Hyarion

We have multiple changeovers in our DB board. 3 x Aircons, pool pump and irrigation pump. Allows us to have control over what runs on what, and especially if we have someone house-sit, then we can put all of them on Grid so there's no risk of them overloading the inverter. We know what we can/can't run together, but someone house-sitting would not. Also useful for things like I prefer the pool pump to be on grid (hybrid inverter will still supply if there's enough solar), but during extended loadshedding periods it was nice to be able to switch it over for a day when the sun was shining so the pool wouldn't go green. Some electricians/solar-installers are funny about it, had more than 1 argue with me "but you don't need one, just pick grid or solar and stick with it". And one who outright told me "I refuse to install a changeover because you don't need one". He obviously didn't get any work from me. But most are more than happy to install changeover switches.

Had an interesting chat with the engineer who came to check my solar installation and he had a small rant about the COCs. You can get an electrician out to e.g. replace a light switch, then get a COC which only covers the new light switch, and everyone will accept it for a house transfer... He said he had a job where he was asked to do the COC for a house sale. He drew big red lines and wrote in big red writing that it fails inspection. That the house does not pass COC. Estate agent accepted it. Deeds office accepted it. Transfer went through and then the new owner tried to report him for issuing a bad COC and he had to go and point out the housed failed all checks, it should never have been allowed to be sold.

I have 2 Shotos. I can confirm that the 4.8 is 15S and 5.1 is 16S. Can't mix them. Voltages required for charging are different, you'll either damage the 4.8's or under-charge the 5.1's. Shoto SA didn't even like me wanting to add a 2nd 4.8 to my existing 4.8 (same model) when they were manufactured 2 years apart.

I'm busy getting quotes for replacement aircon and new, I'm not an installer, but have learnt a bit from the various quotes and research that might help: If you're dealing with a very hot area, make sure you have insulation. Without insulation you're going to have the aircon(s) working way harder than needed. Insulation helps with keeping it cool in summer. It's not just about keeping it warm in winter. Get a trust-worthy installer - I've seen 2 really bad installs (one at a friend, one at my work many years ago) where the drip-pipe was done badly and resulted in water dripping inside. Almost every installer I've had come to quote has advised against using pumps for the drip-pipe (except for 1 installer who wanted to use them everywhere). Apparently they need constant maintenance and if anything goes wrong with a pump you're going to have water leaking everywhere.

We use around 300-350kWh from Grid/Eskom per month now. Solar + Battery accounts for approx. 65% of our usage. More batteries would increase that percentage but we don't really have the space for more.

I can't speak to whether it'll work with your version of geyserwise hardware, but in terms of loadshedding, my geyserwala is on non-essential and loses power during loadshedding. I havn't had any issues with home-assistant integration in this regard. It just means I don't have temperature data for the loadshedding time period. But I can still go look at what the temp was before loadshedding kicked in if I really need to know. I would recommend not worrying about trying to power the panel during loadshedding. It's not like you can do much with it during that time.

I second Tailscale. It works beautifully. And very user-friendly. Free for up to 3 users. Install the plugin for home assistant, install the app on your phone/laptop and whenever you want to connect just connect on tailscale and then access home assistant as if you're at home on your wifi.

Have you tried changing the "Grid trickle feed" value yet? I'm not sure if that's what it's called on Deye, that's the name in Sunsynk inverters. I think the default is 20W, basically it tries to always pull that minimum amount from the grid. When you have a big load that suddenly turns off there can be a brief period where the inverter sends power back to the grid. The trickle feed helps buffer against that. If you don't have big loads one can often get away with 20W or less. In my case I have a pool pump and an old aircon, I've had to bump mine up to 70W to prevent the prepaid meter turning off. Try upping that value by 10 or 20W at a time and see if it helps.

Yes. I installed one a few months ago and it's been awesome. Also great to be able to configure multiple timers with more precision. From the website FAQ: "It has been tested to work with the Geyserwise MAX, Delta-T, TSE1 and the legacy TSE models"

I currently have 2kW of solar panels and a Sunsynk inverter (panels existed when I bought the house, the inverter is new). After many months of waiting, I finally got my certificate in Feb this year to say the system is approved and all is good. The installer who replace the inverter was the one who did the application for me. He has since closed his business and gone to work for a much bigger company. Now I wish to add another 3kW of solar panels, but I'm finding it difficult to figure out what is required to apply/register for this. I started filling out the CoCT solar application form, ticking the "Change to System", but realized by the end that nothing changes on the form. Nowhere does the form ask for number of solar panels, wattage or voltage. It only asks about the capabilities of the inverter. I have all the documents the installer submitted for me previously, and it appears the only place the panels are listed is on the diagram. I'm assuming then that I probably just submit an identical application and a different diagram? I tried emailing the city department, but it's taken them 4 weeks to reply with a standard set of links about installing a new system. Has anyone in Cape Town had any experience with how to deal with adding additional panels?

I can recommend looking at the inverter trolley options on Geewiz, making sure to pick a lithium battery option and not lead-acid. Less portable but you'll typically get double the capacity of a similarly priced ecoflow unit. A single 100A battery trolley will probably last you just over 2 hours if you're gaming (more if you're just using it for web browsing, documents, etc). A 2 x 100A battery trolley will most likely last you fine through a 4.5hr loadshedding slot.

I had a neighbour ask me to review their contract and have looked into them for friends. Most important detail some people miss: GoSolr is rent-only. i.e. you never pay off the system, you never own it. The main take-away is that at the moment it seems their initial sales and installation are great, the equipment they install is great, but once it's installed it's very very difficult to get hold of them, especially if they need to make any changes/fixes to the system. Hello Peter will give you a lot of stories along those lines too. 2 different neighbours who have them said the same thing. Having read through their terms and conditions, I highly recommend you read any contract in detail. There's quite a few 'gotchas' that may or may not be of concern to you. In particular these stood out for me: The monthly cost will increase "based on CPI". It's generically worded enough that they could abuse it with pretty high increases annually if they wish. They reserve the right to at any stage switch to billing you based on the kWh the panels produce instead of the fixed monthly fee. If they do this, you have 30 days to _notice_ they've done this and demand they change the billing back, if you don't notice it, then you're stuck with being billed for the power the panels produce regardless of whether you use it or not. If they ever decide to connect the system to export power, they get the full financial benefit of all exported power. i.e. you sign away rights to that "income". If you cancel the deal - including e.g. if you sell your house and the new owner doesn't want the system - they will come and remove the system but will not do any maintenance on the building such as filling holes or anything like that. I get that it's to protect them from owners demanding they repaint walls and excessive stuff, but the way it's worded makes it sound like they'll do the bare minimum when removing and leave you with the effort of cleaning up. On the bright side though, the penalty for cancellation and even early cancellation is not high, something like R10k (I can't quite remember amount, but I know it was way less than I thought it would be) Doing some maths, if you plan on living in your house for more than 5 years, you're better off finding a rent-to-own solution or getting financing. If, like my neighbour, you plan on selling in 2 years time anyways, then it's not a bad solution.

Don't forget to add the cost of the new prepaid meter required to support feed-in. Currently R12k. They are working on reducing this cost to around R5k-R6k. I also did the maths, and basically unless you have a full 5kW of _unused_ solar panel power to feed in, it's not worth it. Your average 3.6kW or even most 5kW installs that are using most of their solar power - would take 6+ years just to recover the cost of the prepaid meter installation.

Naming threw me, this appears to be the 5.12kWh battery: https://www.sunsynk.org/ip65-battery Up to 32 in parallel for 163kWh 😅

According to their website, it's either 8 or 16 as max: https://www.sunsynk.org/532kwh-battery (this isn't the exact model you have though) At the top it says In the specs listed it has: I suspect it's 16 as this is quite a common number for the communication protocols.