CTskollie

Thanks, i was aware of this limit before but its the initial cost that is currently putting me off. R20 - 30K will only be recouped within 5 years or so and that is a bit too long. I have an 80 amp breaker so theoretically I can sell back 4.6kw per hour but maybe in future once its more cost effective to install the meter.

Not at all, started out with a 4.3kw array but was falling short in Winter on bad days. Added another 3.3kw of panels, the cost for this was an extra 20k. Panels are really the cheapest part of the system so upgrading those to ensure good production was an easy solution. Now with our sunny CT weather I realized it's overkill for my needs but rid rather have excess capacity then falling short.

Extra batteries are not really economical for me as the current 14kw of battery easily gets me through the night, going off grid would require a genny for the winter months which is not something I want to consider for now. Will leave everything as is for now, rather the problem of excess solar then the other way around.

Saw this, hence thinking it may not be feasible after all. Will rather add some aircons to use the place in summer and utilise as much solar as possible instead of trying to sell back.

You correct, my excess is more of an informed guess then an accurate number. My daily usage is around 20kw including heating the geyser and charging the 14kw battery back up. Batteries are fully charged by 10:00am and geyser is hot by 11:00am and no significant load thereafter. By 11:00AM while there is usage I am generating around 6.0kw from the solar array and this starts going down from around 13:00. At 15:30 with load I am still generating around 5kw. Based on the above I am estimating around 20kw excess, but it could easily be more. 3 weeks ago, I had 2jumping castles running from 9:00am - 18:00pm and thus utilised all available solar. My generation on that day was around 52kw. From the mybroadband article it does however appear that the reverse meter is only part of the cost and then i need to factor in installation as well, if I am quoted anything like mentioned in the article then the payback period will not be worthwhile. Will have to do some more research but for now it doesn't appear to be as cost beneficial as i initially though.

Thanks @Bobster., appreciate the inputs. Currently I am generating excess capacity of around 20kw daily, I assume this will continue until around mid April where Winter kicks in and generation reduces significantly. At present I consume nothing from the grid since around August, my prepaid meter uses around 20kw per month but that i guess is just for the comms with the meter as batteries never goes to below 40%. When I did the basic Math, at around 600kw export per month I should be able to cover the bi-directional meter within 1,5 years (taking winter into account) and anything thereafter will reduce my utility bill. I will however do some additional research based on the NERSA net consumer requirement, if that is the case then i doubt it will be viable for me.

Thank you, will have a look at this thread,

Good Day All Just wanted to enquire if anybody here is using the reverse meter with the City of Cape Town and if their is a monthly fee for this. I have quite a bit of excess solar so juts want to see if this is worthwhile considering, also my SSEG was approved on non grid feedback, I know i will need the new reverse meter but will i need to apply for the SSEG again and get the engineers sign off again with this process? Thank you

Good Day All Does anybody have a BSL comms battery cable or know where I can get a cable in order for BSL to link up to my batteries. My batteries usage is not aligned to my consumption and today stopped charging ar 91%. BSL wants to link up remotely to check the batteries but I need a cable to link to it. Anybody know which place can make up their communication cable, it's a RS232 cable as per their remote manual.

Apparently so, might reach out to BSL as well but most likely the challenge is with the inverter. SOH reads 100% on inverter.

That is what I was thinking, they offered no advice at all other than to do a system upgrade.

Okay makes sense, I selected grid charge though and then it actually charged it for 45 minutes or so back to 20% so it appears it was actually dead. Reached out to Sunsynk as well and they advised to upgrade my software. Lets hope that helps.

Apologies for my ignorance but how would i access the BMS setting. Is thus accessible on the inverter?

How would I check my grid voltage, last I suspected a faulty breaker i checked and the mains was 230v but not sure if it can be monitored in real time. Shut down I set at 20%.

Grid was available yes and was running off from the grid during that period. Would it still deplete the battery with the grid being available below the minimum SOC?

Battery is about 4 months old now, done a full recharge this past Saturday as battery is currently only set to charge from PV. Should the BMS_Err_stop be checked?

Agreed that it is normal, I cannot however see with no load why the battery dropped below 20% and then a massive dip from 17% straight to 0%. With my minimum SOC of 20% should the battery not hold at that level and use grid when battery reaches that level and not allow it to drop further.

Battery had less than 20w power draw

Good Day All, I just need some assistance to confirm all my settings are correct, I set my SOC to a minimum of 20%, i noticed this morning however my battery dropped to 0%. I also noticed some weird spikes in the battery percentages on some days but never thought anything of it, I set my SOC to a minimum of 20% with no grid charging. Am i missing a setting that my battery is dropping below this level? I thought the battery would hold at 20% until there is enough solar to charge it up again but won't drop below the minimum SOC. I changed the setting to grid charge now and the battery is charging normally now but just want to check if I am missing something here. Battery went from 20 normally down to 17 and then just down all the way to zero. Should i request a firmware update perhaps? Inverter is a Sunsynk 8kw and BSL7kw battery.

Thank you all for the replies, i checked and its currently installed 4 panels on MPPT 1 and 4 on MPPT 2. I guess it won't be that hard to move the 8 550w panels to MPPT 1 and the 6 on MPPT 2 so will go with that option, 120kwh is quite a lot of Kwh to go to waste. Thank you all again for the input, hopefully new panels will come this week and installed by next week.

Thank you all for the responses, I thought it should be fine but just wanted to make sure. I still need to get the new panels installed so when I install then it may be an option to move the 8 on one string and the 6 on the other. I don't mind losing the 10w though, the 14 panels as it is is way above what I need. I'm just adding panels as pricing is great right nw and the extra panels is for the winter months. In ssummer the 8 panels was adequate as is but thinking of installing aircons so a win either way.

Hi All I believe it's fine but thought let me rather confirm with you wise people, can I mix 550 JA Solar and 540W panels from the same line. The specs of the panels are as below, I want to add 6 550w panels to my existing 8 540w panels. it's currently connected 4 panels on each string and I'm thinking of adding 3 panels to each string. Will thus total 7 panels of each string. It's connected to an 8kw Sunsynk inverter, see panel specs below. Thank you guys.

Thats decent enough. On Sunday past which was fairly clear my highest sustained was 2063w, had a 2 min spike of 2350w as well. Expected it to drop further until the end of the month as well but hopefully not by much.

Are you still currently getting 3500w from a 4040w array? I am in Northern Suburbs and barely get above 2000w from a 4.5kw array so if you getting 3500w than that amazing.