Robbo

My mate didnt top up for July and August and bought R500 today.
He was charged R250 fees plus VAT so R287.50 of charges.
So he got 78.2kwh for the remaining R212.50.
I havent bought yet but it seems like there is some sort of accumulation of fees unfortunately.

So I Bought R600 of power today through Standardbank banking app.
 
R300 went to services so they did collect the arrears on services from Aug in Sep.

R345 incl Vat.

Then I got 93.80 units for the remaining R255 (R2.71 / unit)


so it does not save you money to buy in Bulk every 6 months as they will eat you money for the fees.

So I need 120 units a month and that incl fees will now cost me R555.20 (R4.62 / unit) if you include the service fees in the units.

No way to get 120 units without them getting their cut...

seems like I should get another battery and disconnect from City Power 😞


Sunsynk Batt R24 000 - save R555 a month so payback is 3.6 years.......

if you can disconnect from City Power..... ( i have a Gennie for Bad days 😉   )

 

Nothing was added to my statement

Heres how I read it:
You pay R300
They take off the service fee which is R150 + R22.50 (VAT at 15%) = R172.50
Now you have R300 - R172.50 = R127.50 left to purchase electricity.
Rate per kwh is (as you have above) R2.3634 + VAT. So R2.7179/kwh incl VAT
Now R127.50 divided by the R2.7179 = 46.91kwh which agrees to what you got.

Yes please!

Please let us know what your statement looks like.

I never bought in July. I bought R400 in August to test and the R230 from July did not carry over. I received my 62.5 units

I was also looking for a solution here
If you have some energy meter (measuring total consumed kWh). You can try the following (I use it in packages\prepaid.yaml). My energy from the grid is measured by the sunsynk inverter, but any meter should work
You can now create an automation if sensor.prepaid_units_left<20 to send you a message etc...
 
# A sensor that indicates how many prepaid units you have left # # 1. Enter the units using "input_test.prepaid_units" # 2. An automation save the sum of the enetered units + grid total # 3. The sensor displays the saved value - the current grid total automation: - id: "prepaid-set-units" alias: Prepaid - set units initial_state: true trigger: - platform: state entity_id: sensor.prepaid_units_left condition: "{{ states('sensor.prepaid_units_left') | float < 0 }}" action: - service: input_text.set_value target: entity_id: input_text.prepaid_units data: value: > {% set units = states('input_text.prepaid_units') | float %} {% set total = states('sensor.ss_total_grid_import') | float %} {{ (units+total) | round(2) }} input_text: prepaid_units: name: Enter Prepaid units from meter pattern: '\d+(\.\d+)?' mode: password icon: mdi:home-lightning-bolt-outline min: 1 max: 10 template: - sensor: - name: "Prepaid units left" icon: mdi:home-lightning-bolt-outline unit_of_measurement: "kWh" state: > {% set units = states('input_text.prepaid_units') | float %} {% set total = states('sensor.ss_total_grid_import') | float %} {% if (units-total) > 999 %}999.999{% else %}{{ (units-total) | round(1) }}{% endif %}  

I'm exactly the same, and add Shelly onto that list. Also just got an echo dot to test with as well.
HA with automations and Node Red took me from 85% to 95% off grid, just by planning usage times and not running things when the solar forecast is poor.

I have an account with Grid Hosting - https://1-grid.com/ and bought it from them.

I currently use this:
https://youtu.be/AK5E2T5tWyM
But if I could get a free website I would transition to this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXAwT9N-7Hw
Or if you dont mind paying something use NabuCasa which is the official one.

I went off grid for water about a month ago. My borehole is only 37m so you might need a bit more power in the borehole pump than me.
The main thing from my perspective was to get a VSD pump for both the borehole and the booster pumps. These types of pumps have a softer start and therefore dont put a huge strain on the inverter at startup. i.e on startup they will slowly increase their power consumption as opposed to the cheaper pumps that can pull 3x or more their rated power on startup.
This is quite a big deal in an off grid water scenario as every time you open a tap that booster pump runs, so if it spikes and then settles at 0.75kw every time you wash your hands it does put strain on the system. My DAB Esybox booster pump will pull 200W to 600W the majority of the time but can ramp up to 1.1kW if I have irrigation and shower and a tap going.
My borehole pump is a Grundfos 0.55kw VSD, again gentle startup but I also have a smart switch connected to it so that it only runs on sunny days. My tank is 5000l so I can wait a day or 2 easily if its raining.

Yeah, I used 9.7kwh from the grid in all of September and have now used more than that in the last 2 days.
It always gets me thinking if COJ starts charging a connection fee for prepaid, how big a gennie I will need to add for these cloudy periods...

I would need atleat a 8kva one since I still have 4kw element geyser and I would need to heat water. It looks like it's not anyone's best interest for the country's utility to fail.
Maybe it might be good for the generator sales but not anyone else.

I went the Thingwala route since they were willing to work with me to ensure compatibility with my older TSE model. 
Home Assistant integration was pretty straightforward and On/Off element functionality and water temperature is now available to me in Apple HomeKit via the Homekit Bridge, and additionally other entities that can also be exposed and used if required in HA and/or Node Red.
 

This is not possible, as all sensors & all inverters use the same availability topic - the concept of availability is per addon, not inverter, not sensors.
 
So something else is wrong and won't be able to help without more details, which can be captured in the Issue
 
https://kellerza.github.io/sunsynk/reference/schedules
 
You get the default/"template" if you reset your config. The quoted schedule is from the default.

_power changed to _energy a looong time ago. But it might be that the previous version of the addon still substituted all those deprecated sensors. Now it will just raise a warning
If you fixed it, the entity_ids will be different in HA and you need to update your Energy settings and UI elements to use the new sensor entity_ids (or rename the entities, but I won't advise that)
Look at Settings -> Devices & Services -> Devices and you can open the device and see all it's associated sensors.

If still not working, open an Issue on github with more detail
 
 

v1.9.4
Updates
You can now provide a sensor for your total solar output. There is a new entities attribute called pv_total:
If a sensor is provided it becomes clickable to show historical data. If no sensor is provided the card will continue to use the internal logic to calculate the total pv based on pv1+pv2+pv3+pv4

I bought a Intel NUC off facebook marketplace, nothing special, a celeron with 4gig ram for R1000. Then bought a new 128gig SSD for it. Runs HAOS perfectly and far more powerful than a rpi.

@Robbo Sure here you go
type: vertical-stack cards: - type: horizontal-stack cards: - type: tile entity: switch.toggle_system_timer name: System Timer vertical: true icon: mdi:timer-cog-outline - type: tile entity: switch.toggle_priority_load name: Priority Load vertical: true icon: '' - type: entities entities: - entity: switch.toggle_grid_charge_timezone1 type: custom:multiple-entity-row name: Timeslot 1 toggle: true state_header: Charge state_color: true entities: - entity: sensor.time_zone1 name: From - entity: sensor.time_zone2 name: To - entity: number.set_soc_timezone1 name: SOC format: precision0 - entity: switch.toggle_grid_charge_timezone2 type: custom:multiple-entity-row name: Timeslot 2 toggle: true state_header: Charge state_color: true entities: - entity: sensor.time_zone2 name: From - entity: sensor.time_zone3 name: To - entity: number.set_soc_timezone2 name: SOC format: precision0 - entity: switch.toggle_grid_charge_timezone3 type: custom:multiple-entity-row name: Timeslot 3 toggle: true state_header: Charge state_color: true entities: - entity: sensor.time_zone3 name: From - entity: sensor.time_zone4 name: To - entity: number.set_soc_timezone3 name: SOC format: precision0 - entity: switch.toggle_grid_charge_timezone4 type: custom:multiple-entity-row name: Timeslot 4 toggle: true state_header: Charge state_color: true entities: - entity: sensor.time_zone4 name: From - entity: sensor.time_zone5 name: To - entity: number.set_soc_timezone4 name: SOC format: precision0 - entity: switch.toggle_grid_charge_timezone5 type: custom:multiple-entity-row name: Timeslot 5 toggle: true state_header: Charge state_color: true entities: - entity: sensor.time_zone5 name: From - entity: sensor.time_zone6 name: To - entity: number.set_soc_timezone5 name: SOC format: precision0 - entity: switch.toggle_grid_charge_timezone6 type: custom:multiple-entity-row name: Timeslot 6 toggle: true state_header: Charge state_color: true entities: - entity: sensor.time_zone6 name: From - entity: sensor.time_zone1 name: To - entity: number.set_soc_timezone6 name: SOC format: precision0 state_color: true  

Hello everyone! 

I am a Masters student at the Nordakademie University in Germany and I am looking for participants for my dissertation survey and ALL of you who are in this forum are exactly the right people! It's about people who are interested in renewable energies. I am interested in anyone who uses the available technologies - or maybe has even had an idea how to improve the set-up or played around a bit with it. As long as you care just a tiny bit about renewable energies, you are perfect for my survey! 
If you have already read this far, please take part  
https://forms.office.com/e/9Q0z7r21W8

The survey is of course anonymous and the results will only be used in the context of my master thesis. You only need 5-10 minutes of your time. You get loads of good karma for taking part and the additional good feeling of knowing that you helped out a student.  

Sunny greetings from Hamburg, Germany
Freya 

PS: this post is authorised and I am extremely grateful for being allowed to post my survey here and I hope lots of you will take the chance and take part!

I'm in central Sandton but after many water pipe breaks in the area we got fed up and decided to look after ourselves. We are still connected to municipal water but have installed a manifold where we can switch between that and borehole. The installer suggested still switching over to the municipal feed for short periods over the next few month so that we slowly use less and less, that way the estimates they charge on water usage will also get smaller.
I essentially want the best of all worlds and be connected to the municipal water for an extra back up. The chance of both systems going down at the same time must be small (touch wood). So will see what CoJ does.
One other point to remember when running the borehole water into your house long term, the water quality is normally quite easily and cheaply made drinkable, however there might be more required to protect your pipes from corrosion of that water.

I honestly dont know enough to comment on that!
In addition to the normal UV light and 3 big blue filters (5micron, charcoal and 0.5micron) we also have a ph canister and a calcite canister. Seems to do the trick.
Officially all we would need is the UV light based on the water testing results to make it potable, but the wife was not keen on that so here we are.

Same here 

Thank you, Do you not have to apply for a borehole before drilling? Did you do this? 
 
https://www.joburg.org.za/departments_/Documents/Development Planning/Form 10 Borehole.pdf