Inverter and battery solution for load shedding

rpm

rpm

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We are looking for an inverter and battery solution for our home to protect against load shedding, but are struggling to find a company which can help.

Sinetech has what we want, but it proved too challenging to deal with the company to purchase a solution.

Does anyone know if companies which offer good inverter and battery products? We are looking for a fairly robust solution which can power the full house.
 
also interested in this. don't need to power a whole mansion but I need a backup to the darkness.
 
rpm said:
We are looking for an inverter and battery solution for our home to protect against load shedding, but are struggling to find a company which can help.

Sinetech has what we want, but it proved too challenging to deal with the company to purchase a solution.

Does anyone know if companies which offer good inverter and battery products? We are looking for a fairly robust solution which can power the full house.
Click to expand...
There are a couple of questions you're going to have to ask yourself
1) How many watts?
2) How are you going to replace the amp-hours once your mains supply has been restored?


FWIW I'm bringing in a 5Kw inverter/charger combo from China within the next week or two, after which I'm getting a few batteries locally.

With my solution: the inverter will operate in the same fashion that a UPS does. It gets plugged into the wall socket and all devices gets plugged into it.

If the grid fails then the inverter automatically starts feeding the devices from the battery(s). And once power is restored the battery(s) are automatically recharged.
 
Just for light, try the rechargable lightbulbs from ellies and also from some other manufacturer. Very easy to use and provide enough light when power is off. Ellies one's sells for about 50 bucks. Couple of these in stategic place does the trick.
 
Thanks for the valuable feedback.

Just received a call from Sinetech as well - it was helpful and they have good solutions. I think all the suppliers are struggling to keep up with demand.
 
rpm said:
We are looking for a fairly robust solution which can power the full house.
Click to expand...

Whole house is tricky, fridges, hair-driers, kettles, etc use a lot of power.

Also, for fridges and some other appliances you need a pure sine wave solution, which is expensive.

And washing machines, dishwashers, geysers are really a no go, unless you are going for massive battery banks and huge inverters.

If you go big you also need to go for banks of 200Ah 2 volt batteries. ( Or preferably higher, you get 3000Ah 2 volt batteries)
 
I've been looking around for on-line UPS' but they are very hard to find in the 1000 to 3000VA range.
The normal standby/offline UPS' don't block dirty AC power from cheap generators and I've heard of people popping their TV's even when run from AVR controlled generator sets.
 
Paul_S said:
I've been looking around for on-line UPS' but they are very hard to find in the 1000 to 3000VA range.
The normal standby/offline UPS' don't block dirty AC power from cheap generators and I've heard of people popping their TV's even when run from AVR controlled generator sets.
Click to expand...

Any VAR should be able to supply you with an online APC or EATON 3kVa UPS, what area are you in?
 
aybbleek said:
Any VAR should be able to supply you with an online APC or EATON 3kVa UPS, what area are you in?
Click to expand...

Yes but I don't like the prices even when "quality" is taken into account.
A Mercer 3kVA on-line UPS sells for around the R4000 mark while a 3kVA APC Smart-UPS is closer to the R18,000 mark.
Is the APC UPS four times better than the Mercer unit? :whistle:
For R18000 I may as well buy an inverter generator like the Honda EU30i.
Too much money ... :(
 
YingYang said:
There are a couple of questions you're going to have to ask yourself
1) How many watts?
2) How are you going to replace the amp-hours once your mains supply has been restored?


FWIW I'm bringing in a 5Kw inverter/charger combo from China within the next week or two, after which I'm getting a few batteries locally.

With my solution: the inverter will operate in the same fashion that a UPS does. It gets plugged into the wall socket and all devices gets plugged into it.

If the grid fails then the inverter automatically starts feeding the devices from the battery(s). And once power is restored the battery(s) are automatically recharged.
Click to expand...

link? and invite when the blackouts start...
 
Paul_S said:
Yes but I don't like the prices even when "quality" is taken into account.
A Mercer 3kVA on-line UPS sells for around the R4000 mark while a 3kVA APC Smart-UPS is closer to the R18,000 mark.
Is the APC UPS four times better than the Mercer unit? :whistle:
For R18000 I may as well buy an inverter generator like the Honda EU30i.
Too much money ... :(
Click to expand...

Yes the APC is 100 times better than the Mecer unit!
 
akescpt said:
link? and invite when the blackouts start...
Click to expand...
oI actually forgot we fall under the same zone during blackouts.

If you can bring the booze then we should be good to go. We still have a chest freezer full of meat from December :D

edit: I'm still in discussions with the supplier. My biggest concern is that the chinese holidays are starting soon and I want them to have the thing ready and shipped before they start partying.

All I can tell you is that its a 5KW unit with both inverting and charging ability (Precharge, Main Charge, Floating Charge).
 
Last edited:
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