Sign up with GoogleNot that simple to just point to ROI and pretend like its affordable. There is still an up front investment of R300K, and even then that ROI excludes maintenance fees, replacement of broken equipment, lightning damage etc. Simply quoting the initial investment and not the follow up amounts needed is deceptive to say the least. Besides that just moving to solar isn't the silver bullet people are looking for, it has its pros and cons.
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How much you will pay to say goodbye to Eskom
- Thread starter Hanno Labuschagne
- Start date
That is the easiest way, who needs R400K when you can just take a plane to go elsewhere?
Drifter
Honorary Master
EINA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
system32
Executive Member
Agree.
Don't go off-grid, most people don't advocate going off-grid.
Switch to prepaid. Pay for what you use.
Prepaid - don't pay for "connection, network, service, capacity" charges.
Get PV+Inverter with Lithium battery with ~15h autonomy.
This will reduce your bill to almost zero.
Use the grid when battery depleted because of clouds (We have a sunny climate in ZA)
Ideally you can feed back into the grid and make money.
The current ROI for "average" homes for PV+Inverter+Lithium is 7-8 years.
Wow so im a lightweight user.. well just above. Interesting.. as i thought we use a lot, given that the geyser is one 24/7 though every lightbulb is very efficient.
uhm.. one major problem with almost all solar solutions i've seen to date is none cater for the rental market. if Eskom was open to reselling into the grid this would be a non-issue as everyone would simply "outsource" various forms of renewable energy to Northern Cape and leverage Eskom distribution as a smarter way without panels & maintenance per household. <-- why aren't we doing this? it makes a hekc of a lot more sense too.. meh.
i.e. using existing/new distribution cabling to handle generated power, best location for generational type, existing maintenance labor in a single location, etc. its more efficient that way i'd argue and everyone does however need a battery bank.
uhm.. one major problem with almost all solar solutions i've seen to date is none cater for the rental market. if Eskom was open to reselling into the grid this would be a non-issue as everyone would simply "outsource" various forms of renewable energy to Northern Cape and leverage Eskom distribution as a smarter way without panels & maintenance per household. <-- why aren't we doing this? it makes a hekc of a lot more sense too.. meh.
i.e. using existing/new distribution cabling to handle generated power, best location for generational type, existing maintenance labor in a single location, etc. its more efficient that way i'd argue and everyone does however need a battery bank.
system32
Executive Member
You only quoting the possible expenses:
- maintenance fees
- broken equipment
- lightning damage
You also need to look at the definite savings:
- No load shedding
- No more Eskom price increases (10-15% in April 2021)
- Money earned from feed-in
- Reduction in CO2
Solar isn't a a silver bullet, and not everyone can afford the capital outlay and not everyone has the space/roof and not everyone is the "average" consumer.
But if you have the money, the space/roof, then the "average" consumer should see savings in ~7-8 years.
Duke of Hazard
Well-Known Member
I thought R750 a month was alot, with electric geyser, stove and oven running daily.
Mentioned above somewhere was the suggestion of panels and a PV+ inverter, this sounds ideal.. run off solar during the hot day, aircons, fridges, etc and then on eskom at night with a battery bank for load shedding ... Brilliant IMO.
Thinking of all that needs to get done to go full offgrid, no more tumble dryer, no oven, no electric lawnmowers or hair dryers, kettle, etc...
Mentioned above somewhere was the suggestion of panels and a PV+ inverter, this sounds ideal.. run off solar during the hot day, aircons, fridges, etc and then on eskom at night with a battery bank for load shedding ... Brilliant IMO.
Thinking of all that needs to get done to go full offgrid, no more tumble dryer, no oven, no electric lawnmowers or hair dryers, kettle, etc...
Gallderhen
Well-Known Member
If Eskom gets its way and pushes through the unbundling of generation from delivery, then you will start paying for just being connected, regardless if you used 1c of electricity or not.
-G-
My estimate is for a greencard for my wife. It gets a lot cheaper if we leave her behind.That is the easiest way, who needs R400K when you can just take a plane to go elsewhere?
WollieVerstege
Expert Member
Actually very good post.
I will have no component replacement cost for the next 7 years of the 10 year warranties.
Any damage will be an insurance event and in the last 10 years nothing has destroyed my roof.
As for maintenance,
- I have a guy that comes by every so often to clean the panels and check for damage. Few hundred.
- Another guy comes buy every 6 months to grease to roosters on my chimneys, he now greases my wind turbines as well. A few hundred extra.
- Another guy comes by once a year to check my gate motor, garage motors, etc. He now also gives my batteries, inverter, etc a once over. Another few bob extra.
In total my annual maintenance budget has gone from R10k to R12k.
The issue with maintenance cost is usually when people do reactive rather than preventative maintenance.
grok
Honorary Master
And then they pull a Zimbabwe and expropriate your home, lol, better to leave than to repeat the mistakes of other countries with the same circumstances.
Ive been running a Sunsync 8kw for 5 months now, didnt want to fiddle with 2x5kwh, its a great unit and barely breaks a sweat generating 15-18 kwH per day with 2x 7kwH SolarMD storage and 8kwP panels (24 x Canadian solar 340w) logging data to solarman app. Fan only comes on when load exceeds 2kw or putting more than 1.5 kw into the battery. Effectively off grid in summer, if running ac overnite on a hot night, might dip into eskom around 3-4 am but only because i stop draining the battery at 40% to lengthen its life, solar kicks back in at 6am so use 1-2 units max per day. @aknit, peak voltage can be mitigated by connecting panels in parallel, a bit like a battery pack, my 24 panels are connected in a 6 series 4 parallel configuration for a v250 dc nominal voltage to the mppt where it operates most efficiently.
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This is excluding water heating, i use a dc element connected to 4 x 340w PV panels to create 1kw heat through the day into a 200l tank with 2 kw ac eskom (actually off battery first) element to top off if not reached 55 deg by evening. Last time that had to kick in was november, works really well, and no noisy moving parts like a heat pump and works off photons not radiation, so works well in overcast and rainy days as well, unlike traditional solar water heaters and can elecronically limit to 75 degrees via geyserwise unlike swh which can get the water dangerously hot.
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Quite true. I have just installed a 10kVa system which works fantastically well. However, the last number of cloudy days have taken my system to the point where when we hit load shedding at 18h00 tonight, I have had to go over to the generator that I bought a few years ago. Still happy with the situation of needing a back-up generator for times with bad weather.
I essentially have the same system and pretty well your experiences using the 2x5kwh batteries.
wingnut771
Honorary Master
I'm planning the exact same setup, 24 panels (6x4), only I'm going for the 440W art solar panels. I'll just use 2 x 3.5 pylontech for now and will only use them during loadshedding as I'll be spinning my meter backwards for all its worth during the good days. Being durban, our solar isn't so great.
AchmatK
Honorary Master
Similar to my setup. Thinking of increasing my pv with an additional 6 panels before winter.
Current setup
MPPT 1 with 6 x 305w Canadian solar panels
MPPT 2 with 2 strings of 11 x 305w panels
Combined pv of 8.54kwp.
HartsockZA
Expert Member
Exactly why I bought a good 50% generator for days just like that.
Anyone needs panels give me a shout, kinda tired of the middle men in the country taking big fat wallaps to the guys that can't get affordable access
Think of getting a heat pump. Yes it has a fan and is a little noisy but the electricity savings between resistive water heating and heat pump water heating can be a factor of 3. So for each 1 unit of electricity you put in you get 3 units of heat energy from a heat pump as opposed to one unit of heat from one unit of electricity for a resistive element heater (like the one you have) because the heat pump sucks out energy from the surrounding warm air. Basically any air warmer than 0C is considered warm and you benefit. The warmer the surrounding air the more energy it can suck out. It will literally cost you less to heat your water. Just saying.
Coefficient of performance - Wikipedia
I like having the old municipal meter that reverses direction, unfortunately it broke recently.
I intended to just get panels and inverter and run it to backwards more than it runs forwards for a zero electricity bill.
I intended to just get panels and inverter and run it to backwards more than it runs forwards for a zero electricity bill.