Maxxis’ Power Plant

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maxxis

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In December we embarked on rectifying the solar installed in the house we purchased in August 2021

Kept the 16 panels (200w units I assume) and replaced the inverter with a Sunsynk 5kwh and added 2 Hubble AM2s. RIOT and Sunsynk Data Logger to be installed soon.

More photos and stats to follow.

Right now the power in Doringkloof is off again (frequently occurring with cable theft and substation issues)

If it wasn’t for the neighborhood Whatsapp group I wouldn’t have known it went off.

At 8:00 tomorrow morning my panels produce enough to power the house and start charging batteries. At this time I’m looking at SOC of 30%. By 13:00 I’m fully charged again.

The only ****up is my geyser is on non-essential and as a result wont be running at all since my CT coil isn’t working correctly at the moment. No excess power can be sent downstream to the non-essential side.

I’m smiling right now knowing that the only inconvenience will be a luke warm shower tomorrow morning.
 
EBDDBD8F-ED70-40AF-8282-D5F7CA4F5569.png
On average I’m producing around 25kwh per day and consuming half of that which includes charging the batteries.

Once the CT is working the consumption should report around 16 to 17kwh a day when the geyser is factored in.
 
Very very nice

I have a similar CT coil and Geyser issue but my main thing is needing more panels and more storage. An extra battery should get me through the night and extra panels will ensure that even on a day like yesterday I can charge the batteries
 
Looks like a substation outage in the area.

Batteries sat at 31% SOC before the PV started producing enough to carry the house.

Phone is charged 100% now.
 
Mzezman said:
Very very nice

I have a similar CT coil and Geyser issue but my main thing is needing more panels and more storage. An extra battery should get me through the night and extra panels will ensure that even on a day like yesterday I can charge the batteries
Click to expand...

I’m with you on more panels. Two days ago it rained for most of the day with very little production happening. I would have been very screwed.

Third Hubble is on the cards. Just not the bank card yet.
 
maxxis said:
On average I’m producing around 25kwh per day and consuming half of that which includes charging the batteries.

Once the CT is working the consumption should report around 16 to 17kwh a day when the geyser is factored in.
Click to expand...
My best production to date has been around 46kwh of solar, I'm averaging around 41-44 on a sunny day. It would be more than that if not for the placement of my one array.

1640760499221.png
 
semaphore said:
My best production to date has been around 46kwh of solar, I'm averaging around 41-44 on a sunny day. It would be more than that if not for the placement of my one array.

View attachment 1219090
Click to expand...
That is freaking impressive!

I wish I had the money right now to upgrade my panels. They are around 6 years old now.
 
Finally received our bill from COT.

Over a period of 41 days our bill for usage was R564.90 (235kwh used)
This will be mostly due to to the two weeks we were offline while the solar upgrade was done.

Some careful management of the system should see almost no usage of the grid at all unless we have shitty weather.
 
maxxis said:
Finally received our bill from COT.

Over a period of 41 days our bill for usage was R564.90 (235kwh used)
This will be mostly due to to the two weeks we were offline while the solar upgrade was done.

Some careful management of the system should see almost no usage of the grid at all unless we have shitty weather.
Click to expand...
Nice, waiting for the bill of January for last month should see a substantial drop in mine.
 
maxxis said:
In December we embarked on rectifying the solar installed in the house we purchased in August 2021

Kept the 16 panels (200w units I assume) and replaced the inverter with a Sunsynk 5kwh and added 2 Hubble AM2s. RIOT and Sunsynk Data Logger to be installed soon.

More photos and stats to follow.

Right now the power in Doringkloof is off again (frequently occurring with cable theft and substation issues)

If it wasn’t for the neighborhood Whatsapp group I wouldn’t have known it went off.

At 8:00 tomorrow morning my panels produce enough to power the house and start charging batteries. At this time I’m looking at SOC of 30%. By 13:00 I’m fully charged again.

The only ****up is my geyser is on non-essential and as a result wont be running at all since my CT coil isn’t working correctly at the moment. No excess power can be sent downstream to the non-essential side.

I’m smiling right now knowing that the only inconvenience will be a luke warm shower tomorrow morning.
Click to expand...
Want to do a small little Cheap hack to rectify that????
 
maxxis said:
Always open to options.
Click to expand...
Got a friend that is using some intefaces he programmed to control Solar and geyser. He even got some of the Inverter manufacturors on board to allow him to directly tie into their serial communication, dumping raw values to ESP/Raspberry Pi's. Was busy hacking the ripple control switch with a Sonoff module to control the Geyser when the batteries are full.
 
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