Solar power and Geyser

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zakslaher

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Hi all,

I have 12 x 515W solar panels, 8Kw Sunsync inverter and 3 x 5Kw batteries.

We are 2 in the house and hardly use much power, the purpose is 2 fold for loadshedding and power saving.

I have a 200l kwikot geyser. The installers isolated the geyser from the solar system. The question is, can my solar system run my geyser and if not why.
 
Yes, it can run your geyser, it probably has a 4kW element. The whole point of solar is to stop giving money to eskom so not sure why they never connected it. Your 6kW solar can take 2 hours during the day to charge it and the other 4 hours to charge battery. People normally put geyser on a timer so it comes on during the day at 1pm when there is peak solar and batteries are usually charged already.
 
zakslaher said:
Hi all,

I have 12 x 515W solar panels, 8Kw Sunsync inverter and 3 x 5Kw batteries.

We are 2 in the house and hardly use much power, the purpose is 2 fold for loadshedding and power saving.

I have a 200l kwikot geyser. The installers isolated the geyser from the solar system. The question is, can my solar system run my geyser and if not why.
Click to expand...
Best to just search the other threads. This topic has been discussed to death.
 
zakslaher said:
Hi all,

I have 12 x 515W solar panels, 8Kw Sunsync inverter and 3 x 5Kw batteries.

We are 2 in the house and hardly use much power, the purpose is 2 fold for loadshedding and power saving.

I have a 200l kwikot geyser. The installers isolated the geyser from the solar system. The question is, can my solar system run my geyser and if not why.
Click to expand...
Yes, the installers should not have isolated it from the solar.
 
SHL said:
Yes, the installers should not have isolated it from the solar.
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No installer wants to deal with phone calls about why his inverter keeps tripping from overload.

With the small inverter he has relative to the element size I also wouldn’t put it on solar.
 
denmendez65 said:
No installer wants to deal with phone calls about why his inverter keeps tripping from overload.

With the small inverter he has relative to the element size I also wouldn’t put it on solar.
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Probably but mine works fine and I have a 5kva inverter.
 
I have a similar slightly larger setup.
my entire DB is cut from eishkom and routed to the inverter DB, and fed back. so i have a change over switch to switch between inverter and eishkom, but when on inverter the entire main DB is fed by inverter. non of this essential non-essential business.

150l geyser with 3kw element, though pulls 2500w as i've set the inverter to 220v, i would prefer a 200l geyser, thermal battery.
(For you smart pants - No inverter doesn't sync to eishkom 235v cause eishkom breaker is off as i am 99.9% off grid.)

1783689931420.png
 
SHL said:
Probably but mine works fine and I have a 5kva inverter.
Click to expand...
And it’s not a matter of if it works or not. I had mine for a month or 2 on a 3.6kW. The average person just doesn’t sit around and want to manage how many loads are running at a time.
 
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wingnut771 said:
8kW is small?
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As far as I’m concerned yes. You have 4kW for the element, that leaves 4kW. 1kW baseload leaves 3kW. You are one microwave and kettle away from overloading it.

Also note it’s not 1:1. 4kW element would leave you with some 3.6kW on the inverter. I have seen it on mine. A 2kW load is actually some 2.3kW. Your margins are even smaller in that case.

If he’s willing to tell his wife and family members/kids that they should watch how many devices to run then sure. Otherwise 8kW is too small.
 
denmendez65 said:
As far as I’m concerned yes. You have 4kW for the element, that leaves 4kW. 1kW baseload leaves 3kW. You are one microwave and kettle away from overloading it.

Also note it’s not 1:1. 4kW element would leave you with some 3.6kW on the inverter. I have seen it on mine. A 2kW load is actually some 2.3kW. Your margins are even smaller in that case.

If he’s willing to tell his wife and family members/kids that they should watch how many devices to run then sure. Otherwise 8kW is too small.
Click to expand...
Then ac pass through takes over or people adapt. Which would you rather have, geyser connected to solar or to eskom? Spend R200 and replace it with 3kW. Yes a diy job as I won’t pay thousands to a plumber to do it.
 
wingnut771 said:
Then ac pass through takes over or people adapt. Which would you rather have, geyser connected to solar or to eskom? Spend R200 and replace it with 3kW. Yes a diy job as I won’t pay thousands to a plumber to do it.
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As discussed before, it’s a matter of what suits the person at the end of the day.

I would put a heat pump or do something to take it off like controller. There’s a lot of users here that went even as far as doing gas geysers even though they generate over 50kWh a day.

My personal experience was it was just crap having the geyser on inverter. To each their own though.
 
denmendez65 said:
As discussed before, it’s a matter of what suits the person at the end of the day.

I would put a heat pump or do something to take it off like controller. There’s a lot of users here that went even as far as doing gas geysers even though they generate over 50kWh a day.

My personal experience was it was just crap having the geyser on inverter. To each their own though.
Click to expand...
Well anyway, his system can handle the geyser no problem. What other loads he has we dont know.
 
wingnut771 said:
Well anyway, his system can handle the geyser no problem. What other loads he has we dont know.
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Yeah thats the main thing. I didnt say its not possible, anything is like how I went offgrid with a 3.6kW but its a case of does he understand what it entails. Right now as is I imagine he is completely offgrid on the circuits supplied by the inverter. Doesnt need to manage anything.

My place for example requires zero management. I monitored consumption for the 2 at the house now and somehow they use even less than I did alone when the wife left. The LFP is sitting at 60% in the morning. No way for them to overload anything also with the setup.

The geyser for him would require a bit more hands on which may or may not be to his liking. But he can do a set and forget and let the system take care of itself as you say with passthrough and letting it charge off the grid when his batteries drain which will be more often than what it currently is. If he wants to be stingy with grid use then its a whole lot more management.
 
I have a 4kw and 3kw geyser on my 8kw sunsynk. I switch between the geysers every 30minutes between 10:00 and 16:00 with smart isolators.
The 8kw sunsynk can do up to 10KW with blending before it trips.
 
B-1 said:
I have a 4kw and 3kw geyser on my 8kw sunsynk. I switch between the geysers every 30minutes between 10:00 and 16:00 with smart isolators.
The 8kw sunsynk can do up to 10KW with blending before it trips.
Click to expand...
Why not just ensure they don't run at the same time?
 
zakslaher said:
Hi all,

I have 12 x 515W solar panels, 8Kw Sunsync inverter and 3 x 5Kw batteries.

We are 2 in the house and hardly use much power, the purpose is 2 fold for loadshedding and power saving.

I have a 200l kwikot geyser. The installers isolated the geyser from the solar system. The question is, can my solar system run my geyser and if not why.
Click to expand...
yes you can I run 2 150l geysers on my 8kw Deye , i can run both at the same time 6KW but i dont just to give a bit of headroom.
your 200l 4Kw will be fine
I have them connected under smart load (with my Oven) - - which called Aux on sunsynk if you installer has no idea what this is get another installer.
 
Lupus said:
Why not just ensure they don't run at the same time?
Click to expand...

I used to have a monitor with the SOC so this way they would both get at least a 30mins before the SOC was below 50% on cloudy days. That broke and I have been too lazy to fix it so here we are.
 
B-1 said:
I used to have a monitor with the SOC so this way they would both get at least a 30mins before the SOC was below 50% on cloudy days. That broke and I have been too lazy to fix it so here we are.
Click to expand...
See @wingnut771. Management management. And who knows what the OPs consumption is a day. Now he has to deal with managing the system to ensure the battery isn’t drained to cater for power cuts etc.

But it’s a good inverter and it seems the software etc does some of it for you. Still not a fan though.
 
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