IdlePhaedrus

Hi All, I am selling my home in Cape Town. It has a grid tied system, prepaid meter, no feedback, all duly registered, including PR-Eng signoff, CoC, and a contract with the city I had to sign in 2019/2020. My understanding is that the contract needs to be transferred to the new owner, but don't know if this is still a requirement given the setup. My conveyencing company hasn't done this before so I am going to have to sort it out, but they would like to know the requirements. I will have to have it re-CoC'd as the original one is now 'expired'. Anyone done this, and know what the procedure is? I'd also be interested to know if the requirements are different in a feedback scenario with a bi-directional meter. I will be calling CoCT in the morning, but any input would be appreciated. I don't want this to hold up the sale.

Item: Fronius - IG Plus 50V-1 - Grid Tied inverter Age: 2014 Price: 4000 Payment Method Accepted: Cash Warranty: N/A Packaging: No Condition: Excellent Location: Melkbosstrand Reason: Not on NRS List Shipping: Collect only Collection: Collect only Link - indicative pricing: https://www.secondsol.com/en/anzeige/13660/inverter/string/fronius/ig-plus-50v-1 0843037120

Yes, very much so. You can have surge when the power returns, and also because everyone in your street's geysers and pool pumps come on the supply can be erratic for a few minutes after power returns (or at least that is how I understand it anyway). For example there is an Ellies fridge intelligent surge protector which will only supply power to the device some minutes after the power has returned. Interesting that the insurance wouldn't pay, one of my folks garage door motors went after loading a little while back, and the insurance did pay. In fact they sent someone around and just replaced it. Not sure who they are with, but I expect it very much depends on the fine print in the policy. I just had my house insurance moved to a different broker, and the new policy was over 20 pages long, and there was a section that covered surge. It's a pain, but you should always read your policy document carefully to avoid tears down the line. I have an ancient AC Coromaster garage motor. After load shedding a week or two back all its settings were reset. The open and closed positions were defaulted about two centimetres away from each other in the closed position. It was an absolute b@stard to set it correctly.

Thanks, appreciated. The chap I chatted to on the phone was knowledgeable and helpful. Have requested a quote from the other end of the business.

Hi All Have requested a quote from the above for some camping solar panels. Have checked Hello Peter and there is only one entry and it isn't great, but then there is only the one. PM if anyone wants to compete on this one. I am looking at their PWM - 160W Camping Solar Panel Kit. Thanks Phaedrus

Look your installer up on HelloPeter also.

That's my biggest worry really. Have had previous harmonics issues due to other unrelated issues. But it isn't a lot of money so if it causes it problems it will simply be removed. I will report back when the deed is done (and possibly reversed)...

Mine asked for 75%, which they got, but not for the rest before the install. I wouldn't have used them if they had. Since it included the paper work for CoCT I am not prepared to pay them the balance until that is complete. I have been waiting since mid November for the final approval from CoCT and as far as I am aware all the paperwork was present and correct then.

The gadget has arrived, will get it installed next week or the week after. Have attached a couple of pics. The heatsink is pretty big, so I don't think there is going to be an issue there but I will keep an eye on it. Does anyone know what COM is and how that should be wired? If I need to get something extra for that I would prefer to get it before the sparky is engaged so I have everything necessary on hand.

This is what I am hoping to achieve without breaking the bank. A lot has to do with usage patterns, and that is dependant on the number of people who use water and when. Since I live alone I moved to a gas geyser when I installed the solar in 2014. For me it was cost effective as I shower once a day, and wash the dishes once a day. For a family of four it wouldn't be cost effective I don't think. I had an old style platter meter so the excess energy from the solar wasn't wasted and fully offset the cost of the gas. Now I have to limit feedback. The gas geyser is nice, but it does have a few drawbacks. It invariably runs out of gas in the middle of a shower, so you end up running around outside half naked with shampoo in your eyes to change over to the backup bottle. Also, where mine is positioned it tends to blow out when the North Wester exceeds around 30km/h, which happens quite often here in Winter. That's not much fun either.

Also, think about it a bit differently. A manual gas geyser has two knobs. One controls the water flow and the other controls the amount of instantaneous heat applied to the boiler by using more or less gas. So, this is what I am looking to achieve with the electric geyser, but at a low cost and no coal burnt to supply the stupid 150 litre "pot" that sits on my roof and gets to a certain temperature at certain times of the day when it "might" be used.

I want to run my electric geyser off my solar without incurring cost from the utility. If I can control the energy given time of year I can adjust the gadget and the time the geyser runs in order to do that. I suppose one could even make it 'smart' if you don't want to do it manually. For less than R300 (excluding installation) this will enable me to do that (if it works, and given above there is no guarantee, so lets call it an expriment). A replacement element will cost similar and a solar geyser would cost a considerable order of magnitude more.

Expect you're more likely to be run over by a taxi or catch it from the water bottle in your car when you spray your wind screen with the windows open.

Got this in place already (there is only me in the house), just need to safely reduce the load so the solar runs the geyser without supply from Eskom / CoCT. Currently it costs around R2.30 to heat the geyser given the array, in Winter it will likely be more. If this device works the ROI will be 120 days if it works as expected (excluding installation). That sounds like a reasonably safe bet.

Great. Have ordered one and will get a sparky to install it when it arrives. Will report back if there are harmonics issues with the inverter. It's a bit of a "boer maak 'n plan" solution which is why I kinda liked it...

The question was really about safety rather than efficacy and on that I needed the advice / opinions from others more knowledgeable than myself.

Thanks that was a helpful response. I suppose with regards the harmonics issue one would have to install and see. Would the device I linked to be "sufficiently spec'd"? Also, are there such things as variable resistance series resistors for AC?

This isn't really an issue, I have a 3kw solar array and have plenty of spare kwh during a sunny day now that the pool is defunct and is unlikely to be replaced. What I like about the idea is that in Winter I can turn it down and run for longer, and in summer it can be turned up to run for shorter which a replacement element won't allow. This isn't much more than a standard replacement element and a lot less than a PTC one, which (currently) all appear to be around the 2.2kw level.

Hi All Read on another forum of someone using an AC speed controller to limit AC current to their electric geyser. Is this safe? Currently have a 3kw geyser on the roof and a gas one which can be used interchangeably but not at the same time. Want to reduce that 3kw to 2kw either by changing out the element (either normal 2kw element or a PTC one), but this looked like an interesting option. Thoughts?

Thanks, I'll check this. This is actually a NRS requirement not a City of Cape Town requirement so it essentially applicable to all municipalities as the law currently stands. Cape Town though has gone with the strict interpretation of %ge of NMD which essentially limits inverter size to 3.5Kw and there aren't any of those on the approved NRS inverter list. The most recent NRS regulations will allow a 3.6kw inverter.

Apologies @Krokkedil. Threads on this forum tend to do that. Expect it is down to the broad nature of the subject. Will bow out of this thread now. Have an awesome weekend.

Thanks @plonkster. That is really interesting and helpful. The inverter is running the same version of the firmware as I was running when the problem occurred. I also quickly tested on the G59 grid standard again before changing to the NRS standard on the same station with the well point pump running by simply turning off the grid supply. It still failed to turn off. After the change to the NRS standard it worked as expected. The chap from Ginlong in the UK had this to say on the matter: PS, I have no idea what a frequency shifting function is.

Thanks. So yes, it appears to be "complicated". It also suggests that the decision by the inverter to shut down might be down to the version of firmware installed and how that version measures the various parameters such as current, voltage, frequency and phase shift. Bugs come and go in software / firmware so in this scenario if the inverter doesn't have a second set of immutable parameters stored separately from the general running firmware a particular firmware version could conceivably render the original certification useless. Definitely an interesting conundrum.

I expect the answer will be "it's complicated"

Thanks. May I ask what the mechanism is that a grid tied inverter decides to turn off when the grid drops? You don't have to answer, I can research it myself when I have some time.