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Switch to move non-essential circuits onto essential side.


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The non-essential side at my property is the sub-DB for the outbuildings. This carries a few plugs, a few lights, a 150L geyser with a 1.5kW element (usually turned off) and a 750kW pool pump.

On most days I can actually carry the whole lot on PV. You can see that once the battery is charged, the PV just tracks the other loads on the property, including the pool pump.

With all the load shedding lately, my pool pump doesn't get many hours in a day. This makes me unhappy.

The kill-a-watt I bought shows that excluding the geyser, the highest continuous load on that DB is about 1200W, and the highest peak would be about 2750.

OK... now here's a picture of the sub DB for the PV system. Note the isolator on the right.

This allows me to switch the essential circuits back to the grid if need be. Up is essentials fed by the inverter, down is essentials fed by grid, middle position is essentials not fed by anything (IE off). Thats a regular DIN sized switch. Since the inverter is rated at 4.6kW, I assume that switch can carry at least 20A.

Now, is it a stupid/illegal idea to have a switch like that for the sub-DB, so that I can move it from being fed by grid (when there is grid) to be being fed by PV (on a nice sunny day). OK... there's a danger in me forgetting to turn it back over, but I have to control that. I don't see why a switch that size can't fit into the main DB.

Is this stupid/illegal?

20230423_113253[1].jpg

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I have 5kw Deye with 150L geyser & oven on the non essential side. I lose a lot of PV generation during loadshedding, especially during stage 6.

I have been thinking of installing a switch-off to move non essential load over to smartload during loadshedding.

Am lookin for a wifi switch off & I will integrate with Homeassistant to automate it.

I think it should work without any issues.

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