PhatWheZ

Could try All power or Genergy. Personally I used Genergy for my residential installation and were very satisfied with their workmanship https://genergy.co.za/

Was just the one. Am waiting to see when the next round of goodies is up for grabs🤩

Congrats @Meerkat Hopefully there are some nice goodies in store for Tuesday! I am trying to get quotes for equipment as my grid-tie setup was recently stolen, so time to bite the bullet and get a proper setup + a better boundary fence in the process. Lota $$$

Always heard good things about Victron

Looking forward for the comp! Fingers crossed

@Gavin286 I was at the place yesterday with the electrician and basically the entire place has to be redone for the CoC to be issued. The prepaid meter was even cut off from the previous tenants. Have told the electrician what my plans are and that a natural needs to be present everywhere

Welcome Sonoff Africa!!! I was actually looking at sourcing a bunch of light switches and mini3's for my newly purchased house. Can you provide us with a link to the pricelist for local ordering. Crossing thumbs for some freebies😁

Any hints on Black Friday deals?

Hi all, i have been pondering and wanting to pull the trigger on a setup to help protect me during load shedding but also to reduce as much of my municipal bill as possible. I currently have a Hoymiles MI-600 with 2x80w panels in series on one of the inputs. This currently covers my base load during good summers day with very little export back onto the municipality side. The CitiQ prepaid meter that is in the house cannot register negative watts (export) so I end up paying for the little bit that exports back. I have never wanted to purchase the DTU unit with limiting function as that alone is more than I have already spent just save a few watts. So having this setup for the last 3 years it has been good as it has cut about 1KW daily off my bill, so now for me to upgrade! I have been looking to invest in a Victron Multiplus II. I want to bite the bullet and buy the 5KW for some headroom and future growth, but I am struggling to make piece with the fact that I would need to buy 4 x 2.4Kw Pylontech / Dyness batteries. For the panels, I can only install 2 x 370W panels as I have limited space available but this would be more than enough for my use case. My expectation is to build a system with 1 x 3.6K Pylontech / Dyness battery with a MPPT for 2 x 370W panels, connected to a 5KW (ideally) Victron MultiplusII-GX. My initial critical load would only be lights and a plug for all my wireless and internet equipment so nothing more than 100-150W. During the night I would like to use the battery for 1-1.5KW as my overall household usage is 2KW per night and about 5-7 during the day. So the excess power from the panels could charge up the battery during the day. The other thing I would do is install a CT or Single phase meter at the DB to allow bi-directional flow from the inverter to provide the excess energy into the non-critical loads. Suggestions and recommendations are what i am looking for. I would have a qualified electrician setup the entire thing so not worried about the misc items. Im more concerned about: 1. Can the Victron 5kw with 1 3.6kw battery work for lights and 1 plug running wifi kit, so that i can save up for the other batteries (looking at 4 x 3.6Kw at the end of the whole project) 2. Will it do as I believe it will by consuming the battery to a set value (~50-60% DOD), then switching to mains 3. If the batteries are full, it will 'blend' power with mains to reduce the overall dependency on the municipal electricity Thanks for any feedback and suggestions.

This will be amazing! Ive looked at those boards before but never pulled the trigger on getting one of them. Really like your dashboard, so might end up biting the bullet once and for all

Can you share what custom sensors you are using. I got a few 30A CT clamps i have been playing with along with converting a 9VDC adapter to AC and reading that into a ardiuno

Is this still available? if so, were about are you based? I am in GHT, EC

The biggest thing to remember if you are going to have this much power available to be "wasted" is that what do you do when your thermostat kicks in and stops you from dumping power into your geyser. This approach in my research is only feasible where: 1. you are only going to have a few panels to cover your base load during sunlight hour. 2. net metering is applicable in your areas but, why waste your time with this approach then The efficiency comes from using the power that would otherwise be exported and billed against you, which is my pain point. I ran a Sonoff POW R1 few a few months, until it gave way to turn the geyser on and off as you mentioned. This gave me some useful telemetry in identifying how long i actually need to run the geyser to be warm enough and at the same time, how much KWh it uses. Since then, it burnt out and have gone to manually turning on and off which works perfectly fine for my use. I only run the geyser for 2Hrs once a week to burn out potential bacteria. Another approach could be to, in the morning turn on the geyser before you leave work and let the solar help cover the bill, then when you get home, just turn it off. With the numbers Greglsh is talking about, he would save around 1KWh atleast

im keen to see the end result!

So i have been actually working at the same issue. I got myself a Hoymiles MI-600 and did not opt in for the DTU unit which can be programmed to read a CT clamp and reduce the total production value from the microinverter, giving you essentially a zero export system. I only installed 160W worth of panels onto it so far (as i picked up two 80W for cheap and decided to join the solar club), and i end up some days exporting around 50-60W when the fridge is idle. Because of the pre-paid meter installed in the place im renting, i am actually paying for the power that is being exported, and the muni meter behind that spins backwards!!! So just being a DIY doer, i went ahead and built the circuit on openenergymonitor and used the mk2pvrouter version 3 code with a ardiuno and a SSR attached to a 70W Halogen bulb. Taking daily readings for the last week, it seems im saving about 200-300W on the pre-paid meter by running the light bulb. I intend going the full distance and building or buying the actual thing and attaching it to the geyser, so that i can max out with 600W and in theory, i would be able to provide around 2kWh worth of power into the geyser. Feel free to contact me