Denns

Just buy new. There is plenty for 400 rand more new. This is from solar warehouse. Why waste money on something that might die in less than a year again?

I was about to start the process of moving the batteries outside. I might still do it but maybe getting a Certo battery cabinet and keeping them indoors would be a much simpler and less expensive option for me. I already have a fireball and firemat etc as protection.

Am I the only one seeing people having issues with Sunsynk inverters? I see others having issues with the screens going dead and not being able to see or control anything. Considering how expensive the brand is, you would expect better reliability out of them.

6 weeks is nothing. I’ve just never ordered from Alibaba otherwise you are right.

I thought all batteries are supposed to be outside living quarters/outside? Isnt this a COC requirement

It does, I have a 24V system, if I build my own battery bank with all the accessories included using parts form Lithium Cells or CellsSupply (local suppliers) I can have a 7.6Kwh battery bank for 14k. The cheapest 5Kwh 24V battery I have found is Ingle and costs 14k. I can gain an extra 2.5kwh for the same price.

A trick I learned from the US guys living in cabins offgrid. Make use of charge controllers. Add a charge controller that is connected to an array that is mounted in an area that gets decent sun. Also consider a PWM controller if you don’t have a decent area with clear sun the whole day. The advantage is parallel panel connections. Panels in series get heavily affected by shading as your MPPT output is determine by the lowest outputting panel which is the shaded one. PWMs can take Parallel connected panels so even if one is shaded, it doesn’t affect the power from the others. They are close to enough to as efficient as MPPT if the panel is matched to your system. For 48V for example you can get Jinko 445W panels with a Vmp of 31V or 33V. 2 in series and have 3/4 of those in parallel. The PWM controller won’t lose much efficiency since the voltage is at 62/66V. They are a bit tricky to find for 48V but they are available. Can add about 2.8kw of panels onto it and help you a lot with generation. Since you also only use the extra for the geyser, an even better solution is the Geysertech Micro controller. I am getting one for my geyser. I will connect 4 585W panels to it in an area that gets little to no shading. More than plenty to heat up my geyser and its a load my inverter doesnt have to deal with. Works with elements that are 2 to 3kw. There is a bigger one that works on elements up to 4kw. No work needed on the geyser. Total cost will be 10k for me, cabling, panels and the controller.

Very true. I only wanted to cover loadshedding. 2panels is all I wanted. Then it became a thing of saving on the bill. And now off grid. That’s some escalation in the space of a year on my side🤣

Gas is your friend. I get away with 2.5/3kwh of battery usage at night because of gas. We have a 9kg bottle and it lasts us about 5 months (299 to refill). We have those kettles that whistle and do our water boiling with it, cook every 2 days give or take mainly because we dont like the trouble of doing it everyday. Dishwasher and Washing machine are scheduled using connectlife app to run during the day. Pool pump etc also during the sun. Battery only runs the TV (75 inch one that draws a bit over 200W), lights, router and my Desktop I play games on at night. Laptops for the kids. Microwave gets used here and there but its negligible, same with fridge. I only have a 3.6kw inverter but we work around the power draw by only running one big power user at a time. Dishwasher, toaster, washing machine, microwave and air fryer are only used one at a time. Was a simple enough habit change. Barely inconveniences anyone.

Here in suburbia I think it makes a property less attractive when it comes to selling. Any prospective buyer would have to consider the cost of reconnection. Also I have heard, but can't verify, that City Power are charging for disconnection. Reconnection is about 12k if i remember well. If you decide to stay at your house for at least 3 years the cost covers itself. Disconnection is 1.2k (at least thats what i saw when I looked at the site the other day). All of these get easily covered with the savings from not paying the fixed charges. But you have a very valid point, cutting the grid makes sense if you know you will stay at your residence for a long time. I only just bought my house last year and we decided we will stay there for the next 10 to 20 years. Ideally till we retire so the money spent on going offgrid will be recovered easily. I also self-installed since I am an electrical engineer and the entire system cost me just under 40k to do. I will get all my money back in just under 2 years. If I cut the grid, the 1.2k in fixed charges will pay for taking the geyser off in a year. ROI is very good. I also hear some people would prefer an offrid home due to the rising costs. You might not have to spend on the reconnection at all if things keep goin this way.

I am choosing to add more PV than batteries due to cost and ROI. I am always left with 80/75% of my battery every morning and the lowest I’ve seen is 65% if the day is mostly cloudy. This was with a Pv of 3.25KWp. It’s been 2 weeks now with the 2 addition panels totalling 4.55KWp and I’m consistently at 75% battery capacity in the mornings as the batteries are fully charged the day before despite the cloudy weather. Very good for my GEL battery bank whose lifespan depends primarily on the DOD. I am going overboard now and adding more panels to hit 6KWp. This will push my generation to a bit over 3x what I need to meet my house energy demand. It can go to waste, I don’t care. Panels are so cheap that it makes little sense not to. If I can ensure the batteries are always charged I don’t need as big a battery bank.

With that much PV I will be surprised you touch the grid at all. I only recently added 2 more panels but even with 3.25Kwp (rather than the 4.55KWp now) I hadnt touched the grid.

I have a Tier based system. 0 to 500kwh of usage is 2.27/kwh, 500 to a 1000Kwh is 2.64/kwh. Very good for me since my usage is 200kwh and under BUT the way you put across TOU makes it very appealing for people with a decent battery storage system to do as you say. I guess people on solar shouldnt fight eskom too much then with the TOU system. Just charge in the off peak hours.

I would still not ignore the registration stuff and "hope for the best". A smart person would make sure they are ready to be disconnected if they don't want to register. If you know you still need power from Eskom dont cry when you get hit with big fines etc. At bare minimum, have a system that does not require the utility. Otherwise just register, its their infrastructure and their rules. People just shouldnt cry when they face consequences for not following the rules Esko laid out. I dont have a particular care about the registration stuff, it is the ever rising cost of the fixed charges and electricity. That is my motivation for going off-grid.

I am on postpaid and my kWh rate is 2.27. This is with the new charges. I use a little less than 200kwh a month (only geyser) so it’s quite cheap. My fixed charges are 1181 though. Not worth it for me to go to prepaid personally. I’m just focused on building up my system to go off grid. Geyser I’m taking care off next year and I haven’t touched the grid since I added more panels in April. Winter I’ve been completely off grid.

Any reason you chose Alibaba and not the local Lithium Cells website or Cellsupply? Is Alibaba that much cheaper? Ive never ordered anything from alibaba. I want to build for my 24V system. You definitely get more kwh per rand than buying the prebuilt ones.

I agree with the others but If you have any trees near you I would puth 4 on each. Any shading would only affect the 1 mppt input and not the other, series sucks when it comes to shading. But if there is no trees or potential shading then add them all on 1 input. I do think 4 is enough though, that is close to 200V with just 4, Most mppts come on with half of that.

That’s so weird, why is everyone fighting the registrations then. So many articles are saying people are being charged over 27k to register. One supposedly close to 52k. I should just get the information straight from the municipality rather than listening to nonsense from people and articles. I mind as well register soon then.

I assume they will treat postpaid as the same then? I had assumed prepaid was an issue as if you don’t buy anything you basically stop paying the network and service charge which causes the disconnection. If you keep paying it then you’ll be fine even with zero consumption. If that’s the case then I hope it means as long as I keep paying the network and service charge on postpaid I should be fine.

Citipower hasn’t introduced registrations yet in joburg. Eskom direct customers are the ones expected to do it. If it ever got to that I would just disconnect. I won’t pay over 20k to register it. Noted. When I asked around everyone told me Eskom direct customers are being told they must do it. The people on Citipower don’t seem concerned as yet.

I’m with Citipower though, not Eskom so registration isn’t required

Good day everyone, I have a solar system that is basically running the house offgrid. The only thing not on citipower is the geyser which I will take care off next year. My question is, when my consumption drops to basically zero, will I get disonnected by citipower? This is mainly for postpaid as I am a postpaid customer. I have read about people on prepaid getting disconnected but not sure about postpaid. I will continue to pay the network and service charges as per my COJ statement. I should add that I am currently not considering Prepaid as an option yet despite the 1.2k in fixed charges.