RookieRod

Thanks everyone. This is the route I am going to go

Good afternoon. I have a lady who has worked for us for many years. We are moving to a retirement centre and she has decided to go "back home" to the Eastern Cape. In the village she is in, there is a community borehole with a 5000L tank on a small stand and a solar borehole water pump. And that is it. She wants electric lights and possibly a TV. Please advise what would be needed solar wise (panel; battery; inverter, and MPPT) for the following. 12 LED 7 watt 220V globes of which only 7 would be on for an average of 6 hours per day. A LED TV of 100watts 220V that would be uses on average 3 hours per night, but possibly another 3 hours during the day.. No other electrical appliances expect cell phone charging I want an inverter as 7W LED 220volt globes are cheap and available everywhere, whereas 12V LED globes are expensive and difficult to come by.. If the use of the TV requires the use of a massive battery please do two specs, 1 with and 1 without a TV. I want an overkill on the solar panel, they are cheap, and I want to compensate for cloudy days. thanks

Not a clue. I still don't know exactly what or how to register

Plugged that hole as well with a Honda EU3000iS. Right now, I'm trying to get the system registered with an unhelpful/ignorant of procedure/couldn't care/no rush Tshwane Bureaucracy

Thanks. So I start again. Solar is not about saving money, but about having electricity 24/7/365. At my age I don't think I would ever get the return on my investment, BUT I will, I think, get my money back when I sell, and from what I've seen in the complex, be on top of the list when prospective buyers come to look at properties. The 24/7/365 electricity supply still remains the priority way above everything else.

I live in a complex. It is a sectional title complex, and each unit pays rates and taxes to Tshwane. The body corporate buys bulks electricity and water from Tshwane and then resells it to the property owners in the complex. So, I am not a customer of Tshwane. But, by way of the complex electrical reticulation system and via Tshwane we are ultimately connected to the Eskom grid. As I understand it I am obliged to register my solar panels because “all solar panel systems that are connected to the grid must be registered as Small-Scale Embedded Generation (SSEG) systems.” When I had my solar electrical and hot water system installed, I got a “General Electrical Installation Certificate of Compliance” as issued by the Dept of Labour. At my insistence this I had done by an Independent third-party electrical contractor. When I contacted Tshwane about how to go about registering my solar panels, I was merely sent the “EG Application form.” Here I hit a dead end on page one. I do not have an electricity account with Tshwane. Does anyone know what procedure to follow in these circumstances?

Is it to early to ask questions?

Of grid means that you have absolutely no connection to the Grid (Eskom, Municipality etc) and completely stand alone. All SSEG installations that operate alongside Eskom’s supply, even those not exporting power back into the grid, must be registered with Eskom or NERSA. https://www.eskom.co.za/eskom-remains-committed-to-small-scale-embedded-generator-sseg-integration-solar-installations-up-to-50kw-may-qualify-for-an-exemption-from-legislated-registration-related-fees-until-march-2026/ But my question remains. Am I a customer of Eskom? I think I am a customer of Tshwane. I still dont know and municipality can't (won't/ don't know/not bothered) help me.

As I read the Eskom registration form, you only have to register if you are an eskom customer. I live in Pretoria and as I understand it I am not an Eskom customer, but a Tshwane customer. I have a CoC that was issued by a Tshwane approved electrical contractor. I have, at this stage anyway, no intention off selling electricity back to the grid. Am I compliant?

Yes, he did. I would rather not. Shes bedridden but will give it a go. The easiest would be if I could find who runs the server and get them to change the email address. I i can't get this right, I will lose 3 years of data, which if comes to shove, I will have to do.

Good day. After 15 years my trusty phone that I finally understood how to use gave up. I bought a new Samsung A35. I got a pro to transfer the data from the old phone to the new one, and as far as I can tell all went well. All my Apps with Passwords that are saved on my new phone work well. I do not save sensitive items like bank accounts to the "Remember Password" on and device I use. I tried to log into PV Butler and the App asked for my password (which was saved on the old phone) but for some reason only "in the cloud" understands it's not there. I tried to recover my password and it is sent to an email that is not mine. I suspect it's the gut who installed the Dongle originally and he has emigrated, and I can't find him. The system showed that the email was sent to "Sol********" I have no Such email on my records starting "Sol" I was then advised to delete the app (PV Butler) on my phone and reregister the dongle. This I did but the PV Butler won't accept the reregister as it states Any ideas? Anyone got the email address of who has the server holding all this data? Regards

I'm back. I have EV tube solar water heating with grid backup. Last night I turned off the grid electricity supply at 21h30. Temp was 51"C. At 05h30 this morning the temp in the geyser was at 41"C, The geyser is 150L. This is a loss of 10° over 8 hours. No hot water was used during this period.This equates to a loss of 1.25°C per hour..The geyser does have a geyser blanket. Is this "reasonable" and what is reasonable? The geyser in the ceiling.

Thanks a lot. I have never experienced getting hot water from any other source other than the hot water tap. I will get someone with far more experience and technical ability than I have to have a look see after reading your comments.. Appreciate your input.

Good day all. I’m not sure if this is posted in the correct heading, and Mods, if wrong please correct. I live in Pretoria East. I have a retrofit EV tube hot water solar system. It has 24 tubes and use is made of the existing 150L geyser. The water gets hot during the day up to 65° C. The geyser size is 150L. However, the water cools right down at night. If I do not set the Geyserwise to turn on the grid electricity, the water in the morning is in the low 30’s. With the cold snap we are having it has got even lower. This I found out last night and the power being off and this morning it was 21°C. For this reason, I do rely on morning hot water from the grid. I have installed a geyser blanket and had the pipes lagged and the difference before and after was negligible. My only conclusion is that the geyser, probably over 30 years old, has totally inadequate insulation. I have looked on the WWW and see that in 2001 SANS 10254 was promulgated which I assume has far greater insulation abilities. It would appear to replace a normal household 150L home geyser cost about R10K. My question. 1. Will installing a new 150L SANS 10254 geyser improve the situation? If so by how much? 2. Is a 150L electric geyser made with “extra” insulation? If so, where can I find information on such a geyser and will it be necessary? I do have solar power and the geyser is connect on the DB board that it does not go through my inverter. I had major problems with the Solar Electricity installation, and this forum put me on the right track. Any suggestions and advice is welcome

Sorry about delay in replying, but wheels fell off the wagon. My geyser is not on the inverter and that is definitely the Grid charging the battery. Lots of developments since then. Had an independent inspect everything and found major issues. Effectively the whole system has been reinstalled. Original wiring from panels to inverter was AC wiring, DB board wired with wrong gauged wires; DB to inverter wired with wrong gauged wires; 6 x 550w panels now 3 strings of 2 panels and not 2 strings of 3 panels; installed a 2nd 4.8KWH battery. So as you can imagine a whole new ballgame. To cap it all I insisted that a final COC be issue by an independent 3rd party of my choice. The sweetness of the whole thing is that the tab was picked up by the original installer, after a bit of :hereby", "Notwithstanding", "without prejudice", etc. So my monitoring and records I kept are out the window and I'm starting on a clean slate. Again, thanks to you guys, I got to thinking and did what I did. If only, ........................... I had known of this site before I decided to go solar!!!!!!!