Fazil Posted December 8, 2019 Share Posted December 8, 2019 Guys so what has been the impact of the rain and load shedding on yours or your clients system? Any run out of battery power and into the darkness? 5 days rain so far doesnt help at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gerrie Posted December 8, 2019 Share Posted December 8, 2019 1 hour ago, Fazil said: 5 days rain so far doesnt help at all Yeah, This rain is now costing me money as I need to buy more pre-paid power. My inverter and batteries are getting a break due to the weather. I just switched it off till the conditions improve. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KevinM Posted December 8, 2019 Share Posted December 8, 2019 We need the rain but boy is it hammering my solar production. from 25KW/day to less than 6!!! I have been prioritizing keeping the battries charged from the little solar available for load shedding. Paired 5KVA Axperts 18 335 W JA 2 X 3,5KW Pylontech Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fazil Posted December 9, 2019 Author Share Posted December 9, 2019 I cant recall a time in last 10 years Gauteng had so much consistent rainfall so this gives solar a bad name for those who arent familiar with it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GVC Posted December 9, 2019 Share Posted December 9, 2019 172mm rain by us....and it is still falling.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DeepBass9 Posted December 9, 2019 Share Posted December 9, 2019 (edited) I was wondering how everyone was holding up! This rain is not unusual. I have been of grid for almost 5 years now and there have been many periods like this when the sun doesn't shine for a week. Often in autumn you get these conditions as well. My Lister is chugging away and it has cost me maybe 20 liters of fuel so far. This nicely demonstrates the point that off grid, unless you spend a huge amount on batteries to keep you going for many days, it is cheaper to get a generater as standby and use a bit of diesel from time time (isn't that what Eskom's doing? LOL). The last time I used the genny was about 3 months ago in August. Edited December 9, 2019 by DeepBass9 Fuenkli 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobster. Posted December 9, 2019 Share Posted December 9, 2019 I check my meter every Monday to track actual usage and see what affect solar is having. For a sunny week like we had until recently, we generate about 95% of the electricity we use. This week I was susprised to see that we had averaged out at under 6.5 kw/h a day. That is still a bit better than 50% of our pre-solar consumption. So yes, the system isn't working nearly as well, but we still score, and having the battery means that load sheds don't cause us much of a problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobster. Posted December 9, 2019 Share Posted December 9, 2019 I didn't answer the question. No... we haven't run out of battery. We are running in backup mode as a buffer against load shedding, but even in that mode in this weather if the battery is charged and the demand from the house is low we still run off the bit of solar that is generated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johandup Posted December 9, 2019 Share Posted December 9, 2019 (edited) I had 19 hours of loadshedding yesterday from 09h00 up to 04h00 (due to breakdowns caused by loadshedding. But the 4 pylontech batteries were 100% after 2 hours of charging from the mains. Edited December 9, 2019 by Johandup Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fuenkli Posted December 9, 2019 Share Posted December 9, 2019 No load shedding here (zone 13 in Cape Town) . Since the load shedding started last week the CoCT has not switched off the power here once. I wonder why . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fazil Posted December 9, 2019 Author Share Posted December 9, 2019 36 minutes ago, Bobster said: I check my meter every Monday to track actual usage and see what affect solar is having. For a sunny week like we had until recently, we generate about 95% of the electricity we use. This week I was susprised to see that we had averaged out at under 6.5 kw/h a day. That is still a bit better than 50% of our pre-solar consumption. So yes, the system isn't working nearly as well, but we still score, and having the battery means that load sheds don't cause us much of a problem. Are you eskom charging the batteries to full or using pv? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
___ Posted December 9, 2019 Share Posted December 9, 2019 I will never ever ever complain about rain. I will gladly buy power from the grid if only it would rain. The Western Cape has had a bit of a reprieve but our drought isn't really over. Thankfully Namibia has had rain, after a drought that was worse than both 82 and 96. But it's not really our rainy season right now... so I have the reverse issue sometimes: Because the larger appliances can't run when the grid is down, and my hybrid inverter ties with the grid to power them, I'm actually losing production during load shedding Fuenkli 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobster. Posted December 9, 2019 Share Posted December 9, 2019 3 minutes ago, Fazil said: Are you eskom charging the batteries to full or using pv? I haven't sat and constantly monitored the system. The mode I'm running in will use PV and/or grid to charge the batteries. I expected it to use mostly grid in these conditions, but in fact we are getting some charge from PV. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaBz0r Posted December 9, 2019 Share Posted December 9, 2019 PV production the last few days.. I have left 30% reserve for the batteries to cover loadshedding, but have been setting ESS to keep batteries charged at certain points in time to ensure that if loadshedding is prolonged, I have a full battery to try and keep it going for as long as possible. Fazil 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luminous Posted December 9, 2019 Share Posted December 9, 2019 The rain is not helping much, but I am surprised at how much is generated from the cloudy/raining days. Dropped from 8.5kWh to around 1.5kWh at this stage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stoic Posted December 9, 2019 Share Posted December 9, 2019 (edited) I happily switch over to Eskom when it rains My PV generates 35% of its total capacity every day. Problem is, we get load shedded for 4-8 hours regardless of stage. So i use my batteries to 75% SOC then switch the inverter to Eskom. Its a Pity, cause the load shedding schedule is not accurate and i would have been able to live off batteries and PV for the last 5 days. Only now are we loadshedding. Edited December 9, 2019 by stoic Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Mike Posted December 9, 2019 Share Posted December 9, 2019 I am now sitting on the 20% reserve! The panels occasionally kick in and push some power but with this rain Eskom power has moved back into the house..... If Eskom does finally catch up with me and loadshed my area I will give the gennie a work out, she has been ready for months! she may also get a better muffler and sound box to keep the neighbours happy in the near future. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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