BigBear

Was considering Medium option with extra Battery but Large seems better..
Any thoughts? opinions? Experiences with them ?
 
 

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
 

Yes just a normal change over switch we have one installed but basically leave it on essentials most of the time.. Plus CBI Astute isolators and Geyserwise on the Geysers

*Be careful - GoSolr wants to take your electricity credits for feeding back into the grid.*

I had my system now for about 8 months. After a rocky installation, the system worked very well with no issues and saved me quite a bit of money. As we all read in the media, a large amount of work is being done to allow clients to feed back into the grid. This extends the client savings, but also it assists the country in resolving our energy crises. I contacted GoSolr to start setting it up and was met with the most confusing feedback. The first feedback ( in writing, I have the e-mail ) is that GoSolr does not support this, and if they do ALL CREDITS WILL GO TO GoSolr. This is obviously a concern so I asked them where it was disclosed. They said it was in the sales call, but now very conveniently they can not trace the sales call ( even though I could tell them the exact date and time I spoke to Bianca Lombard ) The last contact was with Uzair Abrahams, Rendani Tshikudo, Mishka Charles, Sibonelo Mvubu and Miranda Sibulawa. Uzair undertook to give feedback in 30 days which I agreed to as it seemed fair. The 30 days is now two weeks overdue and I heard nothing from them.

I asked specifically if they felt the written feedback was wrong and credits would go to the client, but they refused to comment on it. This obviously makes a GoSolr system much less cost-effective. In fact with the savings I'm seeing, I'm better off uninstalling their system, paying their penalty, and taking a system from the offers we are seeing from the banks.

Be very careful of signing with these guys.

Hi @Richyrich
I did a video on adjusting your settings based on the load shedding level from EskomSePush. 
You can use pretty much the same automation and just change the entities from ESP to Solcast and adjust the values as you want. 
Can do a video if you like 🙂 
 
 

Sunsynk 8KW 1P - Single Phase commissioned 25 July and Updated by Sunsynk support
Software Ver. ©
M 6.0.2.4 / S 2.4.1.7 / C E.4.3.0

Very good experience and they suggested keeping the geyser and aircon on non-essential. I already have a solar geyser so no problem. They asked during a virtual onsite inspection where to place the unit. They had no problem on the day of installation first discussing where to place it. Amazing army of ants who grafted who arrived early and only left at 18:00 to ensure I had everything up and running.

The aircon was placed on non-essential as I only ordered a single 5KW battery instead of two. I took an 8KW inverter with 4,5KW of panels (ten).

They will be putting the aircon back onto essential when my second battery arrives. We tripped the battery this morning during load-shedding so realised why the second one is important.


* Enquired in January.
* Finance approved in February - that was an excellent experience.
* Installation April. Demand is insane and a friend who bought cash with another installer had the same Jan-April timeline.
 

Solar Advice needs to improve its communication, a bit of an issue I have because I specialised in email communications for e-commerce for a decade so I expect weekly updates. The feedback I will be giving the owner who I just discovered is an ex-colleague. He has always been passionate about solar.

.

I looked at Go Solar but went with Solar Advice as I want to own it - I won't be selling my house for many more decades to come even if things go Zombicide on us.

@Hyarion gives a good low down on what I came across as well.

A friend of ours went this route. She seems a little disappointed. I think most of this could have been avoided with some advice given before the purchase.

One complaint is that the geyser and stove aren't backed up. She's not a technical person, and the sales staff should have assumed that she was not so minded and should have explained to her that a 5kW system isn't going to back up an entire house. She probably wouldn't have opted for a different solution, but she would have had more realistic expectations.

The second complaint was that they arrived, and immediately and without any explanation installed on the kitchen wall. OK... that's where the DB is, but it's also a busy room in this house. Now she has fans whirring in the room where she does lots of entertaining and two big, ugly lumps on the wall. They then moved everything to the garage. After she agreed to pay an extra R2500 up front. Again this should have been discussed beforehand. The kitchen wall still needs patching.

The system she got seems OK. I'm not sure about the financial proposition, but she says she took advice and it's the best solution for her.

But my observation should be that a lot of people who opt for these solutions want just that: a solution. They don't know what a kWh is, nor do they care about peak loads and managing SOC. They just want to be spared load shedding and save a bit of money. GoSolr should be doing some explaining up front and managing expectations.

I had a neighbour ask me to review their contract and have looked into them for friends.

Most important detail some people miss:  GoSolr is rent-only.  i.e. you never pay off the system, you never own it.  
The main take-away is that at the moment it seems their initial sales and installation are great, the equipment they install is great, but once it's installed it's very very difficult to get hold of them, especially if they need to make any changes/fixes to the system.  Hello Peter will give you a lot of stories along those lines too.  2 different neighbours who have them said the same thing.
Having read through their terms and conditions, I highly recommend you read any contract in detail.  There's quite a few 'gotchas' that may or may not be of concern to you.  In particular these stood out for me:
The monthly cost will increase "based on CPI".  It's generically worded enough that they could abuse it with pretty high increases annually if they wish. They reserve the right to at any stage switch to billing you based on the kWh the panels produce instead of the fixed monthly fee.  If they do this, you have 30 days to _notice_ they've done this and demand they change the billing back, if you don't notice it, then you're stuck with being billed for the power the panels produce regardless of whether you use it or not. If they ever decide to connect the system to export power, they get the full financial benefit of all exported power.  i.e. you sign away rights to that "income". If you cancel the deal - including e.g. if you sell your house and the new owner doesn't want the system - they will come and remove the system but will not do any maintenance on the building such as filling holes or anything like that.  I get that it's to protect them from owners demanding they repaint walls and excessive stuff, but the way it's worded makes it sound like they'll do the bare minimum when removing and leave you with the effort of cleaning up.  On the bright side though, the penalty for cancellation and even early cancellation is not high, something like R10k (I can't quite remember amount, but I know it was way less than I thought it would be) Doing some maths, if you plan on living in your house for more than 5 years, you're better off finding a rent-to-own solution or getting financing.  If, like my neighbour, you plan on selling in 2 years time anyways, then it's not a bad solution.
 

Hi All,
Have been reading and browsing forum for a while 
decided to say Hi we have a 3phase system running victron to help reduce eskom costs
our system is as follows:
3x5Easy,30/295,10kwRevov
1x EasySolar 48/5000/70 MPPT 150/100
2x MultiPlus 48/5000/70
1x BlueSolar Charger MPPT 150/70
30x Canadian Solar 295W (CS3K-295P) - Total 8,850 W
Color Control GX
3-Phase Energy Meter ET340
BMV-700
𝘙𝘌𝘝𝘖𝘝: R9 2nd LiFe
ES2-8
2 x 200 Ah 2nd LiFe (lithium iron phosphate) batteries
Built-In battery monitoring system
Tian Power BMS

Completed the assembly of the Renusol TS+ components and installed/wired the panels on Saturday/night. Will post a photo of the solar panels on the mounting hardware.
Updated the firmware of the Smartsolar 450/100 and we were good to go.

 
I ran out of sprag over the weekend so I still need to tidy up the cabling to the MPPT and the batteries. I also need to redo the DC cabling from the Inverters to the busbar as they are not all the same length and the inverter with the shortest cable is working the hardest.

 
Here are the stats for today. Overall I'm very happy with the outcome.