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Eskom power fluctuating at 0.5 Kw

Featured Replies

Hi All.

Its been my first week after my installation (8kva Deye Inverter, 2 x Dyness 5.12kwh Lithium and 10 JA Solar panels 550w)

My whole house is connected to the inverter, except for two ovens and one geyser. City Power/Eskom is on 3 phase pre-paid.

Been happy so far, except that I have a Efergy monitor (real time energy monitor) connected to my Eskom 3phase feed into my home and it fluctuates at about 0.5Kw. (With all appliances connected to the Eskom feed off) Not a lot but it does add up over time.

My installer say it is normal but that does not make sense to me. Has anyone had a similar experience?

Strange thing is that if I switch my Main switch off at the DB it drops to 0kw.

Regards

20230624_173628.jpg

15 minutes ago, Avinesh said:

Hi All.

Its been my first week after my installation (8kva Deye Inverter, 2 x Dyness 5.12kwh Lithium and 10 JA Solar panels 550w)

My whole house is connected to the inverter, except for two ovens and one geyser. City Power/Eskom is on 3 phase pre-paid.

Been happy so far, except that I have a Efergy monitor (real time energy monitor) connected to my Eskom 3phase feed into my home and it fluctuates at about 0.5Kw. (With all appliances connected to the Eskom feed off) Not a lot but it does add up over time.

My installer say it is normal but that does not make sense to me. Has anyone had a similar experience?

Strange thing is that if I switch my Main switch off at the DB it drops to 0kw.

Regards

20230624_173628.jpg

If your inverter is in pass through or bypass (Eskom on) it might be the standby current of your inverter.      547 watts 2.4 amps.

Edited by TaliaB

27 minutes ago, Avinesh said:

Hi All.

Its been my first week after my installation (8kva Deye Inverter, 2 x Dyness 5.12kwh Lithium and 10 JA Solar panels 550w)

My whole house is connected to the inverter, except for two ovens and one geyser. City Power/Eskom is on 3 phase pre-paid.

Been happy so far, except that I have a Efergy monitor (real time energy monitor) connected to my Eskom 3phase feed into my home and it fluctuates at about 0.5Kw. (With all appliances connected to the Eskom feed off) Not a lot but it does add up over time.

My installer say it is normal but that does not make sense to me. Has anyone had a similar experience?

Strange thing is that if I switch my Main switch off at the DB it drops to 0kw.

Regards

20230624_173628.jpg

Part of this could be self consumption as mentioned but 500W is too high. You have 1 load not on the inverter that is still drawing from Eskom and it could be on one of the phases not on the inverter as the meter measures all 3 for power used. 

  • 1 month later...

It will be measuring 500 VA and reporting it as 0.5 kW. It's not measuring the true power factor. Inverters often have substantial capacitance across the utility input. This does not register as power on the house power meter, as it's designed to measure real power.

So this is normal and expected. You might find that the Efergy can measure power factor; if so, you'll find that it's likely around 0.1 (i.e. real power is only 0.1 times the apparent power).

  • 9 months later...
3 hours ago, Gavin van Dam said:

Have the same issue with new install. Efergy is showing 0.59kW while system is showing -0.01kW.

I've put it down to issues with the Efergy unit :)

Just like @Coulomb indicated some units measure VA and report it as Watts. Trust the power meter from grid supply side as correct. One can always switch on a limited load on the inverter and compare with the power meter. Use a know load and run it for 6min and get the different readings from each. Reading is thus for a 1/10th of an hour. 

On 2023/06/24 at 5:43 PM, Avinesh said:

Been happy so far, except that I have a Efergy monitor (real time energy monitor) connected to my Eskom 3phase feed into my home and it fluctuates at about 0.5Kw.

This "thing" does not measure Voltage, does it? If that's the case, it has no clue about the real Voltage for one but even worse, it has no idea of the powerfactor of the "consumption", which may well imply a whole lot less to just about zero real consumption...

Edited by Kalahari Meerkat

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