Households that install solar can immediately start saving

leon.davibe said:
i have had lithium battery backup since jan 2021
and still problem free , did a diy battery build
from what i can see i have lost about 4% of capacity
mostly due to cycling too deep initially with smaller bank and bad balancing so longevity wise still looking good

the increases has been big enough to already make a massive impact on roi
so even if we don't have a single increase from here on out after 5-6 years you would be enjoying x amount of electricity for free

even on rainy/cloudy days your panels will still produce some power
the other day i happened to check this on a rainy day got 10% of normal output (naturally you will have the odd day here and there that might be even lower
even with bad weather i still save electricity

started getting panels last year july
and have generated R14 000 of electriciy

so it is currently looking like i will make all the momey back in about 4.5 years
sure some stuff may pack up

the way i see it , if you have gotten all your money spent back it is like an item that somody gave you for free if it packs up you would say it cost mne nothing so nothing lost, some warrantees are longer than the roi window so really not a big deal

the same applies if you sell your house even if you get 20c on the rand if you made the money back it doesn't matter realy

the point for me was i already had the expense of getting battery/inverter to be able to work through shedding

now adding the panels is a seperate calculation for me, spendinmg the money on panels it would take 18mnths to make back the cash layout on panels alone

so if a panel breaks the same got it for free logic applies, the only difference now is after that 18mnths they are getting money back i had to waste to weather load shedding which is a bargain

hindsight is 20/20 if i could go back in time i would have borrowed to install panels on day one instead of waiting for cashflow to do it cash
the problem is lots of people have bad instalations, /stories that spread

i know i encountered a guy that had higher electricity bill after solar install vs before
his wife was so pisse dof he decided to gi solar

i sorted out his settings, and in the meantime he has upgraded his system
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You missing the point.
95% of people are not at home the whole day. They do not want to change their lifestyle to accommodate their solar ROI. A few retirees or nerds that is totally obsessed with their solar system is not the norm. Most people will never get their money back.

I have seen a guy in our estate start a business recently cleaning solar panels and the last month was looking at the panels in our estate and in town as I drive by. Out of hundreds, possibly a thousand houses I have seen. I think one house in our estate and maybe 2 in town you could see the panels got cleaned recently. All the rest is obvious they have never been cleaned. Last time they probably looked clean was when the last rain fell. Except for the frame you would not even know its a solar panel, that how dirty they are. People don't care. Most only got it for load shedding or just to be part of the hype.

This whole article is BS. They go out with their prediction with "people that use 20% of their electricity at night" So its flawed as very few does that. There is a reason 5-9pm is peak consumption times.
 
Jean Claude Vaaldamme said:
You missing the point.
95% of people are not at home the whole day. They do not want to change their lifestyle to accommodate their solar ROI. A few retirees or nerds that is totally obsessed with their solar system is not the norm. Most people will never get their money back.

I have seen a guy in our estate start a business recently cleaning solar panels and the last month was looking at the panels in our estate and in town as I drive by. Out of hundreds, possibly a thousand houses I have seen. I think one house in our estate and maybe 2 in town you could see the panels got cleaned recently. All the rest is obvious they have never been cleaned. Last time they probably looked clean was when the last rain fell. Except for the frame you would not even know its a solar panel, that how dirty they are. People don't care. Most only got it for load shedding or just to be part of the hype.

This whole article is BS. They go out with their prediction with "people that use 20% of their electricity at night" So its flawed as very few does that. There is a reason 5-9pm is peak consumption times.
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The calculator defaults to that, it just means you need more battery if your percentage is higher

So lets say a person installs 20kwh batteries and you set it to use 16kwh overnight

The inverter will switch by itself to eskom once that happens , ie set it and forget it and then have a timer thjust prevents the geyser from switching on after the morning bath or evening bath if nobody baths in the morning again a set it and forget it setup

You would save 22-24kwh units a day 8000 -8750 units a year that is R25 -27k a year

So with eskom increase of 5% you would save over 5 year period 138k

No swooning set it and forget

Why do a lot of techies faf
Cause a a solar array will produce more on a sunny day and by milking it with small lifestyle changes they can milk it more and save more or ROI sooner
 
That is assuming zero consumption during the day which is unlikely

ie pool owners can save more

The input power on a 0.75kw pump is probably about 900w so 3.5units with 4hrs

Though many have scaled down the runtime with eskom prices so lets say 2hrs (especially if small pool can get away with it)

Still almost 2 units a day
That is more than R10k over 5years
 
leon.davibe said:
That is assuming zero consumption during the day which is unlikely

ie pool owners can save more

The input power on a 0.75kw pump is probably about 900w so 3.5units with 4hrs

Though many have scaled down the runtime with eskom prices so lets say 2hrs (especially if small pool can get away with it)

Still almost 2 units a day
That is more than R10k over 5years
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Nope 0.75 is roughly 0.75, when it starts it's a brief period of 1200
My only issue is the app shows me an hour later :(Screenshot_20240828_214345_eWeLink.jpg
 
Some people install a single 5kwh battery and often set the battery for 50% ie saving only 2.5units a day

With the idea to prolong this precious battery they bought or forgot it that way for shedding reserve

and if they don't time shift any load

Thus only saving 912units a year / R2700 a year and then say solar is crap
 
Jean Claude Vaaldamme said:
Yeah not that easy.
I know many people with big solar systems and only one saves money or rather close to break even. It is a retired couple sitting at home mostly. Their geyser is on only in the day and they do most things during the day. Also only use an Air fryer and small induction stove.
The rest that carry on as normal and are not at home during most of the day when the sun is shining, saves a 100 or two a month on their electricity. Will never get their money for the installation back.
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This is crap. I'm easily saving R2500 per month since switching to solar
 
rh1 said:
How much units? My units was 600 per month before solar. Now between 700 to 800 units.

My winter bill is roughly R600 pm. Summer, 100% free when at home. But since we work, we do stuff after hours, i.e. either battery or Eskom.
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621 units for July. Probably a bit higher than normal as July was cold and wet.
 
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Lupus said:
It's a blip it won't cost much at all
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The reactive power as far as i understand isn't just at startup it is related to the rotation causing a portion of power to bounce back/ induced by the rotation in a certain section of the revolution

And since this puts strain on eskom infrastructure they bill you for the total of reactive and real power usage hence 900w approx for eskom users

The startup is something else ie the power gets pushed into the startup capacitor and dumped along with the normal power pushed into the motor hence the usage goes up during the startup ohase until speed normalises

Though i believe running capacitor can help reduce the reactive power bill on eskom by absorbing it and then dumping it later in the rotation rinse repeat

Over my pay grade electrical engineers will probably laugh at how i understand/explain it :)
 
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I don’t know what’s happened lately but my Eskom bill with solar jumped from R1800pm to over R3000 in the last few months.

I need to figure out if it’s usage based or the price went up insanely
 
neoprema said:
I don’t know what’s happened lately but my Eskom bill with solar jumped from R1800pm to over R3000 in the last few months.

I need to figure out if it’s usage based or the price went up insanely
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There is an easy way to check... Open the bill and compare to the previous one. But the price of electricity has gone up quite a lot, even with solar I now need to push about R900 especially with the silly R230 extra added to prepaid, whereas I used to get away with R550
 
neoprema said:
I don’t know what’s happened lately but my Eskom bill with solar jumped from R1800pm to over R3000 in the last few months.

I need to figure out if it’s usage based or the price went up insanely
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It’s called winter.
 
Jean Claude Vaaldamme said:
The solar gods always speak about if. If this if that. How load shedding will become worse we have heard a million times. How big increases we going to get, too. All their calculations is based of if and projections, no real life.
Funny thing is, There is no, if my batteries pack up, if my inverter blows up, if my panels break. if we sit 60 days per year without sun.
What about the if you sell your house now and there is no load shedding and solar prices is half what you paid for it?
How is your ROI doing then? Nobody will pay more than 20% of the value of a solar system extra for a house when we in load shedding, never mind now.
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Anyone with half a brain should have factored that all into a 10 year projection.

Even with no load shedding and a very modest 5% increase baked in my installation pays for itself in 5-6 years and after that power is entirely free until something dies.

Solar panels will go for 20-25 years and inverters and batteries become cheaper and cheaper.

There is literally no way to lose here, other than needing to front the money.
 
SauRoNZA said:
It’s called winter.
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In JHB winter is probably really on par with summer for solar generation, remember we don't have rain here during winter so it balances out. Unless he used heaters, but the winter up here this year was incredibly mild.
 
Lupus said:
In JHB winter is probably really on par with summer for solar generation, remember we don't have rain here during winter so it balances out. Unless he used heaters, but the winter up here this year was incredibly mild.
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Sun shines about 2 hours less per day though
 
SauRoNZA said:
Anyone with half a brain should have factored that all into a 10 year projection.

Even with no load shedding and a very modest 5% increase baked in my installation pays for itself in 5-6 years and after that power is entirely free until something dies.

Solar panels will go for 20-25 years and inverters and batteries become cheaper and cheaper.

There is literally no way to lose here, other than needing to front the money.
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Mine is really for convienence, I mean I live in JHB and we had a 17 day power outage in December, there were only really about 4 hours out of 40 that weren't really effected during that outage. Those 4 had solar, I was the only one better off than the other 3 as I had a backup generator for really cloudy days and in December we get really cloudy days.
 
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