scholtz.gnome

Running a SIG 6KW inverter 16KW battery unit from last year November with 20 x panels. (2-3 men household one E-geyser , 3 aircons , gas hob located in the South coast) The SIG was the best investment of my life. ( Had a Victron before )

I got a neat cabelfree inside installation. But you can do outside installation aswell. The SIG is completely silent compared to the Victron. There is no fan running inside. The AI powered APP is clever and intuitive. Our house got a thunderstrike in March with NO damage coused on the SIG !!!!! The modular setup gives you endless combination any later updates are in 10 minits done.

With any brand or combination of brands you have a limited resource that you must manage. We have a 10kWh battery and get through the night with plenty to spare. Family of mine also have 10kWh but don't get through the night on the battery - because of lifestyle and strategy choices they have made. We are two adults and can adapt our routines to make maximum use of solar during the day. They are two adults who have to go to the office, whose kids are in kindergarten and so must be washed, cooked for etc in the evening, and have heaters in the bedrooms. Even then I think my family members could be doing better, but they don't want to take chances. They also don't save much on their power bill.

So what do I do that they can't/don't? Firstly we run all the appliances during the day - dishwasher, washing machine, everything that can reasonably be called an "appliance". Pool pump runs during the daylight hours.

Water heating is on a timer and we have a heat pump (we had that before we had solar) which uses less energy than a geyser element. This gets run at 6:00 and at 12:00. Temperature is set to 57, and we have all the hot water pipes insultated from geyser to the wall, and extra insulation around the geyser. (IDK if they have insulation, I do know they don't have a heat pump)

We have full gas cooking. Though both houses have and use an air fryer - and that uses less juice than any of the alternatives.
Generally we do as much during the sunlight hours as possible. We have all LED lighting at home (except for the one in the oven, which is not really a big worry in my life). So at night the system has to support alarm, electric fence, wifi, fridges (2 split fridges and a deep freeze), TV, some lights (7 external) and cell phone charging. We will make a couple of cups of coffee. The heat pump will run at 6 in the morning (before we are getting any useful solar) and we will still have better than 50% remaining SOC.

So the answer to "can we get through the night?" is "it depends". If you have a big tank full of Amazonian pirahna's that must be kept at a constant temperature then probably you won't. If you live as we do (oh... and we found out that an electric blanket doesn't draw a lot really) then you can.

Use the system's monitoring app a lot after the install. You will start to learn what draws power when, and you will start to see where you can optimise. Unless the AI is smart enough to do all that for you - but it would need to know things like what time people take showers.

I know I’m joining this late, but I have been quoted on a Sigenergy system and I’m quite seriously considering going ahead with it soon. The installer is a Herholdt’s Premium Partner and Master Electrician, so I’m hoping they’ll do a good job.
They’ve quoted me on the following:
Sigenergy single phase gateway
Sigenergy 10KWH inverter
Sigenergy 8KWH battery (ground mounted)
12 x 550W panels (North facing)
This is within our budget for now, but the idea with the bigger inverter is to add more panels and battery storage within about a year, enabling us to run as much as possible off our system, even at night. Our primary goal is to cut energy costs, not merely get through load-shedding/outages.
We want a system that will last long and deliver well for what we’re paying, especially in terms of app usability.
We realise we’re taking a bit of a risk, but we figured that Herholdt’s has taken a HUGE risk running their whole Cape Town warehouse off Sigenergy. I also figured our findings might help other residential customers who are uncertain of making the jump.
We also use Plentify’s HotBot on our electric geyser and will enable SolarMode once our system is installed. This will ensure our geyser is never heated during loadshedding, but will default to using clean energy.

I know I’m joining this late, but I have been quoted on a Sigenergy system and I’m quite seriously considering going ahead with it soon. The installer is a Herholdt’s Premium Partner and Master Electrician, so I’m hoping they’ll do a good job.
They’ve quoted me on the following:
Sigenergy single phase gateway
Sigenergy 10KWH inverter
Sigenergy 8KWH battery (ground mounted)
12 x 550W panels (North facing)
This is within our budget for now, but the idea with the bigger inverter is to add more panels and battery storage within about a year, enabling us to run as much as possible off our system, even at night. Our primary goal is to cut energy costs, not merely get through load-shedding/outages.
We want a system that will last long and deliver well for what we’re paying, especially in terms of app usability.
We realise we’re taking a bit of a risk, but we figured that Herholdt’s has taken a HUGE risk running their whole Cape Town warehouse off Sigenergy. I also figured our findings might help other residential customers who are uncertain of making the jump.
We also use Plentify’s HotBot on our electric geyser and will enable SolarMode once our system is installed. This will ensure our geyser is never heated during loadshedding, but will default to using clean energy.