me to better capture all my PV - but at this point I sadly don't think the economics make sense unless I get a windfall

Hey all Been trying to figure this one out. Does it: Limit the output from the batteries to the power limit? - i.e. will only draw X watts from the batteries Limit the output and the the charge of the batteries to the power limit? i.e. will only draw or charge X watts from/to the batteries Limit the output, charge and PV usage to the power limit? i.e. will only allow X watts of power through the inverter - whether batteries or PV Thank you

Thanks I have been trying to find out what the 'Power' setting in the timer does - do you know if this limits the maximum power draw from the batteries? Or does it limit batteries + PV?

Thanks for the response! The cycling is mostly due to cooking and the geyser in the non solar period - I am experimenting with geyser timings to make the system more optimal. The issue is that my wife and I have different shower routines - she prefers the evenings and I prefer the mornings, which makes it a little tough to time. With regards to the batteries for heating - I am a little annoyed and struggling with the Sunsynk app. It seems my only options to heat the water are 1) grid or 2) PV then Battery then Grid. I am unable to only use PV to power the geyser. By timing to the midday it mostly uses PV but some battery is unavoidable due to it's KW rating. I am considering getting a smaller element to deal with the issue in (2) - but just need to figure out the costs of that. EDIT - does anyone have experience with a 2kw PTC element in this sort of scenario?

Hey everyone Hope you are doing well I was hoping to get some feedback as to how I can better optimize my system - and if I am perhaps over cycling my batteries. Just facts about my set up: I have an 8kw Sunsynk inverter with 2 x 5.32 KWh Sunsynk batteries I have 8 x 540 pW panels - generating a peak wattage of 3.7 - 4 KW most days, and around 13 - 20 KWh I have a 4kw 200l geyser on a timer - this is being moved to my essential circuit In regards to our usage - we have averaged around 10 to 20 kwh per day, with a majority of it coming from PV. I could likely go 'off grid' with another battery and a few more panels - but I can't justify that cost at the moment Peak wattage rarely exceeds 5 kw In regards to how I use my system: In load shedding, I set the SOC to be quite high (depending on the stage) at all times to ensure we can survive My PV capacity currently exceeds my battery storage. So in order to maximize my PV usage, I have my geyser set to be on able to draw power between 12pm and 4 pm - as well as a half hour slot in the early morning and late evening due to timing of showers etc. The more interesting bit is when not in load shedding - I want to maximize my PV usage. So I then set the SOC limit to 30% and effectively just let the batteries cycle. This has resulted in then maxing out during the midday so as to last most of the evening/night. Generally they will charge to: Around 60-70% by midday, and then drop maybe to 40-60% whilst assisting the PV charge the geyser Charge until the PV drops and the evening load begins - which can reduce them to 30% before the next charge cycle. Some questions I have are: Is the above usage pattern overstressing the batteries? They effectively go from 30% to 70% then to 50 % and then 100 % each day Could I drop my SoC limit to 20% for my non load shedding approach? Is there any - cost effective - way I could optimize reduce my geyser? Anything else I may be missing? Thanks everyone

Hi all Hope you are doing well I have moved into a new property and bought an 8kw/10kwh Sunsynk system, with around 5kw worth of panels. Everything is working great, but I would now like to start optimizing my water heating. The relevant facts are: I think I have a 4kw 200l geyser that is on my non essential load My wife and I use relatively little power during the day as we both work - I have an excess of PV from around 11 30 each day as the batteries are fully charged I am concerned about investing in a system only to completely overhaul it, so I was thinking the following would be good first steps w.r.t the geyser: Install a smart switch/timer - will likely set the geyser to be able to heat up between 12-4 pm each day Move the geyser onto the essential load so that it can still have power during an extended fault - if it draws too much I can just turn it off with the timer Retrofit a smaller geyser element to prevent exceeding my PV capacity Retrofit some direct solar heating for the geyser Does the above make sense or am I missing/overlooking something? Are there any recommended products to help with the above? Thank you so much

Perfect , yes - that seems to be my understanding as well. Just did a test where I disabled 'limited to load' and turned on my oven. I saw a 3kw spike on my load on the inverter itself (still waiting on the app to update). So that all seems to be working as intended. It seems the inverter/app default display is 'blind' to non essential loads and it needs to be inferred from the P-External-CT-L1 metric. So it seems like now I will have to manually tick and untick the limit to load depending on my PV and my battery situation. Does anyone have any recommendations for management software or timer modifications for geysers? I have quite a bit of excess PV most middays, and it seems the perfect place to put it. But it also feels like 4 kw is quite a bit, and I don't want it draining my battery.

Thanks guys I will confirm today - but it seems that it is either due to my settings being set to limit to load, or an issue with the CT. I did some playing around with the app last night, and found the metric “P-External-CT-L1“. This seems to show all power coming in from the grid, including my non essentials as I can see spikes of 4kw that I assume is my geyser.

Thanks - do you have your inverter set to limit to load or limit to home? I will have a look in the morning

Hi all I hope you are doing well I have recently installed a 8kw/10kwh Sunsynk system and 4.5kw of panels and wanted to confirm my understanding of how best to optimize the settings: I assume that barring load-shedding it should be fine to pull these batteries down to ~ 30% overnight? I currently have my geyser and stove on my non essential circuit - and I do not see them on my monitoring application. I assume that they will only charge via PV/battery if I disable the 'Limit To Load' setting on my inverter and set it to 'Limit To Home' I assume that there is no way to channel only excess PV and not battery to my non essentials? Thank you so much

Thanks I was wondering about how to determine if someone is reliable. Would you place any stock in if someone is a Sunsynk's approved/master installers?

Hey all I hope you are doing well Apologies if this is in the wrong forum, but I have been doing some shopping around the Pretoria area for quotes to do a solar installation at my home. It is really hard to tell what is a fair price given the divergence between the raw parts prices you find online, and what you get quoted. We are currently looking for an 8 kw Sunsynk inverter, 10 Kwh in Sunsynk batteries and 6-8 550w panels. Does anyone know what a reasonable all in price for that would be at current market rates? Thank you.