33 minutes ago, 87 Dream said:

All your points are heading into a successful direction. Many ways to skin this cat. Firstly I cannot comment on how Sunsynks work in parallel or are broken up into 3 phases & how they share battery storage. 

What I can talk about is Voltronics and it might contribute to your case in point.

How they work is as follows: If you want to feed officially 3 phase electricity at the Main DB source. You can have them all paralleled & then split phase them via a menu in the settings. Tell them they are now in different phases & they are fed with the individual phase Live wires. They unfortunately will need to be tied to the same battery bank. So if it was 8kW inverters your minimum energy requirements are a battery of at least (8kW X 3phases) 24kWh size. 

Another option: At each phase Sub DB you can add power. Eg. Main house on a phase & the other two homes on the other two phases. 

Add an independent Axpert 8kW to each phase. Basically it's 3 separate Single Phase systems. 

The Sunsynk Mafia will have to weigh in on how Sunsynk manages to Parallel & also if the above I have explained is possible. 

Please don't bite my leg off guys & say I'm punting Voltronics 😂😂😂you already have Sunsynk, stick with what you know. I'm just curious how this will be setup on your site.

@Sareldon't think there is a cost effective way of getting the Diehl involved in this setup. The mini grid "Factor of one" formula will mean that Brickman will have a Sunsynk connected without Solar panels. Because his array is already of size for the energy requirements if I'm not mistaken. So his problems are when its loadshed the Diehl is shutdown. I know that Fronius & Victron have a stable well documented Mini grid platform. To my mind that can be replicated by any machine like Voltronics or Sunsynk. Provided the source power AC Input is clean (Smooth Pure Sine waveform). & off course the energy available is sufficient for the demand, Factor 1.

@Brickmanyou have brought up a very interesting case study 🍺🍺☺️

87

 

 

What about this :

We do Voltronics at each of the other houses and set them up in "Offgrid mode" so to speak. Split Db running the essentials -  with changeover for bypassing the Inverter .....You did suggest Voltronics didn't you🤣 By essentials in this case I mean all plugs and lights. One house on phase A, One phase B, Main house phase C)

Each one with an appropriately sized battery and PV array. This way I get them involved in managing their own consumption.

Balance is drawn from the Sunsynk 3 phase "Main supply" fed from my house.

50 minutes ago, 87 Dream said:

This will most definitely work Brickman, most importantly the Axpert can run batteryless until you have a good permanent Battery solution. So it can run on your current setup & you can gradually plan your upgrades.

My Air BnB secondary home has just received an upgrade to this very Nature. Plugs & lights are essential Sub DB. Only Stove & geyser left on the grid in the main DB. When I grow my battery bank I will eventually add the Geyser under a smart breaker.

In the long run, the Axperts are just bang for buck value. Another small plus, our batteries have Solar Assistant built in, so each inverter having its our battery bank doubles up with the logging & monitoring built in. 

If you are the landlord you basically have non invasive control of the inverter & energy metering on your phone or PC without troubling your tenants. You can also bill them accordingly using these numbers. 

87

 

 

Looks like you have a winner on your hands with your batteries.

Think we are systematically moving towards a workable solution.

Just shows what one can come up with just by sharing ideas and opinions.

 

Talking 3 phase from Eskom ... isnt that what makes the bill so high ... reducing the supply to a single phase supply would cut the bill considerably ... and you then have a just in case backup if the "off grid part goes belly up after 4 days of bad weather for example ... even if it is just until the changes are completed ? 

Edited October 30, 20214 yr by isetech

20 minutes ago, isetech said:

Talking 3 phase from Eskom ... isnt that what makes the bill so high ... reducing the supply to a single phase supply would cut the bill considerably ... and you then have a just in case backup if the "off grid part goes belly up after 4 days of bad weather for example ... even if it is just until the changes are completed ? 

True @isetechits the size of the connection which then gives a certain Fixed daily charge PLUS consumption @ R1.78 + Vat per kwh.

At the moment we have a 100kva 3 phase connection which on Landrate 3 costs us R93.33 + Vat per day in Network Capacity Charge. The additional R32.54 + Vat per day Service charge stays constant across Landrate Tariffs 1, 2 and 3

If we downgrade to 50kva 3 phase (Landrate 2) Network Charge deceases to R58.38+Vat/ day. - Saving +-R1,050 + Vat/ month. But this will cost me about R11,000 for the conversion.

Further downgrade to Landrate 1 is  25kva 3 phase and 16kva Single Phase, both @ R37.98+Vat/ day. - Saving another +- R600 + Vat/ month. Not sure about the conversion cost here (didn't ask)

The issue is for the immediate future we have to supply 3 households at current useage. 50kva maybe but 25kva or worse 16kva - No chance.

Besides that the cables sizing was done for the load divided across 3 phases, so we have to take that into account also.

The ideal jump would be to their Ruraflex Gen Tariff, which allows on site generation and your Network Capacity is only charged for your physical maximum demand kva peak ( over a 30 minute period I think ) during the month - That is R35.53+vat per kva per month. The energy use is charged according to Time of Use periods. Low and High demand seasons and Peak, standard and off peak each day.

The issue here is it will cost me R60k to get onto it.

That is where this thread started.

Waking up old thread.

What did you do?

I'm at the the same point now. 50kva Landrate with fixed cost of 4k. To go to Ruraflex is 36k for TOU conversion + 114k deposit. 76k if you sign debit order. And then still a fixed cost of 1k.

30kw 3ph Fox solar system.

Vtcza you might want to look at our free simulator to assess your situation
solarsim.multiwatt.co.za

The paid version is actually what you want but you can wangle your way around grid charges by playing with your effective "R/kWh" (referred to as a Blended cost of Energy)

Let me know what you think - I may even do a free analysis for you

On 2026/07/20 at 2:53 PM, Multiwatt said:

Vtcza you might want to look at our free simulator to assess your situation
solarsim.multiwatt.co.za

The paid version is actually what you want but you can wangle your way around grid charges by playing with your effective "R/kWh" (referred to as a Blended cost of Energy)

Let me know what you think - I may even do a free analysis for you

Hi @Multiwatt, I'd be keen to use your simulator but your website seems to be down.