The installation i did February the guest farm in the Drakensberg are saving R75K/ month so far. That equates to R900k/ year saving on Eskom bill. The system cost was R4.5 million so ROI 5 years. There is frequent power outage in the area due to the distance of Arial lines running through the mountains and lightning. The owners of the farm is very impressed with the solar system as their clients are hardly without power. So yes a big chunk of money upfront but worth it in the long run especially if you want to run an efficient business in hospitality.

Edited August 28, 20241 yr by TaliaB

13 hours ago, Scorp007 said:

Glad to see not a minute of no power in 5 months. Am I not lucky Now my budget grid tied inverters are pumping as they should. 80%+ of my power used is self generated this month. 

Me to, very glad indeed, also about the same +_ 80% of my house consumption from PV. A few cloudy days but so far one of best months this year

It produces so much because he uses so much  🤣

Love my off grid system. It has at least 30% in reserve daily from the panels. I just don't have enough work for it yet 😁
13 to 15 Aug I let the 2kW fan heater run all day and even then I only get to around ~20kWh power usage. Can't even abuse my own generating capacity. Once a miser always a miser 

2 hours ago, zsde said:

It produces so much because he uses so much  🤣

Love my off grid system. It has at least 30% in reserve daily from the panels. I just don't have enough work for it yet 😁
13 to 15 Aug I let the 2kW fan heater run all day and even then I only get to around ~20kWh power usage. Can't even abuse my own generating capacity. Once a miser always a miser 

Good going. At least one can see the slight peak on the days you had the heater on. Still very low consumption as in 10hrs on for the heater could have been 20 kWh alone if it was set to heat most of the 10hrs.

5 hours ago, zsde said:

It produces so much because he uses so much  🤣

Love my off grid system. It has at least 30% in reserve daily from the panels. I just don't have enough work for it yet 😁
13 to 15 Aug I let the 2kW fan heater run all day and even then I only get to around ~20kWh power usage. Can't even abuse my own generating capacity. Once a miser always a miser 

Sell some power to your neighbours just below Eskom unit cost then you become a miser🤣🤣

9 hours ago, Antonio de Sa said:

Me to, very glad indeed, also about the same +_ 80% of my house consumption from PV. A few cloudy days but so far one of best months this year

Currently already the 2nd best month for 2024 YTD. 2 days to go. March will remain my best YTD. 

6 hours ago, Scorp007 said:

if it was set to heat most of the 10hrs

Never for 10 hours,
Battery charge first, geyser kicks in at 10, unless I see good solar yield, then I'll manually start it,  and by that time the dishwasher is going and possibly washing machine.
Once the geyser is finished then I would switch it on, and only until the yield of the panels drops below 2500W.
Thus a typical day like that would look like this 😜

A client without solar just endured a 36 hour blackout due to cable theft in Claremont Cape Town. He only lasted 20 hours until the domestic turned on the washing machine.

I heard an interesting story that the saboteurs (power station managers) had all been fired, which is why there is no load shedding. To me it makes the most sense.

19 hours ago, TaliaB said:

The installation i did February the guest farm in the Drakensberg are saving R75K/ month so far. That equates to R900k/ year saving on Eskom bill. The system cost was R4.5 million so ROI 5 years. There is frequent power outage in the area due to the distance of Arial lines running through the mountains and lightning. The owners of the farm is very impressed with the solar system as their clients are hardly without power. So yes a big chunk of money upfront but worth it in the long run especially if you want to run an efficient business in hospitality.

Very impressed with your great solution even if you had a lot of head scratching. 

ROI comes down to 4y2m if power increases at 12%p.a. This is fantastic. 

13 hours ago, zsde said:

Never for 10 hours,
Battery charge first, geyser kicks in at 10, unless I see good solar yield, then I'll manually start it,  and by that time the dishwasher is going and possibly washing machine.
Once the geyser is finished then I would switch it on, and only until the yield of the panels drops below 2500W.
Thus a typical day like that would look like this 😜

I do exactly same. 

On 2024/08/29 at 12:12 AM, TaliaB said:

The installation i did February the guest farm in the Drakensberg are saving R75K/ month so far. That equates to R900k/ year saving on Eskom bill. The system cost was R4.5 million so ROI 5 years. There is frequent power outage in the area due to the distance of Arial lines running through the mountains and lightning. The owners of the farm is very impressed with the solar system as their clients are hardly without power. So yes a big chunk of money upfront but worth it in the long run especially if you want to run an efficient business in hospitality.

The big thing is that they can write of 125% of the cost of the system to tax. 

Is a no brainer for companies to get off the grid as it doesn't cost them anything, only till 28 Feb 2025.

 

"Business incentive

For businesses, a 125% tax incentive applies in terms of section 12B of the Income Tax Act – for new and unused energy assets such as wind, solar PV, concentrated solar, hydropower and biomass.

Businesses get an upfront, higher-than-cost deduction of 125% as opposed to the current incentive, which is claimed over three years – 50% of the cost in the first year, 30% in the second and 20% in the last."

On 2024/08/29 at 10:19 AM, zsde said:

It produces so much because he uses so much  🤣

Love my off grid system. It has at least 30% in reserve daily from the panels. I just don't have enough work for it yet 😁
13 to 15 Aug I let the 2kW fan heater run all day and even then I only get to around ~20kWh power usage. Can't even abuse my own generating capacity. Once a miser always a miser 

That much said i don't have an output graph for solar i can show for this winter in Cpt we had very very bad solar production this year and again this week Cape of Storms it just doesn't stop. Maybe i should have stayed in Jozi your guys had good winter production this year the inverse of Cpt🥲

My battery worked overtime this winter and Eskom smiling 😁 all the way to the bank.

Edited August 31, 20241 yr by TaliaB

10 minutes ago, TaliaB said:

That much said i don't have an output graph for solar i can show for this winter in Cpt we had very very bad solar production this year and again this week Cape of Storms it just doesn't stop. Maybe i should have stayed in Jozi your guys had good winter production this year the inverse of Cpt🥲

Personally I did not find this winter much better than last year. During last year we had LS during winter and that caused 2023 to look bad. Due to being grid tied the lack of grid does have about 15%+ reduction for me if LS is during the good production period. 

YTD for this year. Yes it does look a lot better than you guys down under. March shows a big jump as the lack of LS played its part.