PilgrimToHyperion

Thanks you, Deon in ZA. I set it to backup mode. PV Master said it would need to restart the equipment, but it didn't seem to. Charging from the grid now. Perfect!

With the last few days' cloud coverage my batteries have finally run out last night. I'd like to be able to charge them from the grid in a situation like this. Can I do this by using PV-Master and selecting the "back-up" option there? Is there a specific time to do this? Somewhere I read that someone said to only do it during the day when there is solar. Thank you.

Thank you, Fuenkli. I'll start shopping for batteries Anyone use Solar Panel Energy (Vanderbijlpark) before? Got a really good quote on the Dyness 9.6kW Power Box. Almost 15% cheaper than my installer.

Thanks for the feedback. Tested the batteries today by shutting of solar and the grid when SOC was at 95%. The batteries lasted a whole of 20 minutes under around 900w load. When they "died" the SOC was around 93%. After switching solar and grid back on, SOC was at 0%. How is this even possible?!

I have a Goodwe ES 4.6 inverter installed as of the 5th of June. It is connected to 8x 1150K lead-acid batteries that are 3 years old and 8x 365w panels. The batteries were tested under load by the installer and they were barely in the green. The current configuration allows for 20% discharge on the batteries and reserves 30% for loadshedding. DOD is set to 50%. We had a power failure from around 12:25 until 17:00 today. Solar carried most of the load with the batteries being used when necessary. SOC maximum was 93% today (83% yesterday). Around 16:30 everything in the house switched off. The batteries still had 85% of charge left in them at that time. About 3 minutes later at 5 second intervals everything in the house started switching on and off for a second at at time. This went on for a few minutes (ran to switch off fridges!) then everything just went off completely again. Nothing worked until the power came on at around 17:00 and then everything started functioning normally. SOC is currently at 83%. Can someone please shed some light on what might have happened? My installer says that it is the batteries (he called them dead) and that these batteries should not be cycled. They recommend that we should set the configuration to backup only. They also mentioned that measurement of lead-acid batteries are inaccurate so I shouldn't rely on the percentages that is being reported by SEMS. I am a little perplexed as based on what I understood, we should have had at least another 35% of batteries to use which is around 3kWh. Based on what I'm told, I have no way of knowing how long these batteries will last should loadshedding occur. Would appreciate your thoughts and suggestions on this. Graph below from SEMS.

Thanks for the advice, gentlemen. Doesn't seem like the batteries have the date code marked. I've been told (and I trust them) that the batteries are exactly 3 years old and were floated at 99% for 99% of the time. Very few times the batteries would have discharged further while the generators kicked in (30 seconds). I thought these batteries were 50% DOD? I was hoping to have these batteries last 2 years, no more. Is that achievable with 50% DOD? I've gotten quotes for Goodwe setups (3KW and 5KW) from what seems like reputable installers, using these batteries for R103K (4.6KW, 8x 365W panels) and R109K (3.6KW, 10x 365W panels) respectively. I was a little taken aback by these quotes, but it seems to be the going rate?

Missed that, sorry. Monument Park, Pretoria.

I've been speaking to installers to help out with this, but they're all shooting down the recommendations that Geewiz has made. It ranges from Axpert is crap to Axpert isn't legal etc. Some of them are not interested in doing an install if I don't buy all the equipment from them. I'm just trying to make the 8x batteries I have work somehow. Maybe my approach is wrong? If you had R40-50k (total budget for kit and installation) and 8x of the 1150k batteries, what would you do? I'm starting to think that solar isn't an option with this budget and that I should only use the batteries as a backup solution. Your thoughts?

Geewiz (always super helpful!) got back to me with the following recommendation: -- As you want to use solar in future I can recommend: Inverter: https://www.geewiz.co.za/load-shedding-solutions/75123-geewiz-axpert-type-5000va-5000w-pure-sine-wave-inverter-48v-mks-5k-80a-mppt-4000w-hybrid.html We do unfortunately not have a unit that will measure the health of the batteries, it only indicated the battery level. You will connect two sets of 4 batteries in series, the connect the two set together in parallel. You will need: 6 x https://www.geewiz.co.za/cabling/15978-25mm-single-flex-seriesparallel-cable-45cm-length-for-dc-batteries.html - to create the two set of 4 in series 1 x https://www.geewiz.co.za/cabling/15977-25mm-flex-parallel-cable-set-45cm-length-for-dc-batteries.html - to connect the two sets of 4 together in parallel 1 x https://www.geewiz.co.za/cabling/15976-25mm-flex-cable-set-of-positivenegative-15m-length-for-dc-batteries.html - to connect the batteries to the inverter The below is the box we can supply for 8 batteries: https://www.geewiz.co.za/battery-containers/93680-c8-steel-battery-cabinet-holds-8x-100ah-batteries-incl-circuit-breaker.html Yes you can run a aircon / washing machine / tumble dryer as long as you do not exceed around 4500W in total, so not all at the same time These batteries will normally discharge to around 50%, the inverter will not let then drain any further -- What do you guys think? Sounds like a very decent setup for around R15k excluding installation. No idea what the install will costs, but I assume around R3k to connect to DB?

I have 8x of these batteries (3 years old but were floated at 99% all the time) as of today and would like to know how to best use them to counter load shedding. From what I've read they're not made for solar, but I'd like to future-proof in case I decide to add solar panels later. The minimum loads I need to run using are: Fridge x1 (180W normally, no idea what startup requires) Lights (probably around 60W, but can go higher if 20W spot is triggered) Alarm (15W) Cameras (50W) TV and amp+speakers (130W+190W, but can live without) Routers & modems (50W) Computer (120W normal use most of the time, 560W under load, damn AMD GPU) Chargers etc. (20W) The bunch of questions I have are: What inverter would you recommend? Would this inverter be able to tell me the health of the batteries? Read some scary thing about the 1150k's exploding! How would I connect these batteries? Serial / Parallel? Which cables would I need to do that? Is there a safe "box" to store these in? The biggest I've seen is Geewiz's box that takes 2x batteries. Would I be able to run something like an aircon / washing machine / tumble dryer from these batteries because I have 8x? What is safe DOD for these batteries? They are 3 years old but were floated at 99% all the time. Some sites say 60% others recommend no more than 20%. What other equipment would I need to connect this to my DB so there's no downtime when Eskom goes down? E.g. I'd like to put at least 3x existing "plug" circuits (alarm, camera, PC) on it and 2x "lights" circuits (all the lights in the house). Lots of questions, but I'm a complete noob and was hoping someone could help out with this. Thank you in advance!