Grateful if those who have had their system approved by  Cape Town  and an engineer could confirm the costs involved for grid tied.

One needs to budget.

 

The CoC by the electrician, IF THERE ARE NO ISSUE on the board, easy to add the inverter: +-R3500

Engineer costs: Call it R2500 - R3500 or some such depending on how much effort the engineer must put in, NOT the R10k that some idiots out there are quoting.

With grid tied, you recoup that chop chop.

 

That is good news!

There's a fee of aprox R10k to be paid as well. I can't remember where I saw it, but it oulines two things that is covered by the fee. 

1 hour ago, SilverNodashi said:

There's a fee of aprox R10k to be paid as well. I can't remember where I saw it, but it oulines two things that is covered by the fee. 

I'm at the last step and there is no approx R10k fee anywhere I know of coming my way?

1 minute ago, The Terrible Triplett said:

I'm at the last step and there is no approx R10k fee anywhere I know of coming my way

maybe it is the bribe you did not pay 🤣

13 minutes ago, Fuenkli said:

maybe it is the bribe you did not pay 🤣

I see your email to the DA has generated a results. 🙂 

Now two departments are involved, North and East, as well as the DA. 

28 minutes ago, The Terrible Triplett said:

I see your email to the DA has generated a results. 🙂

I must say that I am quite impressed. The DA councillor as well as the SSEG North department have responded quickly. Lets see what they can do for us.

1 hour ago, The Terrible Triplett said:

I'm at the last step and there is no approx R10k fee anywhere I know of coming my way?

Somewhere on the forum someone mentioned it. And I saw it somewhere on a PDF as well. Can't find it now.

15 minutes ago, Fuenkli said:

I must say that I am quite impressed. The DA councillor as well as the SSEG North department have responded quickly. Lets see what they can do for us.

Now THAT is what I am talking about, no-one believes till they experience CoCT actually responding on emails.

The ONLY problem, as Phil has said once, is the official/s not having to make an unpopular DECISION, career ending risk and all that. 🙂 

We both sit on "separate suitably interlocked change-over switch".
You with the added issue of your inverter exceeding 3.5kw on a 63amp breaker.

So lets hope that it is sorted.

 

4 minutes ago, SilverNodashi said:

Somewhere on the forum someone mentioned it. And I saw it somewhere on a PDF as well. Can't find it now.

Use to be that silly quoted across the board fee of +R10k for engineering sign-off that excl a CoC, that I so vehemently rebelled against. 😀
Today we are +-1/4 of the price as I posted above on the costs for engineering sign-off - CoC the potential expensive part.

Edited April 4, 20197 yr by Guest

On 2019/04/04 at 1:14 PM, The Terrible Triplett said:

 

Use to be that silly quoted across the board fee of +R10k for engineering sign-off that excl a CoC, that I so vehemently rebelled against. 😀
Today we are +-1/4 of the price as I posted above on the costs for engineering sign-off - CoC the potential expensive part.

Look on page 16 of the requirement for small scale embeded generation PDF

41 minutes ago, SilverNodashi said:

Look on page 16 of the requirement for small scale embeded generation PDF

Ja, that is for when you want to feed back you need that bi-directional meter installed, at those estimated prices, and it goes hand in hand with a increased daily charge.

We don't do that. 🙂 

Because IF you do that you need to make the sums very very careful as you have to be net metering meaning they owe you nothing after 12 months cycle, you bought more than you sent back. Whole new level of discussion.

And if you want to make a profit, next level definition of the word "complications" ... if NERSA allows anyone else to sell power back for a profit.

So we don't get the bi-directional meters no.
 

4 minutes ago, The Terrible Triplett said:

very careful as you have to be net metering meaning they owe you nothing after 12 months cycle

That requirement where you have to stay a net consumer: I don't think there's going to be a penalty or a fine if you don't. I think they just won't rebate you for it.

To see what would happen if you don't stay a net consumer: Let's say you bought 3600Kwh from them in the year, and you fed back 4000Kwh. Since you are required to stay a net consumer, they will then not "pay" you for the 400kwh extra energy you fed in, so you will be rebated only for 3600Kwh. This makes you grid-neutral, but since you pay R1.38 per kwh for import and only get rebated 0.85 you will always pay at least 53 cents per kwh for anything you import regardless of what you export.

Further, on SSEG tariff you pay R14.21 per day connection fee, so around R430 a month connection fee. As I argued before, this is somewhat compensated for because you only pay R1.38 per kwh (as opposed to 1.85 on home tariff or even more on domestic tariff) for the first 600kwh/month, so it's not a dead loss of 430 down a bottomless pit, it does buy more than just the right to feed in and be paid for it.

The optimum use of this tariff would be to buy 600kwh from them (for after hours use) and to feed in 600kwh during the day. Your monthly bill will then be R430+600*0.53 ~= R750, vs R1260 (R150 + 600*1.85) on home tariff, so roughly R500 savings and you don't have to use batteries.

1 hour ago, plonkster said:

Your monthly bill will then be R430+600*0.53 ~= R750, vs R1260 (R150 + 600*1.85) on home tariff, so roughly R500 savings and you don't have to use batteries.

So when are you doing it?

Personally the cost of that bi-directional meter irks me - and the contract one must sign.

21 minutes ago, The Terrible Triplett said:

So when are you doing it?

Personally the cost of that bi-directional meter irks me - and the contract one must sign.

I think that’s where I’m at too - balking at the price of the meter.  Of course its much cheaper than batteries, but with Eskom and all I think its a big step to go without batteries.

Nett metering is lovely and simple - all that you generate gets you something.

Without pushing back, the numbers hang off how much of the daytime power you can use - either immediately of to charge batteries for the evening.

I did model this before but to guess I might use half so if it comes out 7 kwh per day - using the domestic rate >600kwh (R2.56/kWh including VAT) that comes to saving  R537 per month - so very much the same.  

Lo and behold it looks like the CoCT also has Excel and knows how to use it 😉

But you can end up with roughly the same financial result but without buying the two way meter and you retain the control to further optimise your usage of your generated power to do a bit better.

I think this has been the conclusion every time we discuss it.

 

2 minutes ago, Elbow said:

Of course its much cheaper than batteries, but with Eskom and all I think its a big step to go without batteries.

Ja, but here is the 2nd issue I have: We need batts. 🙂

I don't see us having fun with Eskom failures and no batts. 

3 minutes ago, Elbow said:

Without pushing back, the numbers hang off how much of the daytime power you can use - either immediately of to charge batteries for the evening.

IF Pylon's are as good as the marketing material, price is less than Eskom per kwh, then why are more people not adding them for evening use? 🙂 

I want to move towards lithiums one day and use them each and every night to remove some of the 24/7/365 loads, loads below <300w.

For that I need to VenusGX to do a few things cleverly - will get there.

2 minutes ago, The Terrible Triplett said:

I want to move towards lithiums one day and use them each and every night to remove some of the 24/7/365 loads, loads below <300w.

Let me explain more.

The moment I can get lithiums to cost me less per kwh than Eskom's lowest price out there, at that time, then it makes sense to take the <=300w that are on 24/7/365, off Eskom and put it permanently on solar, with 3 days backup.

Because some of these loads are important stuff like alarms, lights, cell chargers, A++ fridges etc I see no reason to keep the entire DB on so why not switch it off between say 12-6am every day - or whatever schedule fits the household - yes they will have a vote. 🙂 

Problem is the cost of the batts, cash upfront and all that, for doing it on credit defies the savings. 
So an idea I'm toying with is once I get 24v affordable lithiums in SA, is to build the bank out - block for block.
Therein also the 24v bank, as it is small loads, so it matters not.

So then I can get close to being "off-grid" daytime from wot, +-8am - +-5pm = +-9 hours on solar panels - depending on loads.
And again from 12-6am = 6 hours - as above on lithiums.
Needing Eskom mainly for big loads daytime and +-9 hours which is mainly between 6pm and 12, the biggest Eskom usage in all households.
Rest of the time Eskom as also backup - as it is cheaper than a gennny.

Recon 3kw of panels will do it for me.
Just to find affordable 12v / 24v lithiums - affordable, read what I'm happy to pay for. 😉 

2 hours ago, Elbow said:

balking at the price of the meter

Yup. That's the thing. If it was a 2k meter, sure. 12k... gaan blaas doppies.

2 hours ago, The Terrible Triplett said:

IF Pylon's are as good as the marketing material, price is less than Eskom per kwh, then why are more people not adding them for evening use? 🙂 

People are using them for evening use 🙂

2 hours ago, The Terrible Triplett said:

lithiums to cost me less per kwh than Eskom's lowest price out there

It's not Eskom pricing you need to beat. It is CoCT pricing. For anybody who use more than 600kwh a month, that means R2.55/kwh. Trojans come in around R2.35 if my math is correct, Pylontech comes in around R1.75. But there is still the matter of the opportunity cost and tax.

If a single module costs R16k, and you take that money from your homeloan (aka around 10%), it costs you R133 a month (before tax) in opportunity cost.

Your 2kwh module saves you around R5 a day (2 * R2.55) and costs you R3.50 (2 * R1.75), so you save R1.50 on that one module, times 30 for a saving of R45 a month.

Subtract the 133 in opportunity cost, so the entire exercise costs you around R90 a month per rack.

BUT... I think there are cases where the opportunity cost can be ignored or partially ignored. The typical example is a car. There is opportunity cost involved, because you had to take money from an interest-bearing vehicle to finance another value-losing "asset". Now that argument is fine and dandy if you have good public transport... but without good public transport (or reliable electricity), it becomes unavoidable and you only compare the direct costs.

Plus, electricity is bought with income that was already taxed, and hence renewable energy technically delivers a tax-free return of an additional 20%-25% depending on your overall tax bracket...

Putting it like this ...

1 hour ago, plonkster said:

Your 2kwh module saves you around R5 a day (2 * R2.55) and costs you R3.50 (2 * R1.75), so you save R1.50 on that one module, times 30 for a saving of R45 a month.

= laying out R16k to save R45.00 pm? I can save R45 pm just by switching a few things off earlier.

Thyme bank, if I leave the R16k there for 100 days gets me 10% or R442.67 total, compounded monthly ... minus tax.

That is why I have no lithiums yet, for I'm looking at 350w that must be off the grid permanently. 🙂 

1 hour ago, plonkster said:

People are using them for evening use 🙂

Yes, sorry, they do.

I'm thinking like I said above, taking selected stuff off-grid permanently, not just a few batt ah here and there.

And I'm not convinced that the lithiums today will give the cycles they claim - same as cellphone batts. So there is that too. Time will tell.

10 minutes ago, The Terrible Triplett said:

Putting it like this ...

= laying out R16k to save R45.00 pm? I can save R45 pm just by switching a few things off earlier.

Thyme bank, if I leave the R16k there for 100 days gets me 10% or R442.67 total, compounded monthly ... minus tax.

That is why I have no lithiums yet, for I'm looking at 350w that must be off the grid permanently. 🙂 

Where do you get the battery for R16K?

At R16K, with 80% DOD and 6000 cycles, I calculate R1.39/Kwh. At 300W/h you'll get about 9.5hours worth of energy. That's about R7's worth of Eskom saving per day, or R212/m or R2553/y, or R40,856 over the battery's 16 year lifespan. 

10 minutes ago, SilverNodashi said:

Where do you get the battery for R16K?

Plonksters price. 🙂 

10 minutes ago, SilverNodashi said:

6000 cycles ... 16 year lifespan

Like the Trojan ranges. 4000 cycles claimed at 20% DOD. How many last 10 years at 20% DOD use?
Factors like temp and charging and and and affect the chemical reaction, affecting the cycles.

It is not an exact science.

Lithiums on the other hand have probably things like material fatigue / circuit boards not able to last the 6000 cycles / 16 years.
Just thinking of electric car batteries. Cellphone and laptop batteries. None last 16 years. It will be a nirvana for Eskom if batts last 16 years at R16k ex VAT saving you R40,856

Another comparison. Working batteries lasting as long as solar panels?

And then the 10 year warranties for new products. Like my Duratherm geyser, 10 year warranty, sprung a small leak recently  No problem, 8 years old. Sorry, no warranty. The Co that gave the warranty is gone.

So IF Pylon's last 6000 cycles / 16 years I will be floored having lost a serious amount of savings.

I'll take my chances for now thank you. 🙂 

@SilverNodashi - let me just be clear. IF I buy Pylontech it would be to replace the Trojan's at a lower price, hoping to get 5 years hard use.

So I'm not against lithiums at all ... just the claims made.

5 hours ago, The Terrible Triplett said:

Just to find affordable 12v / 24v lithiums - affordable, read what I'm happy to pay for. 😉 

So @Energy has been teasing some?