Common man's solar project - help/advice

[Bedford]

So there are now tons of articles and videos showing off these beautiful solar setups that cost a small fortune. These are all great but they serve no purpose to the rest of us 9-5 peeps out there. From what Iv read out there inside a 2 to 3 year period it will become viable to have complete solar, as Eskom will be charging more R/KW than ur solar would provide.

So what I'm proposing is a project that would start off small and grow over a 3 year period with the end goal of getting a person off-grid.

I sadly don't have the technical know-how at the moment, but I'm sure there are many who are absolute gurus out there. So what im looking at is providing power for certain things in the beginning with the idea then to grow from there.

So in my typical instance I would love help learning and understanding how to budget for the following.

1. Get a basic setup that would provide the foundation for my solar system, IE just the initial kit.
2. Enough power to handle running my TV + small media centre (that has my movies/series on).
3. Add enough power to run my 1000w computer setup. This would include running: 2 screens, switch, access point, router and wireless phone.
4. Add running all the lights (assuming its all LED lights).
5. Add single fridge.

Eventually it would be 1st prize to have gas for cooking and potentially solar for water as well, but I feel that would vary for individual and those costs can be really extreme. The above list can be added to, but I reckon those 5 things will make most ppl happy during the inevitable power cuts that will come. This is something that can be easily done over 3 years.

Any help would be greatly appreciated and I hope this helps other MyBB users out there.

 

[P924]

Slowly scaling up like that will work out much more expensive than saving up and going all-out.

 

[Bedford]

Any reason why? What would be the cause? Is it because your initial setup would be the bottleneck and expanding that would be the real issue?

 

[P924]

Stuff like the cost of inverters do not scale well, the cost of batteries scale exceptionally bad (if you actually look at total cost of ownership).

What are you expecting to spend right now, and where are you located?

 

[Bedford]

Currently located fourways/ranburg, close to olivedale clinic. Was looking to spend round R30k initially and wanted to scale as I went along.

Judging by what u saying, it seems it better to rather save the money over the next 3 years and rather buy it all at once then?

 

[ToxicBunny]

Currently located fourways/ranburg, close to olivedale clinic. Was looking to spend round R30k initially and wanted to scale as I went along.

Judging by what u saying, it seems it better to rather save the money over the next 3 years and rather buy it all at once then?

In terms of things like the inverter, then yes... save up.

 

[P924]

Currently located fourways/ranburg, close to olivedale clinic. Was looking to spend round R30k initially and wanted to scale as I went along.

Judging by what u saying, it seems it better to rather save the money over the next 3 years and rather buy it all at once then?

Yes. And as long as you save in dollars, the prices of the inverters and panels will be much lower in 3 years as well...

I don't think you have the option of net metering, otherwise grid tied with a small battery bank would be a lot cheaper.

 

[FNfal]

For 30 K you will get a pretty decent setup if you shop around and are not in a hurry and you install your self .You do not need to be a rocket scientist to install solar systems but if you make a mistake that can cost a lot of money ,so if you are not to good with electricity fundamentals let some one do it for you ,obviously it will cost you more .
At the moment is not the time to buy, every one is scrambling for power solutions .
http://www.sustainable.co.za/solar-power.html?cat=26&p=2

 

[Bedford]

Yes. And as long as you save in dollars, the prices of the inverters and panels will be much lower in 3 years as well...

I don't think you have the option of net metering, otherwise grid tied with a small battery bank would be a lot cheaper.

Is it perhaps just better to have some deep cycle batteries that would kick in if power went off and then use the grid to recharge them?

Really appreciate all the responses. Eishkom has really put us all in a precarious situation, with no promising outcome... Hopefully there will be such a great need for solar that the prices will plummet as well as some sort of government incentive.

 

[P924]

Is it perhaps just better to have some deep cycle batteries that would kick in if power went off and then use the grid to recharge them?

Really appreciate all the responses. Eishkom has really put us all in a precarious situation, with no promising outcome... Hopefully there will be such a great need for solar that the prices will plummet as well as some sort of government incentive.

That is exactly what I am doing. Cost is around R25k for 2000cycles @4kWh with a 1kW inverter/charger.

 

[Bedford]

That is exactly what I am doing. Cost is around R25k for 2000cycles @4kWh with a 1kW inverter/charger.

Awesome, this might be something to actually look at. Any recommendations on products and places to buy?

 

[Slaught3r]

That is exactly what I am doing. Cost is around R25k for 2000cycles @4kWh with a 1kW inverter/charger.

Can you supply more details please? Where did you procure from, who did your installation?

 

[richjdavies]

Sounds like a good plan == simple battery back-up for load-shedding. So many people go all or nothing, but 'functionally' speaking, the storage and the generation are very different decisions. The only real difference is that if you are generating using solar, then effectively you can share an inverter between your solar and batteries -- i.e. if you were going for grid charged batteries you'd need an inverter (going from DC-battery to AC ring main) and you use the same equipment to go from Solar to Ring main too.

Easiest way is to just buy a good quality (Schneider?) UPS - which you can add more batteries to. Some of them its pretty easy to add more batteries, some make it very difficult. Just be careful about discharging the batteries too heavily - as that shorten's their life (depending on battery).

If you are really mainly concerned about having a tv when the power is out, then just buy one of the usual PC-UPS's... TV's use about 40-100W (if huge!), add on some other things (not super big sound amps) and let's say 150W. So for 6 hours covered, you'll need about 1kWh of batteries -- which at 12V is about 100Amp-hours (with PF of 80%). You'll probably only have 3 hours of load shedding, thus why I say 6 hours to be safe.

So, something like the ME-6000-GRU has 140 Ah (7Ah x 20 batteries)
http://www.comx-computers.co.za/download/mecer/ME-6000-GRU.pdf
They are sold for around R15,000 I think.

I don't vouch for Mecer or comx -- just the quickest thing I could find.

FYI - something small like this:
http://www.makro.co.za/computing-and-mobile/meissner-netstar-ups-281322EA
Would only give you 7Ah x 2 = 14AH -- so would only last about 30 mins and then would probably be dead. However, it should be able to handle the load...

PS - My own tactic is just to watch TV on my laptop instead?! It's got a battery that lasts a couple of hours... either that or figure out something else to do in the dark

 

[maumau]

agree with Richdavies about not being that worried when the lights go off.

make sure tablets and phones are charged so you can surf, watch videos etc, and it's quite pleasant really, especially thinking about all the money you're saving when the stupids switch the power off.

nevertheless i'm still toying with solar just to stick it to Eskom. Can't really justify the cost, which i why it hasn't been done yet.

 

[Vegeta]

Laptops/tablets/phones take care of everything, only thing to power is your ADSL Wifi router.

 

[DominionZA]

Agree with the above comments.

I have an inverter hooked up to my media server, wifi and ADSL and keeps that up for over a day (never needed to push longer). These are outside in my home office.

Then a smaller ups hooked up to my inside wifi and switch which connects the house to the home office stuff.

Next step is to get a decent ups with a 102Ah battery for one of the TV's and we're sorted. For now we just use laptops or tablets to watch off the media servers Plex server.

For lighting, we have a few of those halogen Energizer goodies hooked up permanently. They switch on when the power goes, and charge when the power comes back. They see us through and entire 3 hour load shed.
Then we have a bunch of LED lanterns that we just dot around. Very bright and a set of batteries last for what seems forever.
Even though we don't need to, I want to go solar for the lights and 1 TV to start. Don't have to, but seems like a cool project. One day.

Cooking is a gas hob and what water is solar geyser.

As things stand, load shedding does not bug us that much.

 

[The_Traveller]

Ok so the other day we had a 25 hour blackout , and I still had 30% battery power available. My setup is as follows ...
1. 3kw 48v UPS (95% efficient )
2. 8 x 12v100ah Deep Cycle LA batteries giving me around 200 amps.

Now I connected all my lighting which is around 120 downlights fitted with 7w LED , and I have a few fluorescent lighting here and there. I also have my fridge and freezer hooked up. I obviously only use the lights as I need ( 9 stay on permanently due to day/night switch) , but I would do that on any given day. For the fridge and freezer, I drop the temp to minimum power so it hardly comes on but yet the fridge stays cool and freezer cold.
I have two 46" LED TV's paired with DSTV and one stays one permanently ( yeah 4 kids go figure ) but the other one is in my bedroom and I watch for around 2 hours until I and SO fall asleep. I also have my Alarm system powered and my laptops too. Lastly, I have my garage door hooked up so that I am not stranded outside if I forget the front door key and need to park the cars.

This is a very comfortable setup and 25 hours is more than I can ask for having only expected about 12 hours of backup time.

 

[DominionZA]

Ok so the other day we had a 25 hour blackout , and I still had 30% battery power available. My setup is as follows ...
1. 3kw 48v UPS (95% efficient )
2. 8 x 12v100ah Deep Cycle LA batteries giving me around 200 amps.

Now I connected all my lighting which is around 120 downlights fitted with 7w LED , and I have a few fluorescent lighting here and there. I also have my fridge and freezer hooked up. I obviously only use the lights as I need ( 9 stay on permanently due to day/night switch) , but I would do that on any given day. For the fridge and freezer, I drop the temp to minimum power so it hardly comes on but yet the fridge stays cool and freezer cold.
I have two 46" LED TV's paired with DSTV and one stays one permanently ( yeah 4 kids go figure ) but the other one is in my bedroom and I watch for around 2 hours until I and SO fall asleep. I also have my Alarm system powered and my laptops too. Lastly, I have my garage door hooked up so that I am not stranded outside if I forget the front door key and need to park the cars.

This is a very comfortable setup and 25 hours is more than I can ask for having only expected about 12 hours of backup time.

I like the way you have done yours. More than enough to get you the through the dark times IMO.

Did you wire into the DB board? Who did it for you?

 

[The_Traveller]

I like the way you have done yours. More than enough to get you the through the dark times IMO.

Did you wire into the DB board? Who did it for you?

Thanks. Yes it's wired directly to the DB. My electrician did everything. Actually about 90% of the install was his job ( meaning an electricians) , the rest was just to figure out how to hook up batteries as he had never done it before. But that's quite easy so no complications there.

I paid a decent price too. Thank goodness I know someone who knows someone, otherwise this project would have been a little over my budget.

 

[DominionZA]

Thanks. Yes it's wired directly to the DB. My electrician did everything. Actually about 90% of the install was his job ( meaning an electricians) , the rest was just to figure out how to hook up batteries as he had never done it before. But that's quite easy so no complications there.

I paid a decent price too. Thank goodness I know someone who knows someone, otherwise this project would have been a little over my budget.

Would you mind sharing how you did it and approximate cost. PM if you don't want to go public with it.

I have a know someone who know's someone electrician that takes care of my stuff. He recently installed a changeover switch for my genny and is now planning how to go about integrating a battery backup into my DB board. Planning pretty much the same as what you have done.
We are however in the "how do we do xyx" stage still, and getting info from you would greatly accelerate what we need to do. Would really be appreciated.