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Peter V

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Everything posted by Peter V

  1. Sounds like a huge overkill to me. We use around 16kWh per day perhaps as much as 21kWh in summer with aircons running. Grid consumption is less than 2kWh on nice sunny days and average of less than 4 kWh since panels were installed in Feb 2022. Our system is 5kVA inverter 10 KW battery and 4,32 KWp paneling. All about managing consumption. Our big win was installing solar water heating about 8 years ago (different forum members will argue differently, so follow your own lead.) People have become fixated on Sunsynk and reports out there are telling me their service levels dealing with failures have suffered due to their popularity. Consider other options (BTW, Sunsynk was not an option when I started my journey into battery back up).
  2. Very similar setup capacity wise with similar consumption. Only time I use more is on very hot summer days when load shedding allows me to run a few aircon units (Aircons on non-essential circuits).
  3. My installer wired in a red led voltage indicator (shines red and shows battery voltage) which illuminates when load shedding. I think he used one of the auxiliary outputs on my Multiplus.
  4. I have the same battery (FW) so cares. At least I can sleep at night knowing it just keeps ticking along.
  5. Hi, I may not be interpreting your set up correctly. According to TP-Link guidelines, your Decos should be set up in Access point mode if you use a router. The router should sit between your fibre connection and the APs (Decos), whether wired or wireless. I understand your set up as internet Deco router iHost. This will cause DNS conflicts. Personally, I use my first Deco as the router and achieve full download speeds despite Afrihost stating this could slow down things. When you do get things going let us all know how it's working.
  6. I have Victron and happy with my choice. Sunsynk was in its infancy at the time. Retrospectively, I could have left R40K in my pocket had I gone Sunsynk.
  7. BTW, de-ionised water is expensive to produce requiring special equipment and is corrosive.
  8. Anyone in East London offering the service?
  9. Anyone out there using the iHost yet. Please share your current experience. The web does not provide much other than the initial reviews around March / April this year.
  10. Not sure whether relevant, but also have an old Conlog. My installer set the grid set point at 80W rather than the recommended 50W for Victron Multiplus because of the issue you describe.
  11. From the warrant I read, "Discharges deeper than 80% DoD and less than 80% DoD are also counted into to the total number of cycles on a pro rata basis." I interpret your example as being two by 50% cycles, i.e. one full cycle over two days. However, a discharge to 10% will be 90/80 cycles or 1,13. In my case, I set my on grid limit to 35% DOD and force charge back to 100% if I have inclement weather so theoretically my battery is only cycling around 300 times p.a. Do you concur?
  12. Your inverter has a self-consumption of around 2 kWh per day and your battery cycling is not 100% efficient. This will account for some of the increased power consumption you are seeing. Do other checks as suggested elsewhere in this post.
  13. Anyone running a heat pump in conjunction with solar water heating? Interest is academic at this stage as I probably use less than 150kWh of power pa (mostly from battery) to boost water temperature first thing in the morning. Even though I have PV, it still makes no financial sense despite the horrific power price increases of recent times. Similarly I do not believe there is an economic case for a heat pump other than a leaning towards the green brigade. If we have loadshedding, we have cold water on cold nights unless I remember to choose another timer on the smart geyser switch.
  14. A technology I understand and have implemented in many industrial applications over the years. It is not cheap to implement, membranes have a finite life and roughly speaking constitute around 80% of the initial installation cost. RO plants are also quite energy hungry.with high pressure pumps. The RO company was based in Stellenbosch and as I recall was started by a bunch of Stellenbosch Univerity whizz kids. I will differ with you on rights to water but agree on the total lack of competence or integrity in managing the resource these days.
  15. Your loads are big, in particular those aircons so keep them along with geysers, oven, pool as non-essential loads. With those off during load shedding and some discipline, your 8kW inverter and 10 KW of battery should be fine. Have you thought about the Sunsynk batteries which in conjunction with the inverter will extend your inverter warranty to 10 years.
  16. Loop pos to neg on panel connectors. Last pos and first neg to plug.
  17. For that money you need to look at an Apert or clone and a battery with second life cells. I think you may still be shy to get it installed.
  18. Not entirely sure. I know thre is something the installer called an atempuration valve which he told me bleeds cold water into the system if the temperature goes to high. This I'm told was a problem with the earlier vacuum tube systems which kept popping the RV on very hot days. Something else to check - if your tubes have become opaque rather than the nice shiny black they have lost vacuum.
  19. Hi All, I have a 200 litre tank and a 20 vacuum tube collector. Been up for 6 years now. We are coastal so set up is thermsyphon not pumped. My set up is for electrical heating (2 kW element) for 1 hr first thing in the morning. Element kicks in no more than 40 times a year usually on cold witer nights.
  20. I will probably be in our home for another 5 or so years so both my investment in PV and my battery upgrade made no sense at all but I treated the investment as sunk capital and saved ourselves the frustration of load shedding and given myself R1500 per month to spend on beer.
  21. That's where you have it wrong. Water constitutionally belongs to the people of South Africa. It's a scarce resource and access needs to be managed. Imagine a farmer putting up a major dam on his land and the 50 farmers down stream are then left without.
  22. Panels went up in February last year. Average consumption till the was around 17kWh/day. Average since then about 3,5 kWh/day. System 5kVA inverter, 10/8 FW battery and 4,32 kWp panels. My big save was upgrading the battery from 5 kW to 10 which takes me through the night. My big save 7 years ago was a solar water heating system.
  23. Have you considered or checked that your quotes include the electrical C.O.C. and does the work allow for separation of non-essential circuits (geyser, pool pump, oven, aircons). Will the equipment you have selected run the full three hours of load shedding bearing in mind the 2,6kW (not kv) battery will effectively only give you 2,08 kWh of energy. More importantly, with stage 5/6 load shedding where one cycle could follow an hour after the last, can your batteries charge quicly enough. Sad to say, your ask is big for the money you have. This is about what the better "trolley" type inverters cost.
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