October 18, 20232 yr So going offgrid means also having to invest in a backup generator then, for cloudy days to ensure one's batteries are topped up. Now imagine having taken such a hit as @Scorp007 has and you have an fully electric vehicle🤦♂️
October 18, 20232 yr 2 hours ago, Scorp007 said: This is 4 times my normal use. We also 2 people. I recently had a chat with a guy who has to run a fish pond pump 24/7. That 1 item is using more power than what our household uses per day. Has anyone realised that once you put up a fairly decent PV system your consumption goes up or you get lax about Switching of Switches (SoS)? I remember I killed my old 6 x 200Ah AGM batteries faster with someone just deciding to do some ironing during the day and it was overcast so most of the power was directly coming out of the battery pack, rather than solar...argh....
October 19, 20232 yr 7 hours ago, Moffat said: Has anyone realised that once you put up a fairly decent PV system your consumption goes up or you get lax about Switching of Switches (SoS)? I remember I killed my old 6 x 200Ah AGM batteries faster with someone just deciding to do some ironing during the day and it was overcast so most of the power was directly coming out of the battery pack, rather than solar...argh.... But don't you know? Solar = free and unlimited. I fought this fight early on, when I saw the difference our batteries could make when there were outages at night, and I decided that I wanted to err on the side of keeping charge in the batteries. So we don't run the dishwasher at night. Water heating is controlled by timers. Etc. September for the whole month we consumed 291 kWh, which is actually less than where we were pre-solar. If nothing else changes you would expect to see a small increase in consumption because the inverter itself consumes some power, and the process of converting AC to DC and then charging the batteries is not 100% efficient.
October 31, 20232 yr Author This is about the worst I can recall that I have seen. During the peak time of the day to get only 19W from 2900W strings. 40% are flat and 60% facing north. Not that it matters which direction or angle 🤔🤔🤔
October 31, 20232 yr I'm getting 200ish at the moment.every little bit helps lol 3300w array, north facing Edited October 31, 20232 yr by madness_za
October 31, 20232 yr Everyone in Jozi is having cold weather 😝 nice 26° in CPT today with fairly good solar production. I flew down to Jhb yesterday and boy was it cold happy to be back in Cpt today. One of my clients in Nigel Gauteng phoned me at 11h45 and he just wanted to know if it is normal to get 410w from his 13kwp array. He said it is raining and thick clouds😅
October 31, 20232 yr 10 minutes ago, TaliaB said: Everyone in Jozi is having cold weather 😝 nice 26° in CPT today with fairly good solar production. I flew down to Jhb yesterday and boy was it cold happy to be back in Cpt today. One of my clients in Nigel Gauteng phoned me at 11h45 and he just wanted to know if it is normal to get 410w from his 13kwp array. He said it is raining and thick clouds😅 Sad day when I get 300w from my array😂 Eskom must be loving getting some money again
October 31, 20232 yr I’m getting 686W at the moment. Had a peak of 1.4kW at 12pm under constant rain conditions from a 4.3kW array. May be you guys got the fake Chinese panels 🤣
October 31, 20232 yr My day so far, Glad I still got my gennie to fall back onto. Our area has been without electricity since Sunday morning, so there is no grid to use either. Batteries were pretty much depleted by this morning.
October 31, 20232 yr When the sun shines in cpt then solar rocks for sure 2 days in a row full sun no fuzzy sky or clouds in sight. Summer in full swing now so have my daytime 1100watt loads running. Still need to find an extra 200-300 watts to suck in the full sun after 3pm. Edited October 31, 20232 yr by WannabeSolarSparky
October 31, 20232 yr Look at the irradiance between Jhb and Cpt today. Edited October 31, 20232 yr by TaliaB
October 31, 20232 yr @root Why are you confused? Comparison today between Cpt and Jhb for solar radiation.
October 31, 20232 yr Just now, TaliaB said: @root Why are you confused? Comparison today between Cpt and Jhb for solar radiation. Sorry @root i see now your confusion Jhb has yesterday's date i will rectify
October 31, 20232 yr Also interesting to know which town or city has the best average solar production in SA.
October 31, 20232 yr Just now, TaliaB said: Also interesting to know which town or city has the best average solar production in SA. Eish i thought Upington where cooking on gas but they are cooking on solar🤣
October 31, 20232 yr They are also cooking in Temperature. Even where I am staying. Last week Thursday and Friday 17:30 still hitting 41 degrees😅
October 31, 20232 yr Author 1 hour ago, TaliaB said: Also interesting to know which town or city has the best average solar production in SA. CoCT. Everything is better there????? 😛😛
October 31, 20232 yr 1 minute ago, Scorp007 said: CoCT. Everything is better there????? 😛😛 No i won't say that if you could swop Gauteng weather with CoCt you will have paradise 😂
October 31, 20232 yr So, how much total production everyone around Gauteng managed to get today? The orientation of the panels shouldn't matter much in a day like today. Let's compare relative to array sizes and brand of panels. I managed to produce total of 3.7kWh out of 4.3kW array and JA Solar 540W panels.
October 31, 20232 yr 26 minutes ago, PowerUser said: I managed to produce total of 3.7kWh out of 4.3kW array and JA Solar 540W panels Here on the East Rand I had 4,8kWh from my 6,4kWp array. JA Solar 535W panels
October 31, 20232 yr My client in Nigel Gauteng reported 8.35kwh from 13.2kwp array Longi 555w panels.
October 31, 20232 yr 49 minutes ago, PowerUser said: So, how much total production everyone around Gauteng managed to get today? The orientation of the panels shouldn't matter much in a day like today. Let's compare relative to array sizes and brand of panels. I managed to produce total of 3.7kWh out of 4.3kW array and JA Solar 540W panels. 4.2kWh from a 4.55kWp PV Array [10 x JA 455W] here in JHB. Enough to scrape through on essentials - but not enough to do much beyond that! Yesterday was slightly worse - we can see how the cloud-cover (especially when they're thick rain-clouds like the last two days here) hammers production: Edited October 31, 20232 yr by JayMardern
October 31, 20232 yr 1 hour ago, PowerUser said: So, how much total production everyone around Gauteng managed to get today? The orientation of the panels shouldn't matter much in a day like today. Let's compare relative to array sizes and brand of panels. I managed to produce total of 3.7kWh out of 4.3kW array and JA Solar 540W panels. 2.9kwh from my 3.3 array
October 31, 20232 yr Forget about generation. What about consumption? My home has used 22.4 kWh today so far, which is massive for us. This time last week we used just under 13. Part of that increase is the heat pump. A week ago it started up at 12 and ran for 20 minutes. Today it started the same time and ran for an hour and 20 minutes. We didn't run the dishwasher today. We did do some washing, but cold cycles. It looks like Eskom may have correctly anticipated a significant increase in load. Edited October 31, 20232 yr by Bobster.
October 31, 20232 yr 6.8 kWh from 7.8kW array , worst I had in years . But really happy with the rain we had . Some areas 70 days without water.
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