Jeremy Kirsch

Greenfield I thought about the car thing. Currently I have a subaru forester for long trips to JHB. I won't change that as it's irreplaceable, had a great not to be repeated engine. I drive around locally in Kia picanto which is pretty fuel effective. No finance cost on either car. A friend came round in his new Geely the other day. Fully electric, top of the pops goes for R389 K. So given a back of the hand financial analysis it's still not worth it. It would be a good story but not good finance. Another option is air-conditioning in summer. Gets really hot and humid here. My limit on feedback is 4kw max . Even in winter I can hit 7kw peak middle of the day , summer peaks from panels will be 8.5 plus. So I have quite a bit extra over the Eskom feed to play with. So there is much I need to keep thinking about. Possibly charge to charge other people's cars and create a revenue stream. My friend who drives his Geely to JHB pays about R9.50 per kw for charging on the drive.

The ability to microgrid in a freestanding property say with neighbours is difficult

Mattyboy Thanks for the question. Using the Sunsynk TOU settings I cannot control the enabling of the period when the 100A contactor can or can't be activated. With the Tuya I can set exact times in relation to the Eskom low and high Season schedules. Using the Aux port to then determine through the potential free contact of the Tuya on the basis of Battery SOC and PV power generation allows me to choose to only connect physically to Eskom when I am able to export. This minimizes my use of Eskom to Zero unless I choose to do so based of system conditions, such as three days of rain and grey cloud. I then connect only during off-peak and standard on the basis that I have loads of offset. I can now manage this all remotely very easily. I am also trying to avoid going the home assist route using a R Pi . I do not believe that I could do this purely from a Sunsynk TOU setting. If you think it's possible please guide me. My current 9.9.kW of PV panels is more than enough. Daily graphs to follow. Anything further please ask. Essentially Eskom has become an infinite battery at 30c per kwh for power. There is one issue which Iam going to tackle though, nersa rules vs Eskom practice.

I should mention I have a gas hob and oven.

Excellent point and thanks for putting it into Rands and cents. I think at this point I will post my setup and describe how I control the system. In the attached simple diagram the following applies. All my house sits behind the inverter. All my large loads are on wifi switches, geysers pool security lighting etc. These a scheduled to ensure load limitation and power use optimization. I have a 100 A contactor between the Eskom meter and my house DB. This allows me to physically disconnect from Eskom. The contactor is driven by a potential free contact Tuya wifi switch. The power to drive the contactor relay comes from the Sunsynk Aux output. This gives me the following capability. The Tuya relay switch is scheduled to only be enabled in accordance with the Eskom homeflex Peak, Standard, Offpeak times . I only enable the switch during standard and offpeak times when the sun is likely to be shining. This is purely time based The Aux power from the Inverter is then switched on or off by the Tuya relay which then switches the 100 A contactor. The Sunsynk Aux output is enabled/disabled ny a combination battery SOC(state of charge) and the PV power output. Hence the values are set to 98% and about 300W. This setup ensures that I only connect to Eskom when I am able to export. During the connected period any power use will either be from Solar panels or battery. Now to address the point made about the unfair supply of power to eskom, I am not to concerned. I am now in a position where I am looking t other techniques to use power sensibly rather send it back to Eskom. I use a heat pump for my pool, and schedule times for geyser heating and running pool. I now want to consider preheating massive store of water for geyser feed. Any other recommendations I will welcome. I did do a full OTG assessment using either wind or 2kW pure sinewave genie. Ultimately getting Eskom at 30c kWh is the cheapest option even taking fixed cost into account. Comments much appreciated.

I am not putting forward any opinion in support of anyone except myself. Have you done a financial analysis of the additional batteries cost compared to paying 30c Kwh for offset power?

I meant to add that the next step I could take is to go completely off grid. There are consequences to this, particularly getting through three continuous days of wet rainy grey cloud weather without significant sacrifice.

Thanks for the comments. I live in a small village called Trafalgar on the South Coast of KZN. I have 2 strings of 9 x 550w panels each, a 8kw Sunsynk hybrid inverter and 2 x 16 kw batteries. I am a direct residential client of Eskom. I have done the SSEG conversion and feedback power through a Landis +Gyr E460 meter with an internal CIU display in the house. I have had this SSEG in and running since Dec 2025. Currently my grid stats are, sent to Eskom just under 3MWh, used 100 kWh. I have made huge efforts to ensure maximum optimization of the benefits of the system in an automated manner without having to do much myself day to day. As long as I get offset ( pretty much always) I pay approximately 30c per kWh. Hence the 100 kWh usage over the last 10 months has cost me about R30.00. At that cost for consumption of grid power my average bill is about R500 per month including the fixed costs. In a separate post I will describe my actual setup allowing me to control the system

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