October 3, 20232 yr Hi All I had a solar install done, its a 5.5kv sunsynk, hubble 48v and 8 panels. Really happy with the install and the system overall is great. We keep logs of our suage at the meter to give it to ethkewini for our billing and have noted our daily average has gone from 24 kwh/day average to 29 kwh/day average and that doesnt make sense to me?
October 3, 20232 yr What are your settings and usage patterns? Especially the time of use and work mode settings. Are you charging batteries from grid? Are you running loads during the day when solar is plentiful or only at night? Are you factoring in that the inverter has its own self-consumption loaded onto your usage? Basically, what do you want it to behave like? Maybe someone can suggest changes to your settings. Edited October 3, 20232 yr by GreenFields
October 3, 20232 yr Author I will go take a picture of the settings but my understanding is that we have the inverter set to use the battery and obviously solar during the day and I did an exercise where I checked our meter at 6am then again at 6pm then again at 6am the next day and between 18:00 and 6 am we used 18 units and between 6 and 18 when solar should be giving me the most we used 29 units which doesnt make any sense, generally at night we have about 3 TVs going my sons xbox fans in each of the rooms and all the lights. During the day I have my PC on and perhaps 1 tv?? 2023-27-09 93624 17:54:00 2023-28-09 93642 05:55:00 2023-28-09 93653 18:06:00
October 3, 20232 yr Hey airtite, Definitely need more info from you to understand your setup and usage to help get to the bottom of your usage… Sounds like a settings on the inverter, specifically the System Mode Settings as this dictates the way in which PV, Battery and Grid gets used. So take pics of System 1 and System 2 from the Inverter. Is everything connected to the inverter or do you have non-essential as well? Then, what heavy draw items do you have? Geyser/s? What time is it set to run or is it on all the time? Pool pump? Also what are the specs of your panels?
October 3, 20232 yr My 8kv Deye adds 2kwh to my daily usage. I also found our electricity increased because we are no longer restricted by Eskom outages. In our case we shifted load off the generator back onto Eskom and never realised how hard the generator was working (we run a business from home). We also need a full battery by 8am and this often charges at night, adding more units used. Our nighttime usage is higher than anticipated and only seeing it now that we can monitor it. Solar is only supplying 30% of my usage.
October 3, 20232 yr My 8kv Deye adds 2kwh to my daily usage. I also found our electricity increased because we are no longer restricted by Eskom outages. In our case we shifted load off the generator back onto Eskom and never realised how hard the generator was working (we run a business from home). We also need a full battery by 8am and this often charges at night, adding more units used. Our nighttime usage is higher than anticipated and only seeing it now that we can monitor it. Solar is only supplying 30% of my usage. If solar supplies 30% and you are using 2kWh more per day then you have quite a high increase in power used. That would be the area to focus on to actually achive a real saving and the Plus of always having power.
October 3, 20232 yr My bet is on you exporting power and being charged for it... Make sure your CT coil is correctly installed and disable export to grid.
October 4, 20232 yr My bet is on you exporting power and being charged for it... Make sure your CT coil is correctly installed and disable export to grid. That is my gut feeling too, sunsynk/deye 99% issues like this usually related to incorrect install/settings of ct/export settings. Provide more info regarding your settings so the forum can advise better
October 4, 20232 yr My bet is on you exporting power and being charged for it... Make sure your CT coil is correctly installed and disable export to grid. This ^^^^^^^ This is a recurring story. It's really an installation issue.
October 4, 20232 yr If solar supplies 30% and you are using 2kWh more per day then you have quite a high increase in power used. That would be the area to focus on to actually achive a real saving and the Plus of always having power. I did a needs analysis based on factual information and assumptions. As there was urgency to give our business uninterrupted power, I accepted a margin of error in my assumptions when doing the installation. These were: * I would have acceptable solar production on bad Cape Winter days. I did not realise how off I was on this one. * I used the bulk of my power during the day, and virtually nothing at night. I was very wrong about this one. * We could use all the battery power at night. This one got blown out of the water when we sat without power for 24 hours on an overcast day. We started the workday with a flat battery. Was the longest I've ever run my petrol generator for the business, think it was around 10 hours as it was a very busy day. * We would not change our usage pattern as cooked dinner during the day. This changed as having uninterrupted power during the day resulted in us being busier with work. The business has also grown, which requires us to add more battery storage to help when the grid is down and we need to pull a higher load. This should also help cover nighttime usage without affecting availability in the morning.
October 4, 20232 yr In my experience a minimum of 15kWh battery backup is required for the average SA home, taking LS, cloudy days, family requirements etc. into account. One can do with less, but then you have to act like a Nazi electrical usage guy.
October 4, 20232 yr I did a needs analysis based on factual information and assumptions. As there was urgency to give our business uninterrupted power, I accepted a margin of error in my assumptions when doing the installation. These were: * I would have acceptable solar production on bad Cape Winter days. I did not realise how off I was on this one. * I used the bulk of my power during the day, and virtually nothing at night. I was very wrong about this one. This is common. We all think we know what power we use and when, but unless we have good monitoring tools (which you get once you have PV) you could be way wrong. The way to make the best use of any solar driven system (solar geysers, PV systems such as you have) is to make as much hay as you can whilst the sun is shining. Domestic users go through this to. You want to heat your water during the daylight hours, run your pool pump, as far as possible run your appliances then. My life is made a bit easier by having gas for cooking, but we still use the microwave a bit in the early evenings and the kettle during the evening. Those are not too bad because they don't run for long, but an oven (for example) is not something I'd want to use once my panels have stopped producing. There are only two of us in this house, so it's relatively easy to control consumption during the night. This is also why one should split the loads into essential and non-essential. When there is load shedding the system only backs up the essential loads. Another kind of management you have to do is to conserve the battery. My system is set so that it will not discharge the battery past 60% DOD (IE 40% remaining) whilst there is grid. So I should always have 40% of the battery remaining when the grid goes down. A catch to the above is that the inverter may disconnect if grid voltage drops too low. Then it will stop providing power to the non-essential loads, but also it can discharge the battery past that 60% mark (on my system with my settings). * We could use all the battery power at night. This one got blown out of the water when we sat without power for 24 hours on an overcast day. We started the workday with a flat battery. Was the longest I've ever run my petrol generator for the business, think it was around 10 hours as it was a very busy day. Yep. Your system is at it's most vulnerable early in the morning. You've been running on battery through the night and then if there's not sunshine and not grid in the early morning then you are going to keep on running the battery down. * We would not change our usage pattern as cooked dinner during the day. This changed as having uninterrupted power during the day resulted in us being busier with work. The business has also grown, which requires us to add more battery storage to help when the grid is down and we need to pull a higher load. This should also help cover nighttime usage without affecting availability in the morning.
October 4, 20232 yr In my experience a minimum of 15kWh battery backup is required for the average SA home, taking LS, cloudy days, family requirements etc. into account. One can do with less, but then you have to act like a Nazi electrical usage guy. Agreed, 15kWh battery bank is suitable for a well managed home, 20 - 30 would be the bonus and will get you pretty close to off-grid. I have 10kWh and run fine most of the year, winter in CPt is a bit harsh where I had to buy some power in july and august. Sun is back now so we are back to under R50per month buying eskom
October 4, 20232 yr OK so panels are Canadian solar hiku mono perc solar panel 450w Also confirm where the ct is located and that it is connected correctly.
October 4, 20232 yr OK so panels are Canadian solar hiku mono perc solar panel 450w As you have the battery at 100% at 6h I would do timer setting changes. Being at 100% no work for PV apart from your load. 6-9h-70% no grid 21-01h-70% grid 1-6h-40% grid This will allow battery to provide some assistance.
October 4, 20232 yr Author OK setting s changed, can I ask what the power column is for why is it at 2000 for 6-9 and 9 -15?
October 4, 20232 yr OK setting s changed, can I ask what the power column is for why is it at 2000 for 6-9 and 9 -15? I stand to be corrected on this one, but the Power limit set here is the maximum power it will draw from your battery to supply your essentials load.
October 4, 20232 yr OK so panels are Canadian solar hiku mono perc solar panel 450w I guess this explains your higher grid usage...so each of the time slots that are set to 100% with Grid Ticked means the Grid will charge your battery back to 100%. Example, say you have 2hrs of LS between 17:00 - 21:00, and it depletes the battery to 50%, when the Grid restores its going to charge the battery back to 100%. If LS during the after-sun hours then your load will be fed by the grid... Depends now on what you want to achieve with the system > purely a load shedding killer or do you also want to reduce the reliance on the grid? Based on your panels your kWp is 3.6kw (3600w) less 20% for heat loss during production and cable length from panels to inverter - you should be producing at least 2880w at midday for a daily yield of maybe 15-20kWh (units)...also depends direction of panels.
October 4, 20232 yr Author hey Carl, you are right we do about 2880w during midday I have seen it higher. The need for the system is both. I mean load shedding has dropped a bit and I need the system to lower my cost to eskom/ethekewini so a balance I guess. I can download the data export and send that through if it would help?
October 4, 20232 yr Author this is where we are now, my wife has the stove on so that would explain the high load right now..
October 4, 20232 yr We all use the system differently. I personally as a low user will want my battery at say 100% at about 16-17h. 16h is normally the current higher level of LS. For this late afternoon grid is ticked to be ready for essentials and then after 21h for the vaalpense one can start discharging. Yes this time is only the start of cooking time in summer for the Cape?
October 4, 20232 yr Author we have load shedding usually on the following times/days monday between 08:00 - 10:00 tuesday between 00:00 - 02:00 16:00 - 18:00 wednesday between 02:00 - 04:00 18:00 - 20:00 thursday between 06:00 - 08:00 friday between 04:00 - 06:00 12:00 - 14:00 saturday between 02:00 - 04:00 14:00 - 16:00 sunday between 20:00 - 22:00
October 4, 20232 yr this is where we are now, my wife has the stove on so that would explain the high load right now.. Slight deviation from the topic, by default the refresh rate on the App is 5min, you can change this to 60sec. if you haven't already done so... Complete the form on this site -https://www.sunsynk.org/remote-monitoring- request Advanced User access, it will then give you the option to update the refresh rate to 60sec which will be able to do via the website under Equipment > Gateway > ellipses on the logger > Settings and then it will give this - see pic . Takes a few hours for them to action - you also won't know as I didnt get a notification but I just signed into the site the next day and had the option.
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