On 2023/05/25 at 6:18 PM, Antonio de Sa said:

Due to the load shedding, let's be honest (they own creation) they forced South African to (make a plan) so, lots of people have installed UPS's they need to be recharged after every 4 hours of load shedding. EishKom fix you Shi^&%^t and that will never happen.

I agree Eskom should supply power and not have schedules in the first place.....electricity is a human right.

On 2023/05/25 at 3:17 PM, tvic said:

I think if Eskom has any problem with people charging their inverters they should sort out load shedding. Otherwise they should shut up and deal with it.

And to add to this, I have paid to have my batteries and paid to have grid connection. Unless you contributed to that, you have no say as to when I should charge my batteries. Go and deal with real power consumers like mines and big industries before telling me when not to charge my batteries 

13 hours ago, Scorp007 said:

Perhaps not telling but asking us and blaming us for 1 stage higher LS. Thus with 4 hrs between cycles they want us to sit in the dark when the next stage starts or during it. 

Let me search for that finger ... Oh there it is, right in the center. There Eskom ... You can have two.

Oi Eskom, Im saving your grid! How about posting that to all media outlets!

Charging battery with Ra.

hi, 

i know little about anything but i was just wondering; why did eskom sue that little town in the free state for their solar? It seems to me that eskom and all the attending thieves care very little about actual electricity and load etc. Their main concern seems to be fleecing of the man on the street.

Along with this, is the fact that there are many huge corporations etc that are not being load-shed

 

please forgive me and correct me if there are any untruths.

 

Targeting the enterprising individuals that try to generate the maximum power themselves, but at the same time driving the EV agenda and not a word about the real load these things demand, nor any mention as to when they will be allowed to charge.
It's all about policing and controlling your every move.

 

19 hours ago, Bobster. said:

Family of mine in the UK and a friend in Belgium both have grid-tied systems installed

Well yes, many have installed such in Europe, most without battery, friends of mine also. They rely on the reliability of the grid. But since the gas crisis due to the Russia-Ukraine war, load shedding has become a point of discussion. Systems without battery wont help. Besides, they are bad business models: You sell energy during sunshine at a low tariff to buy it back at night at high tariff. The grid serves as their battery. But what if the grid goes down?

There is another fact to know about continental Europe: The peak load occurs not at evenings as in SA, but before lunch time, since they use to cook lunch while the industry is running. In this respect solar helps since its peak output is at lunch time. The daily load curve has flattened during midday.

 

1 hour ago, mcpizza said:

hi, 

i know little about anything but i was just wondering; why did eskom sue that little town in the free state for their solar? It seems to me that eskom and all the attending thieves care very little about actual electricity and load etc. Their main concern seems to be fleecing of the man on the street.

Along with this, is the fact that there are many huge corporations etc that are not being load-shed

 

please forgive me and correct me if there are any untruths.

 

This is Frankfort. Eskom's complaint was on technical grounds. They also made the rather pointed comment that if Frankfort were self-sufficient in terms of energy, they wouldn't need a grid connection. But they have retained that connection, and so they are bound to play by Eskom's rules.

understood, but why sue someone that is trying to lighten the load?

18 minutes ago, Beat said:

Well yes, many have installed such in Europe, most without battery, friends of mine also. They rely on the reliability of the grid. But since the gas crisis due to the Russia-Ukraine war, load shedding has become a point of discussion. Systems without battery wont help. Besides, they are bad business models: You sell energy during sunshine at a low tariff to buy it back at night at high tariff. The grid serves as their battery. But what if the grid goes down?

There is another fact to know about continental Europe: The peak load occurs not at evenings as in SA, but before lunch time, since they use to cook lunch while the industry is running. In this respect solar helps since its peak output is at lunch time. The daily load curve has flattened during midday.

 

Silly me! Expecting that usage patterns would be the same the world over. Though certainly UK and Belgium would have a greater difference than we do between summer and winter.

But still, my point is that there is a way for utilities/local governments to not only encourage but incentivise the uptake of PV and still make a profit. These folks are not in the business of running at a loss. As I said, it may be as simple as reducing their operating costs.

6 minutes ago, mcpizza said:

understood, but why sue someone that is trying to lighten the load?

This is interesting. It seems it was the other way around. That Rural Maintenance, the company involved, brought an action against Eskom when a dispute arose between the two parties. The court then dismissed Rural's application with costs.

See 
https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2023-04-21-eskom-sets-the-record-straight-on-frankfort-self-loading-shedding-case/

Edited May 27, 20233 yr by Bobster.

15 hours ago, Scorp007 said:

Perhaps not telling but asking us and blaming us for 1 stage higher LS. Thus with 4 hrs between cycles they want us to sit in the dark when the next stage starts or during it. 

I can't read the article linked to the in the OP because it is pay-walled. Could you?

This is important because I have read other reports on this same issue, and the way editors choose to present it varies a lot. Some are neutral, merely reporting what was said. Some use much more loaded language. Many do not directly quote Eskom, but paraphrase. So, as is so often the case, the version of the story that you read is going to effect your reaction.

I've seen nothing to say that Eskom are blaming. Unless we take the position that they have previously blamed people with geysers.

Indeed some of what has been said doesn't seem to come from Eskom at all. Under a report headlined "Eskom wants you to delay charging your inverters after load-shedding", the Sunday Times quote Ted Blom (who was actually speaking to Jacaranda FM) and one Dirk Groenewald who is the CEO of Mid-City Utilities who advertise themselves as an energy reseller. This highlights another problem - a lot of these people who are reporting weren't there. They got information from another media source. They also get input from non-Eskom sources, but the headlines don't tell you that.

Mid-City: “When power is restored after load-shedding and all appliances are still connected, the appliances start up simultaneously, using a lot of energy and causing a 'spike' in usage and demand.”

Mid-City, it seems, do a lot of work with smart metering, which would mean that they are in a position to monitor lots of properties in near real time.

Blom: “Heavy equipment that surges on and off can more than double your monthly account."

So this is clear, and it doesn't come from Eskom. Control your big loads and you can save your own money. Also, as we've long known, there is a spike on restoration. This is not a new concept, and Eskom and municipalities have been saying that we can help by, for eg, turning off the geyser at the DB and waiting a short while after restoration. Doing this staggers the demand that the geysers make, and reduces the chances of a trip during to high demand. 

Now, that's not Eskom telling us to do anything or getting heavy handed. That's them saying that this is what happens, and you can help reduce that by doing these things. 

I agree that really we shouldn't have to do these things, but the reality is that there is load shedding, we all know it, and maybe we can all pull together and draw a little of the sting. I like the way that COCT do this with their Power Heroes program. They incentivise those who sign up for reducing their load at certain times. So there's an actual carrot. There were similar schemes in the UK last winter.

OK... so what did Eskom actually SAY? Most reportage really seems to quote from an interview given to Jacaranda FM, so I've used their report.

Eskom’s group executive of distribution Monde Bala: “We believe that we can all reduce our electricity consumption just by using what you need. We need to switch off what we do not need at the time. We need to protect the infrastructure that we have, we need to stop the illegal connections and make payments of what we use.”

OK... so here he is making an appeal to all of us to do our little bit for the general good. Also he is mentioning illegal connections and non-payment, both of which are known to be persistent problems. 

Then Bala adds: "We have seen the phenom with the increase of the stages of loadshedding whereby immediately after loadshedding we are seeing a new peak now this is largely attributed to when the batteries charge up, so we are going to be running a program that seeks to shift the charging of the invertor systems to other periods and not immediately after loadshedding."

So there you have it. They are saying they are seeing a change in peaks after loadshedding, they attribute this to batteries, and they are going to address this. How do they address this? It can only be by means of an appeal to the public, with advice about what we each can do.

Additionally Segomoco Scheepers of Eskom said “This is going to be a very difficult winter and hence our plea to customers to reduce as far as they can to use only what they need and this goes to households, business, industries and so on as we are in a difficult space and we all need to make efforts to contribute.”

And that's about it. If you want to say that this is pointing a finger of blame, I suggest that they are saying that we can all do our bit so that this bad situation gets a little less bad for all of us. Of course we should have power all the time, but now that we know that ain't going to happen for at least the rest of this year, what do we do?

There's been a suggestion that all PV owners should have a co-ordinated strike and switch off their PV at the same time on the same date so as to cause them problems. But what if everybody played the game of controlling their geysers and, where possible, their inverters? Might that make a positive difference and allow Eskom to not eliminate but to reduce load shedding? Which outcome is the more desirable?

I sometimes do recharge my batteries from grid. My mother has a little UPS that does the same. There are two differences. Firstly her little system draws 500W at charge time. Mine, with the current settings, draws more like 4kW - so it's like having a geyser turned on. Naughty me. 

The second difference is that her UPS just starts charging immediately the power comes back. That's the way it's made and there's not much she can do about it. I can set my system to charge at a specified time. So I can avoid peak hours and, as long as loadshedding is done to schedule, I can avoid the post restoration peak. Anybody who has (EG) a Deye inverter and batteries but no PV can do the same.

I am great believer of the power of one. Because lots of ones become a big number. EG I am trying to control my water consumption. By myself I achieve virtually nothing. But if we all do the little bit we can easily do without actually inconveniencing ourselves that much, then the cumulative effect will be significant.

That's the light in which I think we should see what Eskom and these other experts have said. They are not blaming us for anything. They are saying that if we all take some simple measures, and, which may not apply to the average user of this forum, we all pay our bill and pay it on time, then we are contributing towards a reduction of the problem (and, according to Blom, we can save some money too). They are not coming for us. they are not blaming us, they are saying "you can help us, and in helping us you help everybody else."

It's not perfect. They shouldn't have to be saying that. But now that we're all in this situation, it's not an unreasonable request.
 

44 minutes ago, Beat said:

 Systems without battery wont help. Besides, they are bad business models: You sell energy during sunshine at a low tariff to buy it back at night at high tariff. The grid serves as their battery. But what if the grid goes down?

 

Luckily as it stands nothing is said that you may only have 1 inverter. 

I removed my panels from my battery inverter and added to the battery less grid tied. I am the control system and use the grid for battery charging. I find the time between sessions still OK for my load pattern. 

When having LS 14h to 18h there is no way I will not charge 17h to 21h when we have LS again at 22h to 02h like last night. 

Panels can also be switched(manual) to battery system if extended outings. Suits me fine. 

23 hours ago, Scorp007 said:

Luckily as it stands nothing is said that you may only have 1 inverter. 

I removed my panels from my battery inverter and added to the battery less grid tied. I am the control system and use the grid for battery charging. I find the time between sessions still OK for my load pattern. 

When having LS 14h to 18h there is no way I will not charge 17h to 21h when we have LS again at 22h to 02h like last night. 

Panels can also be switched(manual) to battery system if extended outings. Suits me fine. 

I don't really get what you want to say with reference to my statement.

On 2023/05/27 at 12:56 PM, Bobster. said:

The second difference is that her UPS just starts charging immediately the power comes back. That's the way it's made and there's not much she can do about it. I

Basically it could be helped with a delay relay that delays the power return to the UPS. However that only shifts the problem. Another means is to reduce the charging current to a minimum. Limiting parameters to this is to calculate the required current to recharge the batteries in the 2 hours left to the next LS after a 4 hours LS.

The fact is that pure UPS do not reduce power consumption, in contrary they increase it considering the losses. They only shift the consumption to the times when power is available.

Edited May 28, 20233 yr by Beat

3 hours ago, Beat said:

I don't really get what you want to say with reference to my statement.

What I was saying one can use a battery less system and combine it with a battery system as per this system Steve installed. 

1 x Kodak grid tied at the top and 2 x Kodak OG10's battery inverters. 

20 hours ago, Scorp007 said:

1 x Kodak grid tied at the top and 2 x Kodak OG10's battery inverters. 

Wow! What an installation!

Well, I preferred a straight forward system with 2 Axpert/Synerji MKS 5K off-grid inverters in parallel. They feed the whole DB, no nonessentials, and do the same job as yours, except no export to the grid.

6 minutes ago, Beat said:

Wow! What an installation!

Well, I preferred a straight forward system with 2 Axpert/Synerji MKS 5K off-grid inverters in parallel. They feed the whole DB, no nonessentials, and do the same job as yours, except no export to the grid.

It's interesting how a few guys that are consultants for PV run more than 1 inverter yet most will only want 1 or like in your case 2 of the same units. 

One such consultant is running 4. 

The great thing of non essential side is you are not limited by the inverter size when you have grid power. 

Edited May 29, 20233 yr by Scorp007

On 2023/05/28 at 1:39 PM, Beat said:

Basically it could be helped with a delay relay that delays the power return to the UPS. However that only shifts the problem. Another means is to reduce the charging current to a minimum. Limiting parameters to this is to calculate the required current to recharge the batteries in the 2 hours left to the next LS after a 4 hours LS.

It doesn't have that functionality. "Inverter" is a vague term that spreads a long way. My Goodwe that has all the programmability that you describe is an "inverter". My mother's device is one of those old-fashioned plug in devices with no programmability.  It sees grid, it uses it. It sees no grid, it draws from battery. No other options.

Edited June 4, 20233 yr by Bobster.
spelling

On 2023/05/29 at 1:47 PM, Beat said:

Wow! What an installation

Very impressive here is the completed project🤩