Can someone explain to me pls?

[Cosmik Debris]

And which undergrad qualification led to this postgrad qualification?

Electrical, which those days included electronic. Then branched into Robotics about 20 years ago which caused a big learning curve in hydraulics and mechanics.

Why the dissing of logistics engineering? It embraces all engineering disciplines. It is not only distribution and transport, which is but one of the 12 recognised elements of logistics engineering but the one incorrectly claimed by companies to make them "logistics" specialists. Maintenance and systems engineering are two of the other elements.

You wanted to know, I obliged, and now you do the same.

 

[RonSwanson]

non-paywall version of the same article:

Corrupt, failing Eskom is a picture of South Africa in miniature – Best News

bestnews.com

Cool, but I did not have any problem accessing it.

 

[NarrowBandFtw]

Cool, but I did not have any problem accessing it.

ft is weird, sometimes it remembers how often you've seen an article, sometimes it seems to forget, sometimes it is unlocked by virtue of whatever link you followed to get to the article

whatever the reason, it was paywalled for me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Geoff.D]

If wind becomes a viable option then Ill invest in that as well

That is very much dependent on where you live. Those things are big, noisy and extremely dangerous (except for the very small systems). Unless of course, you invest in more innovative methods of harnessing wind energy than a simple big 3-blade fan.

 

[Geoff.D]

to start the inverter's MPPT controllers, it still needs a few watts of power.

So where is that bicycle generator? I mean that should be good enough to kick-start the process. Pun is entirely coincidental.

 

[Geoff.D]

Don't bank on earning credits for feedin. IF your meter runs backwards - this will end as soon as the municipality decides to roll out new meters. The feed-in tariffs are shyte. You want batteries, I promise.

Yup, I agree. It is a bit of a pipe dream for most residential people to build their ROI investment based on some credits from the municipalities. At best, those credits might offset the fixed connection charges and the registration fees.

 

[Geoff.D]

ft is weird, sometimes it remembers how often you've seen an article, sometimes it seems to forget, sometimes it is unlocked by virtue of whatever link you followed to get to the article

whatever the reason, it was paywalled for me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

But is actually a pretty poor article in the end. Was expecting something much better. Thank you for the non-paywalled link. - I also could not access it until you posted your link.

 

[neoprema]

A friend of mine works for a manufacturing plant. The owner spent $12m on solar and inverter power for the factory - only during the day (machines use too much to make storing the power worthwhile). The place cruns 24x7 so at night they switch over to Eskom - which doesn't always work so they fall back to burning diesel accross 3 generators.

Its a business that literally used to print money it did so well - its now making 50% less income than 10 years ago despite sales going up. The overheads are just insane and they're paying off that solar system.

The owner is currently trying to figure out if they should move operations to Botswana and ship the product back to SA.

 

[RonSwanson]

ft is weird, sometimes it remembers how often you've seen an article, sometimes it seems to forget, sometimes it is unlocked by virtue of whatever link you followed to get to the article

whatever the reason, it was paywalled for me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Could have been my VPN.

 

[Nerfherder]

I still don’t understand all this fascination with generators.

As math is easy:

Small (3-5kW) gennies run at min 1l of diesel/ hour. Thats R20+ an hour, excluding costs, maintenance. So 10 times more than prepaid. And stage 6 (8 hours per day) a small gennie cost R160 per day to run- or R4800 a month. It’s stupidity. They are also rarely wired in properly (auto start, isolation switches etc) - so NO COC, and insurance wont cover you when things break. (The cheap ones put out very poor quality power) Article last week on MyBB of one exploding and sadly killing the owner.

The are also illegal for most residential area's- noisy, polluting etc.

Just charge your batteries from grid when you are short, or have rainy days and solar doesn't cut it- it’s multitudes cheaper. We’ve not yet reached a scenario where you don’t have at least 4 hours somewhere in the night to top up batteries… if the grid collapses- sure different story but then a small gennie with no diesel wont help you much anyways…

Only reason for generators are in a remote area where you have NO grid and no solar (yet) - or backup systems for large users. (50-500kVa) - powering data centres etc.

Just stop wasting money buying these small generators.

And LPG gas… same story- just basic math shows you a small 20l LPG gas geyser cost substantially more per kW than electricity- yet people keep swearing by them as a “money saver”.

We need to change our lifestyle and learn to better manage electricity usage. First change your old 200l geysers to small 100l ones with 2kW elements and timers- even 3 of these for a large household will be 100% fine with almost no change in habits. That upfront cost of around 13K per replacement (so R40k) is cheaper than an additional 5kW battery + 6 panels.

Or refuse to adapt and spend 300K+ up front and keep moaning about the problem.

Lets not forget - Eskom probably going to get the 38% increase- and thats wholesale, so excludes VAT and markup from municipalities- so by April the cost will drive many more to solar + storage… don’t wait till then.

and all this "home use" is driving up the price of diesel and LPG. Its just the worst solution.

I do feel for people where its their only option.

 

[Mike Hoxbig]

and all this "home use" is driving up the price of diesel and LPG. Its just the worst solution.

I do feel for people where its their only option.

It should be the last option, not the first. That's the mistake most make. At the monthly cost to run one, you could just as well finance a full solar setup. But that's not to say that generators don't have a place...

 

[RonSwanson]

That is very much dependent on where you live. Those things are big, noisy and extremely dangerous (except for the very small systems). Unless of course, you invest in more innovative methods of harnessing wind energy than a simple big 3-blade fan.

The towers look thin, but the stays increase the footprint substantially, making it very difficult to place in a normal suburban residence. And as you say, they are noisy, and because they have more moving parts than panels, they require more maintenance. And more expensive equipment to brake them. Great for a large coastal farm with wide open spaces. Completely impractical for us city dwellers, yet wind power remains a dream, but a very desirable dream at that, if not only for the coolness factor .

 

[Darth Garth]

They need to pump the water upstream for Steenbras and Ingula hydro power - they do in evenings.

 

[RonSwanson]

So where is that bicycle generator? I mean that should be good enough to kick-start the process. Pun is entirely coincidental.

Come now Geoff, this is a tech forum where most of us are fat have Obelix-shaped physiques.

True that it may work (a Sunsynk will need between 40-80W to just stay alive), but if you consider that at the stage of a black start:

• the grid is no longer (for at least 3-6 weeks (if we are lucky)), so plenty of looting orcs;
• there are protracted overcast conditions (my own 6.08kWp array produces at best a tenth of its capacity, so about 4-600W);
• the batteries are in dire need of charging, so need about 15-20kW to replenish 10-15 kW of storage;
• light domestic essential loads (3-400W, such as electric fence, alarm, cameras, comms etc. (remember that it's a pretty sure thing that cellphone networks won't be operative) need to be serviced (so no hot water, oven and other luxuries);

it makes a whole lot of sense to use a big-ish genny (Sunsynk recommend a genny with at least 2x the capacity of the inverter because of the above reasons), and to run it for the 2-4 hours to get efficient use out of the fuel (which will increasingly get more difficult to procure and store because widespread looting by the orcs).

Fortunately Sunsynk / Deye / Inge types will allow for load shaving, so a smaller genny can theoretically be used (in one of my installs I have a 3kW genny paired with a 5K Sunsynk), just for much longer. Longer means much longer noise, and increases the risk of alerting the orcs to the location of fuel. It's also quite a tedious process to have to oversee.

So a bicycle dynamo may work well as a plan C or D, but plan B is a genny, hopefully a bigish one.

 

[Gothan]

Yeah I have a generator as plan Z. It’s not a big one only 1.2kva. My inverter is also 1.2kva . I use it for work so it’s not really carrying a load . But I’m renting so no solar on the roof and we’ve had periods of 60 hours without power . So the generator is just there when the batteries are run out and I can’t work

 

[Cosmik Debris]

If you're in an area that gets wind, one of these yacht wind generators will be helpful:

Home - Green Yachts

What will boating look like in the future? Green Yachts sells these boats and products today. Make your next boat electric - it's the future of boating.

greenyachtsales.com

 

[DapperDanMan]

The Generator is killing me

Klerksdorp man dies after generator explodes during load shedding

Besides his three sons, Pieter Redelinghuis was passionate about his vegetable garden. He meticulously took care of his tomatoes, spinach, peppers and beetroots at his home in Klerksdorp, North West. But, on Tuesday, tragedy struck. Redelinghuis was in the house with his wife and sister when...

mybroadband.co.za

You're not alone ...

 

[Nerfherder]

The towers look thin, but the stays increase the footprint substantially, making it very difficult to place in a normal suburban residence. And as you say, they are noisy, and because they have more moving parts than panels, they require more maintenance. And more expensive equipment to brake them. Great for a large coastal farm with wide open spaces. Completely impractical for us city dwellers, yet wind power remains a dream, but a very desirable dream at that, if not only for the coolness factor .

There is quite a lot of innovation in the wind space. I rate within a few years we will have a simple quiet wind power solution off the shelf.

 

[DapperDanMan]

Only reason for generators are in a remote area where you have NO grid

... or to show your support and appreciation for Chinese manufacturing.

 

[Paul_S]

and all this "home use" is driving up the price of diesel and LPG. Its just the worst solution.

I do feel for people where its their only option.

I don't feel sorry for the majority of people in this country. The majority voted for this mess - it was inevitable.
I also see lots of poor people spending R1000+ per month on cigarettes and booze regardless of their political affiliation. If they stop complaining and quit their habits that's enough to finance a small solar PV system. There's always a way if someone is determined.

Solar PV is within the reach of the vast majority of middle class. For example: I had a discussion with friends who want to install solar PV but they don't have an access bond with spare money in it that they can use for financing. The same applies to most of my relatives. These are people with combined household incomes of R30K to R100K per month but they didn't think for one minute to pay a little extra into their home loans over the years to reduce the amount of interest they'll pay or to use it as a buffer for rainy days. Instead it's new cars, branded clothing, holidays down to the coast twice a year, etc.

The repayment on a R200K loan at prime over 10 years is only R2643 month but people don't think twice about spending R6000+ per month on a new/newish vehicle. Priorities ...