My electrician installed 10 x 555 Longi panels to my existing 11kva mecer inverter with 2x mercer 4.8kva batteries. Panels are 2 strings of 4 and 6 panels . I use the Watcpower App. App shows that panels produce energy but I have not seen seen any reduction in my electricity account. Can anyone recommend a mercer accredited and reliable installer that can assess my system. Randburg 

Hi @Shaheed A. Did your electrician split your db?

Make sure your bill/meter is getting a actual reading. Instead if an estimate. Go read your meter yourself. 

Our municipality is estimating my meter. Actual reading is due by Aug. They over estimated by almost 500 units thus far. As ive installed gas appliances and PV panels since

You should see a big difference if everything has been setup correctly.

In summer months I now use less than R50 per month for electricity, some months zero.

Contact @Steve87

Loadfed.co.za 

And get him to install solar assistant for you at the same time

Edited July 6, 20232 yr by abd7

I had the same issue when I did my install. Got the electrician to come back and revert the db back and had him install the sonoff loadshedder kit... have seen a huge drop since then. The geyser is the biggest power consumer, so makes sense to have the solar do the hard stuff if possible 

22 hours ago, Shaheed A said:

My electrician installed 10 x 555 Longi panels to my existing 11kva mecer inverter with 2x mercer 4.8kva batteries. Panels are 2 strings of 4 and 6 panels . I use the Watcpower App. App shows that panels produce energy but I have not seen seen any reduction in my electricity account. Can anyone recommend a mercer accredited and reliable installer that can assess my system. Randburg 

A classical case of settings not done to create savings but to have power during LS. 

If you can use the power during day time via solar you should see a substantial saving even if you just heat the geyser during the day. 

Ensure battery does discharge after sunset. 

17 minutes ago, Scorp007 said:

A classical case of settings not done to create savings but to have power during LS. 

Yip settings not done right or for the wrong purpose could result in this scenario for sure.
Settings to keep batteries full for loadshedding backup will def use more grid power and negate some if not all the potential savings.
And of course as some have mentioned, the geyser, not set right that can waste a lot of cash on a solar system if not configured correctly.

4 minutes ago, WannabeSolarSparky said:

Yip settings not done right or for the wrong purpose could result in this scenario for sure.
Settings to keep batteries full for loadshedding backup will def use more grid power and negate some if not all the potential savings.
And of course as some have mentioned, the geyser, not set right that can waste a lot of cash on a solar system if not configured correctly.

One can compare this to a recent install where the sparky set the SOC to 90% and panels idling. This cannot provide much saving. 

If battery is small and grid is constantly used to charge the battery before it gets discharged just to be charged from grid again is also a common mistake. 

Edited July 5, 20232 yr by Scorp007

On 2023/07/04 at 10:41 PM, Shaheed A said:

My electrician installed 10 x 555 Longi panels to my existing 11kva mecer inverter with 2x mercer 4.8kva batteries. Panels are 2 strings of 4 and 6 panels . I use the Watcpower App. App shows that panels produce energy but I have not seen seen any reduction in my electricity account. Can anyone recommend a mercer accredited and reliable installer that can assess my system. Randburg 

What tariff are you on? If you're on the default post-paid tariff you'll be getting billed probably 60 days behind consumption, and it will take a billing cycle or two for the reduction to show. 

Also you will continue to pay the fixed fees on your account, even if you drive your consumption down to zero. 

Edited July 6, 20232 yr by Bobster.
Too/two

On 2023/07/05 at 8:30 PM, DeezGP said:

Hi @Shaheed A. Did your electrician split your db?

Yes.  It seems the setting is the issue. Can anyone recommend an reliable  installer who knows the mercer settings to assist.  

13 hours ago, Shaheed A said:

Yes.  It seems the setting is the issue. Can anyone recommend an reliable  installer who knows the mercer settings to assist.  

It might be as easy as changing setting 1 from USb to SUb, so that it uses solar for the loads as much as possible. Are you able to see what setting 1 is currently?

On the Growatt inverter there are 4 settings for output source priority:

Utility first(default) Line: (default) Utility will provide power to the loads as the first priority, solar charging
the battery. When solar energy is in sufficient,utility and solar energy charge the battery at the same time. When utility is
unavailable,it will be powered by solar energy or batteries.

Solar first Solar: Solar energy provides power to the loads as the first priority. when the
solar energy is sufficient, the extra energy will charge the battery . When solar energy
is insufficient for load, batteries and solar will supply power the loads at the same time.
When solar energy and batteries are insufficient or solar energy is unavailable,
utility provides power to the loads and charges the battery at the same time.

Battery first Battery: Battery energy provides power to the loads as first priority. utility energy will
supply power the loads only when battery.low-level warning voltage or the setting point.

Utility and Solar Solar + Line: Solar energy provides power to the loads as the first priority. If solar
energy is not sufficient to power all loads, utility energy will supply power the loads at the same time.
 

9 minutes ago, chrisc said:

On the Growatt inverter there are 4 settings for output source priority:

Utility first(default) Line: (default) Utility will provide power to the loads as the first priority, solar charging
the battery. When solar energy is in sufficient,utility and solar energy charge the battery at the same time. When utility is
unavailable,it will be powered by solar energy or batteries.

Solar first Solar: Solar energy provides power to the loads as the first priority. when the
solar energy is sufficient, the extra energy will charge the battery . When solar energy
is insufficient for load, batteries and solar will supply power the loads at the same time.
When solar energy and batteries are insufficient or solar energy is unavailable,
utility provides power to the loads and charges the battery at the same time.

Battery first Battery: Battery energy provides power to the loads as first priority. utility energy will
supply power the loads only when battery.low-level warning voltage or the setting point.

Utility and Solar Solar + Line: Solar energy provides power to the loads as the first priority. If solar
energy is not sufficient to power all loads, utility energy will supply power the loads at the same time. At 11:40 I changed from SBU to SUB to switch my 3KW geyser.
 

Herewith an example how Growatt inverters work on SBU and SUB mode , one can clearly see if PV not enough to power the load will merge whatever it's need with grid power, at 11:40 I changed from SBU to SUB to do my 3 KW geyser.

Edited July 9, 20232 yr by Antonio de Sa

The labels for the different output criteria are:

Utl
PUL
SBU 
and PAL

Thanks for all the suggestions.  I will try to change the settings and see of there is a difference