Garth Arendse

Live in an old suburb so I read my own meter (that rotating disc thing) and use their online app and once a year they send a contractor out to check the reading. So solar got installed and they send me a SSEG contract (with no grid feedback) but with a stipulation I must switch to prepaid meter. The installer comes out and I showed him my connection box and db board and said they need to install it on the pole in my neighbours yard that is feeding to my home - will get a keypad (probably comms over PoE) in the home but the metering unit will be on the pole. He said to prevent tampering - at least I don't have to pay anything for it.

Or replace your airfryer with a slow cooker :).

Eskom expands big plan to cut load shedding in residential areas – BusinessTech

As I speculated on this forum before. Eskom expands big plan to cut load shedding in residential areas Eskom has expanded the rollout of its residential load management pilot in Gauteng. The pilot was launched in Fourways in June this year, but has now been expanded to areas such as Beverley, Lonehill, Craigavon, Magaliessig, Dainfern Valley, Witkopen, and Douglasdale. The pilot forms part of Eskom’s demand-side management programme, which aims to ease pressure on the national grid and decrease the level of load shedding by managing overall demand. The programme only works with smart meters, where the power utility has a certain degree of remote control over consumption. Participants in the pilot are subject to load limiting, where customers can use some appliances such as lights, refrigerators, televisions, and Wi-Fi routers during load shedding Stages 1 to 4, as long as the load remains below 10 Amps. An hour before the start of load shedding, the system prompts customers to reduce their consumption from 60/80 Amps to 10 Amps by sending a message to the customer interface unit (CIU) or cell phone. Customers are provided with four opportunities to reduce their consumption, and thereafter, if the load has not been reduced, the meter automatically switches off the electricity for 30 minutes.

He does have a point though - the problem is the inrush load on substations as the inverters sees Eskom power coming back from loadsheddding and boom you get an unusual demand from your suburb - these things were not really designed for this kind of application (loadshedding) so they go boom. It reminds of the great Vumatel outage a few years back here in Cape Town - all the ONT's came back online after loadshedding and sent DHCP requests to their servers and they could not be authenticated and hence you had no Internet. Afaik they can solved it by adding more DHCP auth servers and segregating them better - they can probably modify those prepaid meters to monitor inrush current after loadshedding and simply stop supply for say a period of 5m until everything stabilizes.

Sorted - replaced and working - just swapped over the old datalogger so it works.

Okay the replacement inverter has been delivered and we will be back online by 5pm. The last few days has been rather tough as I got rid of all my other backup power solutions when I switched to solar and I work mainly from home.

It happens I guess. There is SPD's installed but it is under warranty and not costing me $$$ - just annoying to be suffering loadshedding again - got so used to not checking Eskom Se Push to plan my life around anymore and I also I got rid of my backup power systems in the office when I switched to solar.

The company I bought it from send around an expert and he checked the install by the contractor and he could not find anything wrong - they considering this an out of box failure.

The installer came out - well it is rather dead - the relays are clicking but it is not taking feed from PV or Battery. Getting a replacement.

Me too - loadshedding rather sucks :(.

Well It worked for 2 months with no issues and I did not change anything - until it borked that is - not impressed really with the brand. Installer is talking to Sunsynk for a replacement.

Thanks for the info - so a steam turbine cannot just idle along as I had thought for an extended period. A few questions if you don't mind. a) How long does it take a boiler to start up from cold to it is able to produce steam to a generator ???. b) How long does it take for a generator to synchronize to the grid once it has steam ???. Amazing we still need to use glorified kettles for power :).

I did that already - looks like it is dead Jim.

If there is a cascade event where we have a two power stations dropping offline at the same time the remainder will disconnect themselves from the grid frequency < 50Hz without operator intervention (a trip) - as long as coal is fed to the boilers the generator will be operating and there will need to be synchronization to be done between the power stations again to get the grid up and running. A black start means everything is down - we have emergency reserve at all times at the various pumped storage schemes around the country to boot up a coal fired power station and that one can supply the next one etc ... and also the open cycle gas turbines - they start within a minute and operate independently from external power. There is also Koeberg - one unit is supposed to be operating at any given time, Maybe an electrical engineer can comment ???

We woke up yesteday morning and no power - inverter was on but nothing and all the dials showed zero. Hard reboot and power restored but it stopped charging the battery and all the dials showed zero. It all started after grid power was restored at 4:10am the morning- you can see the graphs shows everything messed up. Also I am seeing F59 error in the connect app - Synsunk did a firmware download - it is still borked. Not so impressed with 2 months of service out of the thing - any other brand you can recommend ???.

Greyton Electrical did my install but they are so busy - you looking about a month and a bit.

I just turned off my two inverter trolleys in my office - it is so darn quiet now.

Sold

8 x 445W JA Mono Solar panels 5Kw SunSynk Inverter 5Kw Greenrich battery Just in time for Stage 4 tonight.

True it was overkill but I was rather desperate for a good nights sleep after a bout of 2am to 4:30am loadshedding in our area in a week of Jan. Takealot had same day stock and either the Ratel 430P was sold out/long lead times and my CPAP supplier quoted rather crazy pricing for a far less flexible/capable (24V DC only) solution.

Hi I needed something affordable for my 24V CPAP machine (for sleep apnea) and keep the 12V Fibre box and Wifi Router going. Looked at various options , would have loved an all-in-one solution like a Tesla powerwall but too much $$$. For a short term solution I picked up a Flexopower LITHIUM444 powerbank , a sonoff smart plug to control the charging cycle and a very long lead to reach my bedroom from the study where it is located. Ghetto I know but it works.