3 hours ago, WJB said:

Hi to all in order to leave the grid you will need 30kw inverter , 60 kwh battery and 30 kw of solar.

What type of premises are we talking about here? The typical household has a 60A single-phase supply, ie. around 14kW power output before the mains switch trips. And uses around 1000kWh per month. Give or take.

From that perspective I reckon most homes should be able to go off-grid with 12-15kW inverter power, 15-20kW of panels, 20-30kWh of batteries, some efficient appliances and water heating equipment, and just a little bit of intelligent power management.

It took months of fiddling, speaking to "experts" and a friend from the UK who has installed more than 1000 solar systems...

Have a 7.2kW inverter
3 x 5100wH batteries
6 x 450 watt panels

Separate 2 panels connected to a Geyserwise ECO for the hot water

Apart from the stove and geyser, everything is connected to the inverter

During the day, utility and solar provide power
From 19h00 to 08h00 the next morning, mains is off

At 19h00 the batteries usually exhibit close to 100% SOC
At 0800 the next morning they exhibit 75% SOC, sometimes between 50% and 75%

System commissioned in December 2024.

5kw Luxpower SNA5000
1 x 5.1kw battery
8 x JA Solar 600w panels
Geyser is solar and have not run element since November

My grid use can be attributed to not having sufficient storage, I need 1 more battery at a minimum to get my grid use down:

Overall, since installing, I've saved R3700, averaging R1100 per month saving. This could be up to R1400 with an additional battery.

At the current price of electricity and my usage / generation, my ROI is +- 4.5 years as my system, fitted, with COC, wiring, engineer report, registration, etc, cost me R55000

3 hours ago, Bl4d3 said:

System commissioned in December 2024.

5kw Luxpower SNA5000
1 x 5.1kw battery
8 x JA Solar 600w panels
Geyser is solar and have not run element since November

My grid use can be attributed to not having sufficient storage, I need 1 more battery at a minimum to get my grid use down:

Overall, since installing, I've saved R3700, averaging R1100 per month saving. This could be up to R1400 with an additional battery.

At the current price of electricity and my usage / generation, my ROI is +- 4.5 years as my system, fitted, with COC, wiring, engineer report, registration, etc, cost me R55000

So in order to save R300 you would incur say an estimated R15000 which give you more leeway and a 4.1 year ROI?

9 minutes ago, Scorp007 said:

So in order to save R300 you would incur say an estimated R15000 which give you more leeway and a 4.1 year ROI?

My calculation was based off of my current system costing R55000 with a saving of roughly R1100 per month, gives me an ROI of 4.1.

Funny enough, I just did the calculation, if I buy another battery for R14000 (Cyclone F5 from Solarway Suppliers), that takes my overall system cost to R69000. Bearing in mind, this system costs includes all costs associated with the system such as raspberry pi, solar assistant, mistakes I made with wrong conduit, wrong breakers, etc.

R69000 / R1400 = 49.2 / 12 = 4.1 ROI.

This calculation doesnt take winter into account or yearly increases in electricity. I will be able to provide more accurate data after 12 months of continuous use.

My system was considerably cheaper than most because I did the bulk of the work myself, call it 95% the install I did myself. Granted, I made some mistakes, it was still considerably cheaper than using an installer.
System was still inspected and connected to DB by an electrician and electrical engineer has signed off.

Edited April 6, 20251 yr by Bl4d3

On 2025/04/06 at 2:30 PM, Bl4d3 said:

My calculation was based off of my current system costing R55000 with a saving of roughly R1100 per month, gives me an ROI of 4.1.

Funny enough, I just did the calculation, if I buy another battery for R14000 (Cyclone F5 from Solarway Suppliers), that takes my overall system cost to R69000. Bearing in mind, this system costs includes all costs associated with the system such as raspberry pi, solar assistant, mistakes I made with wrong conduit, wrong breakers, etc.

R69000 / R1400 = 49.2 / 12 = 4.1 ROI.

This calculation doesnt take winter into account or yearly increases in electricity. I will be able to provide more accurate data after 12 months of continuous use.

My system was considerably cheaper than most because I did the bulk of the work myself, call it 95% the install I did myself. Granted, I made some mistakes, it was still considerably cheaper than using an installer.
System was still inspected and connected to DB by an electrician and electrical engineer has signed off.

Yes you did very well for yourself with going DIY.

Ive gone back and did the number properly - my previous estimates were optimistic to say the least

System installed December 2021

• Solar generation since then - 25.9MWh

• Solar generation savings - R72k (using Tshwane block charges)

• Grid used - 11.5MWh

• Grid cost - R29k

• Battery discharge - 11.7MWh

System cost me 185k all in done in 3 tranches (battery and panel upgrades) of 90, 45 and 50k. So I will have "saved" 50% of my system cost by the end of this year.

Winter has started early in Cape Town. In the last 10 days, 3 have been partially overcast and today is 100% cloud

I realise that to last through a cloudy winter, the 3 x 110a/h batteries will need an additional 200a/h to manage

Friend in Somerset West bought this one in November 2024 and it behaves well

Edited April 16, 20251 yr by chrisc
Typo

2 hours ago, chrisc said:

I realise that to last through a cloudy winter, the 3 x 110kW batteries will need an additional 200kW to manage

Do you run a factory, or is this just a typo 😃

3 hours ago, chrisc said:

Winter has started early in Cape Town. In the last 10 days, 3 have been partially overcast and today is 100% cloud

I realise that to last through a cloudy winter, the 3 x 110kW batteries will need an additional 200kW to manage

Friend in Somerset West bought this one in November 2024 and it behaves well

That is such a great price for 200Ah - almost too good to be true

This battery is advertised by https://infinitygroupcompanies.co.za/index.php/product/200ah-48v-rosen-lithium-battery-wall-mountable/?srsltid=AfmBOor5h8kS9N1x5FxnhZUdgFaNZd74pJwcbn7HWqiLjkOTzTa67Sni

Agreed very good price but there may be a catch if out of stock.

"PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS NOT A STOCK ITEM AND MAY BE IMPORTED IF THERE IS NO STOCK ON HAND. IMPORTS CAN TAKE UP TO 45 WORKING DAYS TO ARRIVE IN SOUTH AFRICA. PLEASE READ OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR DELIVERY DELAYS

3 hours ago, TaliaB said:

This battery is advertised by https://infinitygroupcompanies.co.za/index.php/product/200ah-48v-rosen-lithium-battery-wall-mountable/?srsltid=AfmBOor5h8kS9N1x5FxnhZUdgFaNZd74pJwcbn7HWqiLjkOTzTa67Sni

Agreed very good price but there may be a catch if out of stock.

"PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS NOT A STOCK ITEM AND MAY BE IMPORTED IF THERE IS NO STOCK ON HAND. IMPORTS CAN TAKE UP TO 45 WORKING DAYS TO ARRIVE IN SOUTH AFRICA. PLEASE READ OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR DELIVERY DELAYS

https://www.hellopeter.com/infinity-group-companies

Don't think I can trust them with my money

3 hours ago, TaliaB said:

CAN TAKE UP TO 45 WORKING DAYS

WTF? really? ships stop moving on weekends?

Edited April 13, 20251 yr by Kalahari Meerkat
whata happened man?

The ROSEN 200 a/h battery was delivered 22 days after being ordered

There was no shipping information from the supplier, one day the courier just turned up

Summer month we are generating more than 4MW per month. 15KW Batt so import = 0.

My view now is does not matter who we are paying Gov or China is the same. The diffs is no load shedding, no increase and most important no theft for those who like stealing ...

Savings for us are huge more than R8K per Month

1 x 10KW dual 3KW 7KW grid tied
1 x 20KW 3 phase grid tied
1 x 7 KW 1 phase grid tied
1 x 3k3KW 1 phase grid tied
1 x 10KW grid tied new inverter

52 PV panels 😇

New stuff is now fully sponsored. 😇

On 2025/04/12 at 4:24 PM, chrisc said:

Friend in Somerset West bought this one in November 2024 and it behaves well

Is there any link where one can view the user/tech manual for these batteries?
What BMS do they use? Would be great to check the protocols and interface for the differing Inverters that they claim are compatible.
Can you check with your friend if he received a comprehensive manual with the battery and if there is perhaps a link to an online version?

So I did find a manual online. Irritating as you have to wait for an ad to open the next page, but at least it gave me some insight. So these 200Ah batteries seem have 64 X 50Ah cells in a 16S4P config. Never seen that before in a off the shelf battery.

https://www.scribd.com/document/663207328/Rosen-51-2V-200AH-LiFePo4-Battery-Powerwall

Edited April 25, 20251 yr by zsde
found a manual

On 2024/10/24 at 7:42 AM, WannabeSolarSparky said:

Yip, it is coming to EVERYONE regardless of your supplier.
And until "they" offer better feed-in options, the best way to go IMHO is to simply add more battery capacity and go fully off-grid.
While regulations and laws allow it.

Seeing the trends all over the world, I doubt there will ever be a time when feed-in will make sense, almost as if "they" are for now "forcing" everyone to go off-grid.
And at the same time they will  slowly start changing the by-laws and regulations to make it more difficult to actually go off-grid.
Weird thinking by governments, but I am sure they have a "plan" which no doubt will always be disguised as "for the consumer's good or safety" but ultimately to benefit big corporations.

Lucky our government is so incompetent it is going to take a while to get there 🤣

Bottom line in my opinion, GET SOLAR and Batteries NOW while prices are low and laws/regulations still easy to follow.

I am in Strand
Which direction should my panels face for best performance?

26 minutes ago, AndreGreyling said:

I am in Strand
Which direction should my panels face for best performance?

Always aim for north if your roof or frame space allow.
East and west work quite well if you do not have north facing areas.
Avoid south facing unless you have absolutely no other choice but then you would have to over panel by a lot and aim for having the panels almost flat.

4 minutes ago, WannabeSolarSparky said:

Always aim for north if your roof or frame space allow.
East and west work quite well if you do not have north facing areas.
Avoid south facing unless you have absolutely no other choice but then you would have to over panel by a lot and aim for having the panels almost flat.

Thanks for the info!!!

Will see the generation at my house in summer but starting to break 3MW per month after adding some panels on east/west roof.

My systems performance so far:

Assuming I sale R1100 this month and R1100 next month, my average monthly saving would be at R930.

I've since installed a 2nd battery in July which brought down my grid usage considerably. At this rate, ROI is 6.93 years.

I have done some changes since my last posting here which has taken my final install cost to R77285.40incl for the inverter, 8 panels and 2 batteries, with hook up which I've already used

For the past year I have saved a total of R83k on my Tshwane Electricity bill, now if they had a better incentive to push back to the grid the savings would be much better. total since installing the system in 2022 I have saved almost R230k so next year the system would be paid off.

Edited November 18, 2025Nov 18 by fstofberg

12 hours ago, fstofberg said:

For the past year I have saved a total of R83k on my Tshwane Electricity bill, now if they had a better incentive to push back to the grid the savings would be much better. total since installing the system in 2022 I have saved almost R230k so next year the system would be paid off.

Thanks for the detail figures provided. You have one of the most effective systems from a ROI point of view around. Most have a pay back term around 7 years for a battery system. Performance is remarkable.

Just another update 5 months later and so far the system is running well only had to use the grid a couple of times when raining for a couple of days.

It's been a while, anyone got some interesting findings ie greater than expected savings (if so what have you attributed it to) or less savings than expected? Curious to see how others have maximized savings.