display_Name

Appreciate the feedback. My thinking is that the better specs and pricing probably outweigh the downsides here. I wasn't expecting to be looking at Solis again. This thread has me very interested again. Thanks all!

There's a subscription now? I've not seen this for mine yet?

Holy shit. A year ago when I was looking at Solis, they didn't have a 12KW. I was investigating 2 x 6kW Solis inverters. They do now and the specs are insane. Sunsynk 12kW is capped at 15.6kWp PV array, while the Solis is 19.2kW usable with a 24kW max PV array size... It has 6 Strings on 3 MPPTs. How's the software? I suppose I should check out their battery compatibility list. Wonder if they are compatible with Volta batteries? Decent Pricing as well.

My current system uses a 12kW Single Phase Sunsynk Hybrid Inverter with Volta Stage 4 Battery. I am very happy with my setup, even through I need to add one or two extra batteries. I'm looking to install another 2 systems for family sometime soon. I'm also looking to potentially upgrade mine as I switch to EVs. I can always go with sunsynk for the new installs, but my installer has warned me that they are starting to experience long lead times for repairs (he took one out the box not too long ago... it was faulty, and sunsynk took 9 weeks to repair it). Perhaps they are getting pretty popular and this is putting pressure on repairs, I dunno. So far, I've had no issues with mine. One option I have is to switch to Sungrow and move to a High Voltage solution, then move my system to my parents place as my inverter / battery combo is more than they need. Downside is that the only sungrow inverters that work with Batteries are maxed out at 10kW. So I'd need to install 2 of them, and then I would no longer be able to feed back into the grid as i have a 60A breaker and need to stay below 13.8kW. Then I was looking at the Deye units... they are a bunch cheaper than Sunsynk, and they seem to have a new app now? From a cost effectiveness perspective, it's attractive to look at Deye, when they are essentially the same hardware as sunsynk. So... question time. Does anyone have experience with Sungrow? What's the support / app experience like with Deye in 2025?

I'm sure now that these unnamed sources have spoken without authority to do so... electronics designers and scientists will look at these devices and put actionable information in the public domain. Really doesn't help that they don't mention specific brands and specific exploits. That just throws a blanket over all chinese product, which could be a pretty suspect move as it is. I'd like some details first. Would be interesting seeing the guys from Sunsynk for example comment on this.

yeah, found the same. Feels off not having a contact number of whatsapp line

Yeah this is exactly why I do my checking first. UtilityPal stocked the volta way cheaper than the competition, but I could call and speak to them, and they were legit fantastic to work with. These guys may or may not be.. I don't want to jump to a conclusion first without actually verifying it, hence the ask. I'll mail them in the week, get a number and follow up from there... may get someone in PE to go visit.

Hey. Whenever I come across a website selling a unit that I'm interested in for way less than the competition, I want to do some due diligence and check them out first before buying. Has anyone heard of sun4safe.com? Apparently in PE, but there's no street number on their address and I can't find them on google street view. Also no telephone number listed and I can't get the owner of the domain as that info is listed. So I wondered if anyone here in PE had heard of them? Their Volta Stage 4 batteries are well below the next lowest priced supplier that I know of that is legit (UtilityPal), so I am curious what the deal is. I'll reach out in the week and sus it out, but if anyone here in the area knows them, please drop me a note. Much appreciated.

Thanks. Holding off for their inclusion then. Seems like that would be something they need to sort out before they can tackle the market.

I have a Volta Stage 4 battery. It's great and I'll be getting a second one. I see there are now Volta Inverters on the market. Specs look like they can take 20kWp of panels where my sunsynk can take 15.6kWp. Happy with my sunsynk for my current install, but may want to try the Volta for another install coming up. I can see a datasheet on the unit: https://e8b52f8d-0371-4a2d-9032-3c2c5431d55f.usrfiles.com/ugd/e8b52f_cbbe2369ce804e21955bb3de0dff67c8.pdf But I have a few questions: 1. Who is the distributor? Are these inverters CoCT approved? I can't find an up to date approved inverter list for the City of Cape Town 2. Has anyone here used one? If so, what is it like?

@ToxxycDid you make any final decisions on your system yet?

Yeah, I really wanted to understand what the deal was with it so I mailed and called people until I got through to a pretty senior engineer in the Energy Directorate managing service connections. I was super thankful that he spent this much effort explaining it so clearly. I understand their position pretty clearly now, and I can't say I argue with any of it. Could things change? Sure... but it will take changing the infrastructure, and planning properly for feedback. With that in mind, they really aren't doing a bad job.

Cape Town. Limit is from the SSEG program. They limit to 25% of the breaker (My 60A breaker = 15A export limit = 3.45kVA). I'll be buying one or two more 14.2 kWh batteries (in prep for next winter and ideally and electric car next year). Any excess that those batteries store I'll just feed out to the grid, allowing me to push out longer if not more in one go. As for the limit, COCT doesn't look likely to get rid of that 25% limit any time soon. Here is some feedback from them on the topic: Hi <Redacted> This is actually such a highly technical and complex matter that one could write a masters or even a PHD thesis on it. However, I will try to provide a brief and simple explanation: 1. Transmission and distribution transformers are designed for power flow from high to low voltage. They can only cope with a limited amount of reverse power flow (exactly how much depends on each transformer design – thus nobody, globally, can provide a definitive answer) before overheating results in premature aging or catastrophic failure. Replacing all of the City’s transformers with units designed to cater for 100% capacity in both directions (these are difficult to design and costly to manufacture) would cost in excess of R 20 Billion. 2. LV reticulation networks are designed to cater for loads and to ensure that at peak load the clients will all receive power within the national parameters, particularly the voltage being 230V +- 10%. For residential areas this peak load occurs on winter evenings, when SSEG does not contribute anything, and the system is designed to ensure that network volt-drop does not result in the customer furthest from a substation experiencing a supply voltage below 207V. During summer days, when the load is low, energy export to the grid would cause the voltage to rise and if too much power is exported the voltage could exceed 253V resulting in damage to appliances. 3. A national working group, taking cognisance of international practices and problems into consideration, developed a document called NRS-097. This national standard is applicable to all aspects of SSEG and includes the 25% of NMD export limit for clients connected to shared infrastructure. 4. In order to cope with the volume of SSEG installations we have established a streamlined on-line and semi-automated application process such that we only need to spend 1 to 2 man-hours on each of the smaller SSEG applications. That 25% export limit avoids having to do a grid hosting capacity and power-flow study (which takes approximately 100 man-hours) for each application in order to avoid grid voltage instability and excessive reverse power flow across distribution and transmission transformers, at least until such time that specific areas have received a high SSEG penetration, which we can see on our GIS SSEG Record map. 5. Those limits also serve the purpose of avoiding situations that compel us to forbid export of energy to the grid by the latest applicants in an electricity network segment because earlier applicants had been granted permission for high power export quantities. 6. Several countries, despite having imposed policies and restrictions similar to ours, are in locations of high SSEG installation volumes experiencing electricity infrastructure problems caused by power export to the grid that they had to implement further restrictions or actively control client’s SSEG system performance. In view of the above, that 25% of NMD export limit will not be lifted in the foreseeable future.

I mean yeah... the money flowing back should average around R1K per month at the moment (perhaps a little less in winter) once I get a full month under the belt. If they decide to make it NOT worth my while to feed back by raising the fees, I'll stop. I thought about that previously and I'm ok with that.

I joined you this month for the first time now that I am feeding back: But... that was only from the 8th, and with an export limit of 3.45kVA. This month I'm exporting for the full month. If I was able to push all my excess out however, I'd be able to push roughly 3 times this to the grid. Yesterday's generation (note the wasted potential... I need more battery) Sunsynk 12kW Single Phase 14.2 kWh Volta Stage 4 15.6 kWp (28 x 550W Jinko Mono panels) To answer the OP.... My electricity bill this month will be negative for the fist time, taking the fixed costs into account. And my fixed financing cost is already at least R1k cheaper than my eskom cost was... so I'm saving from day 1. When I get my second battery, I'll obviously use the excess to feed back in the grid in the evening / morning... but I will use that in winter for more overnight use with heaters. As it stands, with heaters, the current battery is not enough to get through the whole night in winter. At the moment in summer, I still have 50% SOC in the morning, which I push to grid at 7am. I installed in August, and got the tail end of winter... there was not a single day that I didn't fill the battery for overnight use. Generally in full cloud with rain I'm still generating 2kW.

Update. My SSEG is finally active. Loving it! Yellow bar below the line is the export to COCT. This is today until 14:30 so far. I should cap out above 30kWh exported by end of day. The sad part is that once my battery is charged... I'm missing out on so my generation still. Really wish I understood the reason to limit export to the grid to 25% of the breaker capacity. I could be pushing way more to the grid.

Gonna necro this, because I'm trying to understand the 25% export limit... does this also have to do with the grid coming back online? I've set my inverter to 3.45kW export, but I can generate 12kW of PV on sunny days... it's super frustrating that once the battery is full I can't send it anywhere. Do we know what the official reason is for not allowing the feed in of excess above 25% of breaker capacity?

Is there any indication that the COCT may increase the export limits, or any information on why exactly these limits are in place?

I'm reading this and my only take is thinking... am I the only person that doesn't iron any more? But more the the point... the single best part of getting my inverter is that I now understand my consumption intimately.

Hey Something weird happened this evening, and I'm trying to understand what went on. My system is set to a 20% minimum SOC. I've never seen it go below this. This evening I flipped the geyser on in my CBI app (around 21:45), a while after I noticed that the inverter was at 8% SOC. Both in the app and on the inverter display. It's currently charging from Grid to get back to 20% SOC I assume, but looking at the graph, I'm not sure what could make it dip that rapidly down from 30% SOC to effectively 0, unless there was an error in the monitoring, and it was actually tracking below the 30% all the time. We didn't loose Grid, and even if we did, I'd expect the inverter to stop at 20%. Also, I'd expect a gradual dip down to 0 even if it didn't respect the 20% SOC minimum and it had no grid. The immediate drop makes no sense. It's currently on 14% and charging. This is the inverter display, so I know it's not just the sunsynk app that's telling me this. The system is still new to me, so I'm generally still in the app and portal multiple times a day, and I've not seen something like this. Is it common? I've still got power and it's just recovering fine, so there's no real problem in supply at the moment, but the drop is out of character. Outside of this... flawless system so far, just lacking 1 extra battery for my needs, which will come. Specs: Inverter: Sunsynk 12kW Single Phase Battery: Volta Stage 4

Oh no, I was talking about my air source heat pump (aircon) for heating the lounge area. I really want to get a heat pump for my water. I think that needs to be one of my next moves. What I'm seeing at the moment is that the geyser cools down after the kids evening routine, then in the morning it's really not that warm, so I've currently got it on for about 1.5hrs at around 4am to bring it back up to temp (have a timer). I probably need to switch to a heat pump for the geyser as they are a ton more efficient... but I've realised that I also just need another battery as I'm generating a ton of power at the moment (14.2kWh battery full by 11am). Today's graph: Red spikes over night are from an oil heater in one of the kid's rooms (I probably need to change that to something more efficient). Then you can see the geyser spike at around 4am. At the moment Eskom kicks in when the battery drains (yellow). Then see how little PV I can actually capture from the day (that red bit from about 10:45 is the geyser another appliance on a timer). Busy with the SSEG application at the moment. Will at least be able to push 3.45kW back to the grid through the day... but I can see a second 14.2 kWh battery in my future so that I can run a decent heat pump during the night and store more of what I capture (I could definitely use it as it stands).

Thanks. Yeah I'm already adjusting consumption to times when I just have a ridiculous amount of additional PV power (setting appropriate timers on equipment etc). The only reason I'd need a second battery is for overnight heat pumps, heating etc outside of the fireplace. But... I'm going to see what it looks like over the next week first... I only started with 80% SOC yesterday because of the late switch on... and this was Day 0.

Install finally completed. I could not be happier. Today will be the first full day of solar production (install completed late yesterday). Ended up with the 12kW Sunsynk Single Phase and Volta Stage 4 (I definitely need a second one, but this is a good start), with 28 x 560W Jinko panels. Also very very happy with the installer and his team. So professional, and giving the industry a good name. Now I get to register for SSEG and go down that rabbit hole. Thank you to everyone here for all the tips and suggestions. Everything went a lot smoother than I initially expected in part because I knew what I was heading into, and that's in part thanks to the contributors here.

I just signed up an account now. Would I add them under the company section? Role? EDIT: Nevermind, found it when adding a user

Thank you, appreciate that response