ThatoM

Hi Moolmanj.
Here is my system.
Sunsynk 8kw inverter
12 x 335 w JA solar panels on MPPT1
8 x 560W JA solar panels on MPPT2
20kwh batteries.
Everything is on the inverter.
Here you can see the amount of KWh I have used from Eskom for the last 4 months
Still fine tuning the system
 

Batteries are like so many things - they're a resource that you have to manage. One management task is to maximise the electrical work done during the sunny hours, leaving less for the battery to do after hours.

I have half the battery that Jacques does. I get through the night. My rule of thumb is that if the battery is fully charged at 16:00 then I will be OK (above 40% SOC) until 8:00 the next day, as long as nobody goes bonkers with appliances in the morning. By 8:00 the sun will be up, or I will have given dire warnings to all and sundry (IE wife, housekeeper, dog) about the need to be careful. Though I am less bellicose about this now because we are 200-and-something days without load shedding.

But I still want to get through the night on batteries. That keeps the bill down. 

At night we have 3 fridges/freezers running (all fairly new, with inverter drives), external lights on (LED, they draw next to nothing), wifi, alarm, electric fence, TV, some interior lights, occasional use of kettle and air fryer. So we have adjusted our routines to, as I said, make as much use as we can of free power from the sun and don't do a lot at night. It helps that we have a full gas stove, but if we had electric we'd be observing the same routines anyway. Water heating is done with a heat pump (much more efficient than a regular geyser) and twice a day (early morning, which is included in my "until 8:00" calculations) and then again at midday. The geyser has a blanket on it to reduce heat losses.

I think most homes would struggle to get through the night consistently on 5kWh (effectively 4.5, since the battery usually shuts down at 10% remaining SOC), though I sometimes come in at that mark, but with 10 and some discipline it's definitely doable. 

My system is set to resort to grid if SOC gets to 40%, so I will always have at least 3kWh of backup  in the event of an outage. If we had a power cut starting early morning and overcast weather, then I might get through to 11:30 with some restraint. Getting all the way off the grid is hard, but you can certainly make a big difference to your bill. 

Though I'm not making the difference that Jacques is.