Expensive Eskom solar rules could be illegal

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Expensive Eskom solar rules could be illegal

Energy expert Chris Yelland has questioned the legality of Eskom and some municipal power distributors' requirement that ECSA-accredited personnel sign off on grid-tied solar power systems.

Eskom has intensified its campaign to register all grid-tied solar power systems on its network in recent months.
 
Wonder how many people spent enough money that the extra 10 to 20 000 they need to waste wouldn't be better used going off grid completely. Eskom has gotten to big for its little boots and needs to have the taste slapped out of its mouth legally. Unfortunately we need to accept that the corrupt SOE of a corrupt government will act outside the law the same way that a judiciary appointed by a corrupt government will not serve the needs of the people.
 
Bad Ballie said:
Wonder how many people spent enough money that the extra 10 to 20 000 they need to waste wouldn't be better used going off grid completely. Eskom has gotten to big for its little boots and needs to have the taste slapped out of its mouth legally. Unfortunately we need to accept that the corrupt SOE of a corrupt government will act outside the law the same way that a judiciary appointed by a corrupt government will not serve the needs of the people.
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Eskom is easy you just ignore them and make sure your COC is up to date as they know they will never win the court case.
The municipalities that are doing this nonsense is much harder as they will issue fines and block sales etc and you have to take them to court which costs a lot of money and time.
Its a shame that our consumer protection groups don't take these idiots to court.
 
Bad Ballie said:
Wonder how many people spent enough money that the extra 10 to 20 000 they need to waste wouldn't be better used going off grid completely. Eskom has gotten to big for its little boots and needs to have the taste slapped out of its mouth legally. Unfortunately we need to accept that the corrupt SOE of a corrupt government will act outside the law the same way that a judiciary appointed by a corrupt government will not serve the needs of the people.
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I'm at this point now. I am 99% off grid, on any day that is not full overcast/rainy I don't use any eskom day or night.
My inverters can take generator inputs, a simple 3kw "silent" gennie is all i need for those rainy days, no pun intended. Then I'm fully off.
 
Zuner said:
I'm at this point now. I am 99% off grid, on any day that is not full overcast/rainy I don't use any eskom day or night.
My inverters can take generator inputs, a simple 3kw "silent" gennie is all i need for those rainy days, no pun intended. Then I'm fully off.
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Yeah that's the thing, being fully off grid isn't cheap. Especially when it comes to overcast days, when they stretch over a few days it gets even worse :-(
 
Lupus said:
Yeah that's the thing, being fully off grid isn't cheap. Especially when it comes to overcast days, when they stretch over a few days it gets even worse :-(
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Yeah, though my system does well, on those days i generally make enough to run the house and work, just no geyser/aircon, prolonged gaming.

Even a 1000w gennie will work for me as i would need maybe 3 hours running a day until the sun comes back.
I plan on seeing how the system does this winter and upgrading the required next year if $$ allows it.
 
Zuner said:
Yeah, though my system does well, on those days i generally make enough to run the house and work, just no geyser/aircon, prolonged gaming.

Even a 1000w gennie will work for me as i would need maybe 3 hours running a day until the sun comes back.
I plan on seeing how the system does this winter and upgrading the required next year if $$ allows it.
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Sun comes back could be days not hours :). Plus remember that the generator would be powering the house and trying to charge the batteries not just charging. So you'd need to factor that in as well. A 1000w would take forever to do that + charge.
 
Bad Ballie said:
Wonder how many people spent enough money that the extra 10 to 20 000 they need to waste wouldn't be better used going off grid completely. Eskom has gotten to big for its little boots and needs to have the taste slapped out of its mouth legally. Unfortunately we need to accept that the corrupt SOE of a corrupt government will act outside the law the same way that a judiciary appointed by a corrupt government will not serve the needs of the people.
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If I was elon rich I would buy a house in an eskom direct area and put the biggest solar pv system the suburb has ever seen with great fanfare and celebration without any CAD drawings and engineer reports then I exporting to my neighbours so they can charge their batteries cheap cheap just to start something I can take to court.
 
Lupus said:
Yeah that's the thing, being fully off grid isn't cheap. Especially when it comes to overcast days, when they stretch over a few days it gets even worse :-(
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15kWh more battery is what you need and connecting geyser to inverter. Then silent gennie should be enough.
 
Lupus said:
Sun comes back could be days not hours :). Plus remember that the generator would be powering the house and trying to charge the batteries not just charging. So you'd need to factor that in as well. A 1000w would take forever to do that + charge.
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The inverter and batteries power the house, the gennie just charges the battery, so 1000W should be cheap to run the whole day and along with some solar should be enough to cover it, my baseline is 500Wh. 3000W one is plenty imho, maybe cheaper than 1000W one to run over less time?
 
Lupus said:
Sun comes back could be days not hours :). Plus remember that the generator would be powering the house and trying to charge the batteries not just charging. So you'd need to factor that in as well. A 1000w would take forever to do that + charge.
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Yup, but even on those rainy days I make enough to run tv lights server etc. so gennie would only be for night time topup and geyser.

Below is my eskom usage since i got the system late (September) last year, and half of that is due to a contractor drilling through one of my inverters, which took down 1 string (50%) of my panels, so for 2 months over festive I was using eskom periodically.

1745304992825.png
 
Zuner said:
Yup, but even on those rainy days I make enough to run tv lights server etc. so gennie would only be for night time topup and geyser.

Below is my eskom usage since i got the system late last year, and half of that is due to a contractor drilling through one of my inverters, which took down 1 string (50%) of my panels, so for 2 months over festive I was using eskom periodically.

View attachment 1814879
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Geyser run off batteries?
 
wingnut771 said:
15kWh more battery is what you need and connecting geyser to inverter. Then silent gennie should be enough.
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I think if you have enough batteries for 2 days of backup you should be covered 99% of the time by solar/batteries alone. Thats quite a few batteries though for me that would be around 7 x 5kwh. I currently have 4.
 
Zuner said:
Entire hours is on the inverter, the main line was cut and forwarded to the inverters then back again. 2x 5kw inverters.
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Aaah makes sense, my geyser is still on CP and is hooked up to the generator switch. But I've got a 6.5kw generator which with the geyser on does chuck.
 
B-1 said:
I think if you have enough batteries for 2 days of backup you should be covered 99% of the time by solar/batteries alone. Thats quite a few batteries though for me that would be around 7 x 5kwh. I currently have 4.
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Lately up here in GP, 3 days as currently we've had a few days of heavy cloud cover where generation is sometimes down to 10%
 
B-1 said:
I think if you have enough batteries for 2 days of backup you should be covered 99% of the time by solar/batteries alone. Thats quite a few batteries though for me that would be around 7 x 5kwh. I currently have 4.
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Think lupus only has 15kWh batteries. I think 30 is enough for most things with genie for emergencies.
 
Lupus said:
Aaah makes sense, my geyser is still on CP and is hooked up to the generator switch. But I've got a 6.5kw generator which with the geyser on does chuck.
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Are you not trying to save leccy?
 
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