Winter is not really an issues in Cpt as solar production comes down quite a bit so I end up using almost 100% of production.

Summer however there is a ton of wasted solar.

Now I am slowly increasing my daytime base-loads to see how to maximise use of solar generated and still allowing full battery for night time use.

This is what I have so far. Kindly Share what/how you are adding loads to soak up your excess solar.
I need to find an extra 200watts base-load to add, that should pretty much get me to 100% utilisation.

Normal household base loads 350 to 500 watts and this pretty much gets the batteries full by 10 am
That resulted in a massive waste of generated solar.

Now in the summer months I run my crypto mining during the daytime to add an extra 680 watts to my daytime base-loads.
Currently running it from about 6am to 6pm. In winter it runs from about 11am - 3pm.
This has resulted in much higher solar consumption and battery now gets to full by about 2pm after the geyser also had a full charge.

Currently getting 12 hours per day runtime on my crypto mining when there is no rain.
This produces more income from the excess power than the COCT would ever pay for that same excess power 🤣

Edited November 12, 20232 yr by WannabeSolarSparky

Current daytime base load - 1120 watts

Home Methane production using Photovoltaics

Can be used to power stove, water heater etc long after the sun has gone down.  

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2468606919301893 

I heat my swimming pool with a heat pump as well 🙂 

The Methane -CH4 option idea sounds like a really good option if they can make it available on a small scale, at the moment it is not available commercially  

@WannabeSolarSparky

It is time for you to go EV install the EV charger and get rid of the solar wastage like the saying goes "use it or loose it"🤣 What is the autonomy of your solar system? Maybe add another battery🤑 If you can't do any more load shiffting then you are off grid mate😇 

18 minutes ago, TaliaB said:

@WannabeSolarSparky

It is time for you to go EV install the EV charger and get rid of the solar wastage like the saying goes "use it or loose it"🤣 What is the autonomy of your solar system? Maybe add another battery🤑 If you can't do any more load shifting then you are off grid mate😇 

EV's are over rated social signaling devices 🤣

I am saving for a 280AH DIY battery, that is the sensible way to go and will bring me pretty close to off-grid

I tried the off-grid experiment at the beginning of the year - my 10kWh battery bank is not near close enough, need at least 20 - 30 kWh then with my usage will be quite possible

For now I am thinking of maybe getting a hot water urn ( drink lots of coffee here ) as it seems resistive loads is the way to go for using up the excess solar.

Edited November 12, 20232 yr by WannabeSolarSparky

1 hour ago, Sc00bs said:

Home Methane production using Photovoltaics

Can be used to power stove, water heater etc long after the sun has gone down.  

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2468606919301893 

Waaaayyyyy too complicated and expensive to retrofit house to do this sort of thing.

16 minutes ago, WannabeSolarSparky said:

as it seems resistive loads is the way to go for using up the excess solar

Or get an extra geyser and take 3 showers a day🤣

20 minutes ago, WannabeSolarSparky said:

20 - 30 kWh then with my usage will be quite possible

 Or get a Freedom Won Lite 30/24 and be done with it. Eish now i am reflecting😜

@WannabeSolarSparky we all have to work out our own methods and not easy to get a one shoe fits all.

I try to be a net user but now in summer I find I have to add a lot of loads to reduce the wasted PV. It might sound strange for some with only 2.9kW PV. I have to switch off my PV for a few days a month. This is my 1st time with too much PV. We went for "kook vleis" and baking some koekies with the coffee. Today wife mentioned time to do some beskuit to add load during day time. 

Without kids coming to visit my total need has come down to below 10kWh a day. Apart from now charging my batteries from PV where months ago I used about 1-2kWh from grid. Then I don't know why we had no LS for the last week. This prevents me from using a bit battery power. It remains sad to have wasted PV and when we do have LS generators are running both sides of my house. There are still so any houses without PV even in a area where everyone drives one or more new cars. I know of a lot of guys that don't think twice for the new car but no battery/inverter/PV system. Not even a brick inverter. 🤔🤔

1 minute ago, Scorp007 said:

Today wife mentioned time to do some beskuit to add load during day time.

We also did some baking in the afternoons but not possible to do that every day 🙃

2 minutes ago, Scorp007 said:

we all have to work out our own methods and not easy to get a one shoe fits all.

Yip that is sooo true.

1 hour ago, TaliaB said:

@WannabeSolarSparky

It is time for you to go EV install the EV charger and get rid of the solar wastage like the saying goes "use it or loose it"🤣 What is the autonomy of your solar system? Maybe add another battery🤑 If you can't do any more load shiffting then you are off grid mate😇 

The problem with this is, unelss you work in the evenings, the EV wont be at home in the daytime to charge. If you work from home, also not really a good use of solar as presumably the EV wont need regular charging. 

Perhaps if you buy two EV and alternate them it will work, or a truck load of batteries to use to charge the EV at night. 

Sounds expensive

11 minutes ago, I84RiS said:

Perhaps if you buy two EV and alternate them it will work, or a truck load of batteries to use to charge the EV at night.

Now if we lived in China, batteries would not be an issue.

Check this guy 16 X 280AH X 24 volt batteries. Equivalent to 8 X 280AH batteries - 2240AH or 114 kWh That should be just about enough to charge up your EV from empty to full 😍

4 hours ago, WannabeSolarSparky said:

Now if we lived in China, batteries would not be an issue.

Check this guy 16 X 280AH X 24 volt batteries. Equivalent to 8 X 280AH batteries - 2240AH or 114 kWh That should be just about enough to charge up your EV from empty to full 😍

With X-Mas coming up you buy the EV for SWAMBO and you use it to work every 2nd day or use it on cloudy/rainy days. Sunny days you can recharge from PV. 

Now you all know what to put on SWAMBO's wish list. 😂😂😂

May be I must switch off my heat pump in summer and use an element again???? 

Edited November 12, 20232 yr by Scorp007

11 hours ago, Scorp007 said:

@WannabeSolarSparky we all have to work out our own methods and not easy to get a one shoe fits all.

I try to be a net user but now in summer I find I have to add a lot of loads to reduce the wasted PV. It might sound strange for some with only 2.9kW PV. I have to switch off my PV for a few days a month. This is my 1st time with too much PV. We went for "kook vleis" and baking some koekies with the coffee. Today wife mentioned time to do some beskuit to add load during day time. 

Without kids coming to visit my total need has come down to below 10kWh a day. Apart from now charging my batteries from PV where months ago I used about 1-2kWh from grid. Then I don't know why we had no LS for the last week. This prevents me from using a bit battery power. It remains sad to have wasted PV and when we do have LS generators are running both sides of my house. There are still so any houses without PV even in a area where everyone drives one or more new cars. I know of a lot of guys that don't think twice for the new car but no battery/inverter/PV system. Not even a brick inverter. 🤔🤔

What are you using for cooking your meals? An induction cooktop say 3000w size will enable you to make all your meals efficiently, without also straining your system on startup or have a huge battery draw. Have a look at stuff on "Takealot.com", that's where I bought my cookware, which also came with compatible cooking pots and pans and kettle.

1 hour ago, Moffat said:

What are you using for cooking your meals? An induction cooktop say 3000w size will enable you to make all your meals efficiently, without also straining your system on startup or have a huge battery draw. Have a look at stuff on "Takealot.com", that's where I bought my cookware, which also came with compatible cooking pots and pans and kettle.

We have 2 similar induction cookers. The interesting thing is it is really a cheap make and the 1st one was bought about 5yrs ago and the 2nd one about 3 yrs ago. The one always goes along when camping. Even such a cheap model can last above expectations. They are the Midea make. What is great is that some of the settings draw a constant low power. Some settings do use the full 2kW bursts like most microwaves. Together with them we use the air fryer and Morphy Richards convection over. We hardly use the normal elec stove. The oven is on and busy drying the rusks we baked today. 

Edited November 12, 20232 yr by Scorp007

41 minutes ago, Scorp007 said:

We have 2 similar induction cookers. The interesting thing is it is really a cheap make and the 1st one was bought about 5yrs ago and the 2nd one about 3 yrs ago. The one always goes along when camping. Even such a cheap model can last above expectations. They are the Midea make. What is great is that some of the settings draw a constant low power. Some settings do use the full 2kW bursts like most microwaves. Together with them we use the air fryer and Morphy Richards convection over. We hardly use the normal elec stove. The oven is on and busy drying the rusks we baked today. 

Nice, I have 2 similar ones as well. As mentioned earlier, it seems solar is a never ending rabbit hole of getting new appliances, batteries, rewiring etc etc. The other thing I may advise is to look at getting a Jojo water tank with a 0.5Hp pump, which means in the dry season or when there's ever water issues you use stored water than you can either just use for the garden or for the whole house. We have council water roughly once a week, so I've invested in a 5000litre water tank that suppliers water to the house via the pump which runs off the solar system meaning I have some measure of water security. Only problem is you'll again go through yet another cost of plumbing and needing a water pressure tank to save your water pump so that when someone opens a tap, the pump does not immediately begin working thereby giving the water pump a longer lease of life... Alternatively you could have the tank on a stand (mine is on the ground) and on the stand this means that you only get to feed the tank till it's full and then it gravity feeds to wherever you need the water. Sadly another costly exercise to ensure you get correct size steel stand and securing the tank and piping🤦‍♂️

Was just looking at Hob ovens but have not seen any that gives the power ratings of them. This would help to see if they can be used with a solar set up and what size.

Edited November 12, 20232 yr by Moffat
Additional information.

I sometimes look at ways to max out my system, but is there not some advantage in giving it an easy ride? Would the inverter last as long if I run it as hard as I can? 

The consumption for my house has actually gone down since I got solar. If there's any design to this, it's that I want more SOC in my batteries in the early morning. 

6 hours ago, Moffat said:

Nice, I have 2 similar ones as well. As mentioned earlier, it seems solar is a never ending rabbit hole of getting new appliances, batteries, rewiring etc etc. The other thing I may advise is to look at getting a Jojo water tank with a 0.5Hp pump, which means in the dry season or when there's ever water issues you use stored water than you can either just use for the garden or for the whole house. We have council water roughly once a week, so I've invested in a 5000litre water tank that suppliers water to the house via the pump which runs off the solar system meaning I have some measure of water security. Only problem is you'll again go through yet another cost of plumbing and needing a water pressure tank to save your water pump so that when someone opens a tap, the pump does not immediately begin working thereby giving the water pump a longer lease of life... Alternatively you could have the tank on a stand (mine is on the ground) and on the stand this means that you only get to feed the tank till it's full and then it gravity feeds to wherever you need the water. Sadly another costly exercise to ensure you get correct size steel stand and securing the tank and piping🤦‍♂️

Was just looking at Hob ovens but have not seen any that gives the power ratings of them. This would help to see if they can be used with a solar set up and what size.

Now here I am baffled that your pump must run all the time. With the water we use per month my 0.37kW pump purely for filling a tank to have more than enough water will not have to run more than 30min per day. We use less than 500L a day. Yes we are only 2 people and at work normal office hrs and no watering the garden but a 5min here and there when very hot. 

I fully agree with the heat pump and very happy with mine no using it for 12yrs. Never needed to wire in the element. 

@Bobster. IIRC you use to used 13kWh a day and have been using less power to where you are now on 10kWh a day. I guess you have more than 5kWh from PV that goes wasted. If you had to use that and it seems you are at home during the day so easy to manage the load. If you shift some load to during the sun period when there is sun would still not cause the inverter to work at close to it's rating. This is just an observation based on comments placed. Not sure if you had to use the kettle to boil water it should not use more than 65Wh per boil say 4 times during a evening and only when no other high power appliances are on and not make much of a dent in your battery. This based on boiling 750ml at a time. 

Edited November 13, 20232 yr by Scorp007

2 hours ago, Scorp007 said:

IIRC you use to used 13kWh a day and have been using less power to where you are now on 10kWh a day. I guess you have more than 5kWh from PV that goes wasted. If you had to use that and it seems you are at home during the day so easy to manage the load. If you shift some load to during the sun period when there is sun would still not cause the inverter to work at close to it's rating. This is just an observation based on comments placed. Not sure if you had to use the kettle to boil water it should not use more than 65Wh per boil say 4 times during a evening and only when no other high power appliances are on and not make much of a dent in your battery. This based on boiling 750ml at a time. 

You have a good memory! Yes, about a year ago our consumption started dropping off. Average for the last 12 months is 10.28 per day. I have joked that it's hard to make the system pay when we use so little, but also I am saying to myself that it's better to not run the system flat out all the time. 

The system might see 4kW of PV coming in at mid day. I don't know how hard that works my particular inverter, but I'm trying to make a general point about all our systems. Personally I hardly ever see 4kW load at a time, so maybe I am bit fortunate in my circumstances. Or maybe I am a power nazi.


 

Edited November 13, 20232 yr by Bobster.

30 minutes ago, Bobster. said:

You have a good memory! Yes, about a year ago our consumption started dropping off. Average for the last 12 months is 10.28 per day.

NB! This doesn't amount to a reduction in carbon footprint. It would for a non-solar home, but in our case not. Most of our grid consumption most days comes from the system shutting down late night/early morning because demand drops below some preset amount. That seems to be part of the system design. So that amount is very constant and, if you like, reliable. The only way to beat it would be to have a timer on the main feed to the house (doesn't sound like the sort of thing you can do with bits from builders warehouse) or load shedding in the early hours of the morning. In the latter case we'd be reducing our carbon footprint anyway.

Of course there was a carbon footprint reduction when we first switched to solar, but there doesn't seem to be a way to further that reduction. 

Increase your mining hashrate - that will quickly increase your load.

Funny I've got this problem also. Batteries are at 85% SOC at sunrise and fully charged by 9am. Aircons are running all day and still plenty left. 

Just bought a 1300W crypto miner today to increase load. Better option than feeding back IMHO. 

Good morning Jozi today very low solar production in fact for the next week at least. I am out at installation site this morning and the clouds are thick with some drizzle. Had a quick check and according to my simulation the first day with decent solar production would be on the 22nd Nov and 23Nov you should be breaking records. Let us see how accurate my model would be please you guys do tell if you agree from your personal software and graphs and please keep posting array size, solar panel size and manufacturer and your immediate area. Have a good one.

14Nov - Poor production

15Nov- Very poor

16Nov- Very poor

17Nov- Moderate

Onwards better production but on 22Nov and 23 Nov should be record breaking solar output.🤞

Sorry @WannabeSolarSparkyfor hijacking your post it is sort of relevant to your topic😃 Let us know how is output in Cpt.