Visiting my brother on his farm this weekend. He has a 102kW installation. 408 250W panels connected to 4 SMA Sunny Tripower inverters.

Man, wish I could have an installation like this. He generated 18MW last month.

Unbelievable! Kudos to your boet. That is a serious install. What difference has it made to his Eskom bill?

As I said he generated 18MW last month, probably around R15k a month saving.

He also has a 200 kW wind turbine which has been running for about 18 months now. Not as predictable as solar and only really makes rated capacity under very specific wind conditions.

jdp, yes it is expensive but his reasoning is that he cannot wait and do nothing, at the rate that electricity prices is increasing he needs to buffer his input cost.

He spent a lot on renewables, with the wind turbine and solar installation he also had to build his own electricity grid on the farm to distribute the power he generates effectively. It is still only about half of his consumption.

But I tell you, those inverters are works of art. If my wife allowed me I'd mount them in my living room!

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Wow awesome,do you have details and photos of the turbine?

leaves, the turbine mast is 24m high and the diameter of the blades is also 24 m.

These are the only pics I have of it atm. Not sure who the manufacturer of the unit is.

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I love it!!!!!!!!

In Ekurhuleni, business tariff, we are currently paying 1.75/kwh. That's about 31k a month if it was here. Awesome setup.

In Cape Town it is R1.87 ex VAT = R33 660 + R4 712 = R 38 372.40 incl.

 

I only use about 16kWh per day so that is R34.19 incl VAT for me. 

And I am still too high. To many wants still around the house. SWAMBO's and all their siblings.

What sort of battery bank does he have? I presume he runs the high power stuff in the day, and only stores some for overnight use?

No storage, grid-tie only. He has a 400kW generator for power failures. His demand is typically 500 - 700 kW so no excess to store.