15 minutes ago, TaliaB said:

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.🤞

No wonder we are having daytime loadshedding this week. 

24 minutes ago, TaliaB said:

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

This is the daily Power alert graph which I have borrowed from another group posted by a member. 

Huge shortfall. 

3 minutes ago, Scorp007 said:

This is the daily Power alert graph which I have borrowed from another group posted by a member. 

Huge shortfall. 

Running all diesel generators again

13 minutes ago, Chris_S said:

Running all diesel generators again

Vaal Tringle +_ 80 Km South of JHB

Today very poor day for PV.

12 X 410 CSun panels.

Yesterday at this time pushing over 3.5 KW.

Today 720 W

 

Edited November 14, 20232 yr by Antonio de Sa

1 hour ago, TaliaB said:

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.🤞

Another great comparison. My call is 16 Nov will be a very good day with only a few hrs loss of sun. 

1 hour ago, Scorp007 said:

Another great comparison. My call is 16 Nov will be a very good day with only a few hrs loss of sun. 

@Scorp007 check the cloud cover for the next few days here. I use it quite often during the pigeon racing season to check the weather forecast.

Windy: Wind map & weather forecast

2 hours ago, Chris_S said:

No wonder we are having daytime loadshedding this week. 

Indeed. It seems to me that there has been a correlation between increased load shedding stages and overcast weather. There is so much installed solar now that it makes a difference that Eskom can see. So, my theory continues, when they see overcast weather coming, they know they are going to lose the impact of all that solar and the load shedding increases by one or two stages.

2 hours ago, Scorp007 said:

This is the daily Power alert graph which I have borrowed from another group posted by a member. 

Huge shortfall. 

This is interesting. Please remember that I am an uneducated lout and not any kind of engineer or technician. Why does availability DROP between midnight and 6am?

23 minutes ago, Bobster. said:

This is interesting. Please remember that I am an uneducated lout and not any kind of engineer or technician. Why does availability DROP between midnight and 6am?

Presumably stored energy from Bokpoort and others getting depleted overnight... it should increase during the day again, though, unless some so-and-so prayed for cloud cover here....

28 minutes ago, Bobster. said:

This is interesting. Please remember that I am an uneducated lout and not any kind of engineer or technician. Why does availability DROP between midnight and 6am?

My guess is just that gas turbines and hydro are not running and hydro they pump water back to be ready for the morning peak. 

Could also be that minor repair work is done. Coal generators taken off load and not available. Something like rotating tyres on a car 😀

56 minutes ago, Antonio de Sa said:

@Scorp007 check the cloud cover for the next few days here. I use it quite often during the pigeon racing season to check the weather forecast.

Windy: Wind map & weather forecast

Thanks for the link. I'm stupid with clouds as I see just blue skies at times just to get clouds later. I rather use my forecast that will take all factors and just give me a forecast. 

Sunday evening with the great electric storm was a good example. Rain forecast for 23h59 to around 01h00 then we got it 4 hrs earlier. 

Let me place my source and we can see how it turns out. A lot can happen in 2 days time. 

Edited November 14, 20232 yr by Scorp007

Down here in Hillcrest , KZN we have had so many days of lousy output but it looks better from tomorrow.Its drizzly and cold here even though its mid Nov.

49 minutes ago, Nicholas Strachan said:

Down here in Hillcrest , KZN we have had so many days of lousy output but it looks better from tomorrow.Its drizzly and cold here even though its mid Nov.

Thursday to Saturday looks much better for you but it seems like not more that about 7hrs sunshine on average. 

2 hours ago, Kalahari Meerkat said:

Presumably stored energy from Bokpoort and others getting depleted overnight... it should increase during the day again, though, unless some so-and-so prayed for cloud cover here....

Wouldn't they pump up the hill into the dams at night, and then release it at peak time? OK... maybe it's the trace still coming down from the previous evening's peak.

12 minutes ago, Bobster. said:

Wouldn't they pump up the hill into the dams at night, and then release it at peak time? OK... maybe it's the trace still coming down from the previous evening's peak.

Bokpoort is Bokpoort CSP, there are 4 concentrated Salt Smelters around the Northern Cape, most of which have energy stored in the form of liquid salt, which is used to turn water into steam to run steam turbine generators each 100kW... as far as I can recall... see https://powerforum.co.za/topic/24552-commercial-solar-plants-around-south-africa/ for a little bit more information on commercial solar power plants around the countryside in SA.

 

2 hours ago, Scorp007 said:

Thanks for the link. I'm stupid with clouds as I see just blue skies at times just to get clouds later. I rather use my forecast that will take all factors and just give me a forecast. 

Sunday evening with the great electric storm was a good example. Rain forecast for 23h59 to around 01h00 then we got it 4 hrs earlier. 

Let me place my source and we can see how it turns out. A lot can happen in 2 days time. 

That is why it will always be a forecast or prediction i see these sites are updated hourly. Like the saying goes "only certain thing in life is change"

Edited November 14, 20232 yr by TaliaB

10 minutes ago, Kalahari Meerkat said:

Bokpoort is Bokpoort CSP, there are 4 concentrated Salt Smelters around the Northern Cape, most of which have energy stored in the form of liquid salt, which is used to turn water into steam to run steam turbine generators each 100kW... as far as I can recall... see https://powerforum.co.za/topic/24552-commercial-solar-plants-around-south-africa/ for a little bit more information on commercial solar power plants around the countryside in SA.

 

Ja. I assumed that it was pump storage, then posted, then said to myself "hang on...".

Thanks

On 2023/11/13 at 2:48 PM, PsyCLown said:

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

2 years ago yes for sure I would have added some more gpu's, but gpu mining now is very slow going so the cost of buying new gpu's would almost never be recovered.
All mine are paid off from mining about 2 years ago already so they will keep chugging away 🥰 and help consuming solar watts.

On 2023/11/13 at 6:34 AM, Scorp007 said:

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. 

Well it's not literally running continuously though. My office is from home and there's 3 people around on average so whenever someone flushes the loo or takes a bath, that's when it runs. We only have water once a week which goes directly into the water tank from the water tank, which is on the ground, it's pumped into the house whenever it's required if pressure drops from the pressure tank. The 3kVA system I'm running has been fairly good as my whole house is on the solar inverter essential side except the stove. So my only challenge is that my "chinese knock-off" lithium battery at 100Ah doesn't get to 2am if power doesn't come back. During the day, am mostly running of panels (12 x 250w), which also is charging the batteries and with the rainy season upon us, the pv isn't as efficient now but it's served me well since circa 2012.

Started running a crypto miner yesterday that's drawing a constant 1400W. Left it overnight and SOC in the morning was 40% but woke up to heavy clouds. Now just need to get the miner on a smart plug to be able to switch it off remotely