Kwaaikat

Thanks I only stumbled on it today because of this. For my setup so far it as is close to spot on as can be, taking into account it works on average weather.

“Quite puzzled how I got those numbers considering the forecast was partly cloudy with rain on May 7th in Cape Town” That actually makes sense. Though devastating for total daily kW hours, you probably will get your highest peaks, even if short, on days of intermittent cloud, because of lower day temperatures and periods of cloud edge reflection. I get normal sunny day peaks of 3100w this time of the year, on 3600w capacity up here in Joburg. The fact that Joburg is sunny in winter is not applicable because we are talking about peaks, not daily kWh. What is applicable is the further north aspect, but numbers should still be in the same bal park. Which they seem to be. I got a high peak of 3500w last week when the cold front was passing. Partly cloudy with low temperatures. But the thing that makes most sense for me to chase is not peak generarion, but total daily kWh. This link below should give you an idea of how much kWh you should be getting (provided the load and battery are accepting all the offered power all day) per day for every kW of installed capacity. https://profilesolar.com/locations/South-Africa/Cape-Town/#:~:text=Solar output per kW of installed solar PV by season in Cape Town&text=Average 8.98kWh%2Fday in,3.56kWh%2Fday in Winter. These are averge numbers based on climate, so are obviously weather dependent. On a winter’s day when the sun does shine all day, you should be getting about 4 times installed capacity in Cape Town: (very roughly).

Important point about load shifting from TaliaB. You total load is very low. In the heaviest month you only used 13kWh per day! Your weekly load for most weeks would not look out of place if they were daily load numbers. You either have a small household or the geyser and/or oven are using something else like gas. For that reason, I'd careful not to overcapitalise on savings you could achieve. If there is any scope to moving any power using activities to daytime, I would look at that first. Ironing, geyser, washing, anything like that, that can be moved to the day. If you have not done so, change the inverter setting to let your battery discharge more in the evening. What you want to do is to give the panels more work to do while the sun is shining. From your installed capacity and your load, you should not be using any grid power for most days of the year.

If you can’ barey record 10kWh day in January from 4kW of panels, it suggests you are wasting a lot of pv installed capacity which you are not using. It suggests the panels are idle because there is nowwhere for the current to go. The rule of thumb is kW times 5 for expected daily kWh, more in Cape Town in summer in full sun. You are getting kW times 2.5. So you can defintely do with more battery.

The normal SunSynk 5kW inverter (not the Powerlynk) has heat sink fins rather than fans and makes no noise. I have the Deye 5kW inverter, of which the SunSynk is a differently branded clone. Prior to that I had an ACDC branded Axpert 5kW inverter. It wasn’t the intention of the upgrade, but I can say compared to the Axpert, the Deye is close to silent. If I knew just how silent I would have had it installed much closer to the bedrooms. The price I recently paid for that Deye 5kW inverter was just over 18K and the Dyness battery was 16.5K. And these two work together like a charm. The combo packages that include the Powerlynk seem the same or more than that.

Sold (thanks Davy.)

Thanks good point. Johannesburg area.

ACDC branded Axpert 5kW inverter BlueNova BN52V-100-5.2k BP Battery 22 Months old, both bought new from ACDC Will check cycles, but battery was not cycled daily as it was not used for solar. Combination carried a 4 bed house through stage 6 loadshedding. All connected except oven, stove, pool pump and geyser. Reason for selling: upgrading where I need inverter with more functions, and more than one same brand battery. (This one is not the cheapest new). Both for R15,000.