hoohloc

Yes will be doing that. What you say makes sense, I just want to be well informed so that the electrician I use doesn't try and take shortcuts with me. Thanks

You can leave the brackets and take panels and rails with you. No repairs will be required

Think about removing your panels and wiring only. Leave the brackets and rails in place. The new owner could then use them for their own installation.
Will be a lot less work and cost in my opinion.

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Not to be that guy but 40k seems a bit high when you can get a new one fo 46.

Thanks for your comments.
I'm aware that manufacturers supply Eksdom and certain municipalities with test certificates (used by e.g. City of Cape Town for their "approved inverter" list), but the "article" that @frivan referenced only refers to "an inverter test certificate" that must be supplied... omitting the part that such a certificate must be supplied by the manufacturer, leaving the whole requirement open for abuse by the "authorities" at a later stage.
I think that I have a good understanding of what should be incorporated in the "test report", but there is absolutely no guarantee that the "authorities" will be happy with what I (or an electrical engineer, for that matter) put in such a test report. Again, if requirements are clearly specified and stated upfront, there cannot be any grey areas or omitted measurements or whatever is expected to be in such a test report. Eksdom originally required that this document be produced by an ECSA registered professional - they have since changed their corporate mind, now being happy with a report from a department of labour registered electrician... no apparent requirement that such an electrician be competent with DC installations, etc. though. Again, my gripe is not with the change in who is authorised to sign such a report, it's with the lack of clarity on what is required to be in such a report... and with it being so vague, what stops the "authorities" from simply changing requirements again on the fly?
Lastly, a personal anecdote - my system's CoC was issued by an independent master electrician (registered with the department of labour), but he did not pick up that my installer failed to provide a neutral/earth bond that activated through a relay or contactor when grid power was lost (and opened again when grid power was restored), as stated in the Sunsynk installation manual supplied with my inverter. I only read this some time after the completion of the installation and issuing of the CoC, and had to explain this to the department of labour registered electrician that did the installation... makes me wonder if such a test report would have any real value...

AS far as this goes in interviews done on radio some clever guys were indicating that Eskom/munics can't make their own laws. It was pointed out the law is that the system only needs a valid COC.
Also as it stands a COC deems a system as safe so no need for more. Further the law states ESKOM has no right to disconnect for not complying to THEIR own laws and they may only disconnect for non payment provided you have a valid COC. The same holds true for munics. Refer to other interviews with energy consultant Chris Yelland and others.
We have seen how many back tracking has already taken place around this issue.
I stand to be corrected what I understood during the various interviews. OUTA has my support.
Solar Users shouldn’t register with Eskom or Municipalities – OUTA


OUTA criticises Eskom and municipal threats over household solar registration as impractical, irrational and unfair.
Shifting and unclear SSEG requirements are creating confusion, anxiety and project delays for homeowners and installers.
OUTA maintains that safe, compliant solar installations behind the meter should not face coercive enforcement.

I did the same when I moved house last year, the new owner didn't want to buy the system and I was not prepared to let it go for free. To move my system to the new house it cost me less than R10k, which included un-installation from the old house, removing of all cables, modifications in the DB and CoC. Installation at the new house and CoC

I think by law you have to specify it in the OTP if you remove Solar, since this forms part of the entire COC process. I believe anything "fixed" to a property need to be disclosed if removed.

Correct - all the estate agents and buyers were informed when coming to view that the solar system wasn't included but could be negotiated over. I knew that I'd have enough time to get it off between the signed OTP and us moving out if the new buyer did not want the solar system. Didn't want to sit with no backup while waiting for the house to sell. And it ended up taking 6 months during peak load shedding so we were very grateful to have it still available!

Solar, water tanks add no value to homes when reselling. It's like modifications to cars. They do nothing for the value and in some cases even lower the value. A couple of my work colleagues tried to sell their homes higher with the solar and extras installed and buyers and the RE agent where not having it. So, they just removed their systems as the cost to remove and move them was lower than getting new equipment again.

My understanding is that it is an energy saving tech and it achieves that saving by eliminating the ON/OFF cycling. Regulating motor speed instead of cycling on/off, they significantly reduce electricity consumption

There's a bit of misinformation here.
Deye and Sunsynk functionality is exactly the same. Sunsynk is a rebranded deye. It's impossible that the Sunsynk will be more efficient in its feeding non essentials than the deye.

Copied and pasted
Methods for Adding External MPPT to Deye
There are two primary ways to add more solar capacity to an existing Deye installation:
Direct-to-Battery (External MPPT/Charge Controller): You install a separate, third-party MPPT charge controller (e.g., Victron SmartSolar) and connect its output directly to your battery bank.
Pros: Independent of Deye MPPT limitations; easiest for adding panels with different voltages or orientations.
Cons: Requires its own monitoring/app; not directly visible in the Deye Solarman app.
AC Coupling (Additional Grid-Tie Inverter): You install an AC-coupled microinverter or string inverter and connect its output to the GEN or GRID port of the Deye inverter.
Pros: Fully integrated into Deye monitoring; efficient for large scale expansion.
Cons: More complex setup, requires proper grid-tie settings

I somewhat agree but I still don’t see why he can’t spend 300 rand a month from the grid for the extra 100kwh for extra heating during winter since he is basically completely running the geyser off solar the other months.
it would theoretically take him 25 years to get his money back on a HP, maybe under 20 years factoring the increases.
I only recommended the gas heater as he may use less than half a 48kg bottle in a year. Could even be less if used with a Dewhot valve set at 41 degrees. So about 1000 rand a year tops which does come to the cost of running off the grid during those 3 months.

Hot water isn’t about limits it’s about system design. If your system can’t handle normal domestic expectations, that’s not philosophy that’s undersizing. Love may have limits. Good engineering shouldn’t.

The simplest way is just to use a relay and connect your geyser on the N/O contact. Supply your relay coil with power from the grid and when the grid drops, supply to the geyser will be disconnected. I have this working flawlessly at my rental property

I have always maintained that if you are not planning to sell back to eskom/munic, there is no need to register. what happens in your property is your business, no one else' s.

I have always maintained that if you are not planning to sell back to eskom/munic, there is no need to register. what happens in your property is your business, no one else' s.

Interesting discussion about the "Rules"

Not worth fitting these mounts at all. My panels are mounted with a 10 degree tilt facing SW. Not an ideal orientation but thats how the garage roofs are slopped. They are almost flat basically. I dont have water ingress and am off-grid. He would need 2 of those supports that cost as much as 1 Panel. Waste of money in my opinion. I am yet to see any datasheet say mounting them flat or at a slight angle with damage the structure of the panel.
I think they were just not mounted properly (too close to the end as one user mentioned) and the glass cracked/was defective from the get go. Its not the angle/slope. Do you guys know how hot the surface of a panel gets? After rain the water evaporates very quickly. Water sitting on the panel for the night won't do anything to them.
Thats just my 2 cents. I dont even have water draining clips and the panels are perfectly fine. Just on the edge there can be some dirt accumulation if its a quick rain but it always gets cleaned off if it rains for at least 15 minutes properly.
Tilt mounts cost 1.1k excluding the bolts etc. to fit on the roof. A new panel costs 1.1k. Just add more panels. Even if real estate is a problem, he would need to space the panels enough to avoid shading them with the tilt. Not worth it to me.

My take on this subject, after reading through the link I shared. Schedule 2 of Electricity regulation Act says that installation less than 100kw are exempted from registration. Meaning it is not compulsory for house holds to register, not sure if there is any house hold with over 100kw of solar install. Eskom or Municipality, have no mandate behind the meter on the customer's premises. There is no statutory requirements for solar system with capacity under 100kw to register with any distributor, CP, COJ included. So! People, if you have a letter from CP/COJ saying they are going to convert you to post paid, call it a bluff and just ignore them.

Also interested if @mzezman doesn't take it.

As hloc has said. It is not possible. You cant possibly have the inverter capacity to supply the whole street. All the fridges, geysers etc being supplied with a residential inverter? Nope, not a chance. Even if you manage your neighbourhood by some miracle, you will feed past the breaker and past the transformer? The inverter wont make it that far, and if it does, it has the other neighbourhoods to supply.
And also there is another problem, how exactly would your inverter feedback? Lets use a typical grid tied inverter. How exactly will the AC out go into the grid? If you messed up the install and succesfully did that, guess what would happen to your inverter? Big bang and lots of smoke. You cannot have 2 AC sources out of sync connected to each other. The smaller one (inverter) will lose that battle very quicly with the grid and blow up.
The approved inverters that can export have anti-islanding. They stop exporting when the grid goes down. And if that mechanism failed somehow, they will still trip as they dont have the capcity to do so.

You beat me to this point of over loading the inverter