Erastus

If I buy a meter it is Landis & Gyrr or the cheapest sts meter one gets them for R400/R500 made in China . But I have a 3 phase Landys & Gyrr meter. They lead where others follows. But if you have grid tied and prepaid meter its crazy or you must have a reverse power detection on your grid tie inverter that will control the power generated by the inverter then the meter is not a problem. Expensive the Conlog prepaid meters not a fan of them.

Sorry misunderstood. Sometimes 1 tales are difficult!!

Now you are moving the goal posts. Its logical that if you have PV installed add PV expand your solr panels I think the question was when starting. When starting the order of MAX ROI is: Geyser with vacuum tube tied into existing geyser. No fancy electronics a geyser is nothing but a dummy load that sucks power. The less power the less heat. nothing you can do about it. The only way you save is finer control and more of time. That is done with a normal inexpensive timer that you can set till you have optimum. 7 day timer is better as Sundays, Saturdays normally one sleeps later b

Very simple to control. You convert Koeberg Nuclear Power Station from a base station to a load following station. Eskom suppose to have spinning reserve. That is where the pawpaw hit the fan. The spinning reserve by non engineers was a so called waste. The growth plan was filed in file thirteen the new MD was paid a huge amount for the savings and today there is load shedding. With SA being so wide there are "3 time zones" in a day. Thus the east can support the West in the morning and the West the East at night. If the planner understands numbers and the usage patterns it can be easily

PV panels not as effective as glass vacuum tubes. Very simple a PV panel is 18% effective. A vacuum tube with a small "manifold" you can give you 85C You can not get the same with 3 PV panels. Do not think I am against PV its simply not as effective as a vacuum glass chamber and even on day when PV panel does not generate the vacuum tubes generate heat. To heat a geyser and save on electricity you can not beat a vacuum tube system. Else its better then to use grid tied and stack solar panels with a timer. But the last option in my opinion is to get a dedicated 3/4 panel system. I

Dedicated means you can not use it for anything else. Dedicated means than when the solar geyser is at optimum temp the panels are not used and the power on it is wasted One of the best ways is to get a solar circulation pump. Glass tubes or water heater on the roof. Circulate the hot water through your conventional heater when there is son. I have a 55 000L koi pond my pump runs 24/7 365 , a 10 000 L swimming pool 220V geyser I also use my own water and use an electrical pump for me and my neighbor. I have a grid tied system I have my electricity usage down to +/- 10Kw per day. Will now

Have you ever thought of simply connecting DC to your element? No inverter noe fancy stuff only DC

Not at all. We must all comment to the new laws.: It can be interesting in the near future. Eskom is breaking into I think what will be 3 entities in the future. 1 Generation 2 Distribution 3 homes When are the councilst going to follow suite? and if not Shall we petition the powers to be to do the same. This "ordering" of electricity from private suppliers could open the the future for we SSEG to sell our electricity to the likes of Eskom at a better price. The price could be calculated at buying spinning reserve at night at a much lower price than the council's i

Interesting curves you have. Is that for a split system on all the panels?

This brings me to my last bit of splatter. Batteries or no batteries. 3 x 48V x 100 systems costs +/- R 36 000. Should one chose to add batteries to your system compare the two tables below. The same system only addition of 7200 Kw batteries. This creates an immediate difference of R 803 per month. Roughly 40 months or 4 years the batteries are paid and you are not affected by Eksdom neither the theft of the politicians. Battery life is expect to be 10 years a saving of R12000 per year or R72 000 minimum over 10 years. These values are not thumb suck it is from COCT SAP and

I want to add something more to the way COCT calculates costs. Your first goal would be to keep your account below 600W pM The import and export values is directly from the COCT SAP via csv down load. Look at the difference between Aug & Sept when the export started to work well. The feedback difference is 100Kwhr for the month. The effect on the account is +/- R400pm x 1.15 = R460 that you can use to pay your solar. The same system fully kicked in in Oct and now the saving is +/- R 950 per month. That pays your solar and it should last 20 years. Jul 2020

Some actual information from feeding back into the grid and feasibility. The Below is my usage. I have 10 x 330W panels and a grid tied inverter. I spend R 13 000 on the panels and a few R6500 on my inverter. There where some issues on my billing side which have been resolved. If some one is interested I have a Solis 3k3W for sale 5 months old dual MPPT for R 4500. I used it for a test and it is replaced ( Hope I did not transgress) If I add more panels I can turn the billing into 0 by end Dec. (This I am doing due to the billing been resolved) Facts are in COCT more than

I see a lot of chats about prepaid meters. Be careful of prepaid meters. Majority are counters that can not determine the direction of electricity flow. They never been designed to measure direction but simple calculate Kwr. Perhaps later version "can" see direction. It will be a complicated task to get a prepaid meter to calculate the cost and direction. Therefore it is done by the "vending station/supplier". Thus should you pat R2.52 per Kwhr at COCT and you feed back 1Kwhr you are effectively billed @ R 2.52 for that Kwh. The meter sees a Kwh has passed and decrement a reg

Be carefull of prepaid meters. Majority are counters. either direction affects the money on your meter. 99.9999% of meters will work fine but prepaid meters when you feed back into the grid sees it as you are using electricity. Thus you pay them max to feed back.

All will change soon for the amount you can push back The rule is a COCT one not a notional rule. Was done before SSEG was approved and done in the spirit of getting a case going. Now things will change as buddies will get the solar contracts ... Would love to see what they are going to do if I push back more power. One can push back wind in the night as well. Don't have to be solar only. Thanks for the comments. Seals are dumb no alarm on it. DO KEEP your photo's and messages. They can get you arrested and it can become a criminal case. Tampering is not a COCT rule b