Mike's (non-Sunsynk) System

Napalm2880 said:
The installer recommended the Shoto. Said he's done over 300 installs with Shoto and hasn't had issues. My sister-in-law is getting the same system installed in April. Will be interesting to see how it works out for them. I don't have much heavy current stuff in the house. The only thing that would really be of concern would be the geyser.
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If it’s the Shoto HP10 I have the same one. Works perfectly for me.
 
Mike Hoxbig said:
Not really 30%. Those are 2nd life batteries. There's no way that 1st life batteries cost R56k for 15 kWh, even 2 years ago...
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Check the price of Revovs now. Wish I got a 2019 Black Friday special lol.
 
maxxis said:
Optimizing everything is the fun part. I now use 2 to 3 units a day from Eskom and sit with 50% SOC by 8:00 in the morning.

Could in theory run my geyser from the batteries at 5:00 in the morning but I prefer prolonging the lifespan of the batteries instead.

R100 a month to Eskom isn’t a problem.
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Hello, I have 8kw plus 2x5kw batteries, I still feel I am still using too much Eskom. Can you please share your settings? Thanks
 
Mrskay said:
Hello, I have 8kw plus 2x5kw batteries, I still feel I am still using too much Eskom. Can you please share your settings? Thanks
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On a good day my batteries are charged by 10:00-11:00, pool pump starts around 09:00 (if it is cloudy day I might switch it off).

All laundry and dishwashing starts around 11:00.
Around 12:00 I switch on geyser, basically to get temperature over 60 degrees so in the morning it does not have to run. (geyser is set to start heating if temperature is below 45 degrees at 05:00)

Most of the summer days eskom varies from 20kWh to 60kWh per month.
We installed in August last year so still have to see how winter will go.
Currently we have 12x470W panels, hopefully will add another 4 before winter.
So far this month we used 60kWh from eskom, November was best with 20kWh
 
aleksandar said:
On a good day my batteries are charged by 10:00-11:00, pool pump starts around 09:00 (if it is cloudy day I might switch it off).

All laundry and dishwashing starts around 11:00.
Around 12:00 I switch on geyser, basically to get temperature over 60 degrees so in the morning it does not have to run. (geyser is set to start heating if temperature is below 45 degrees at 05:00)

Most of the summer days eskom varies from 20kWh to 60kWh per month.
We installed in August last year so still have to see how winter will go.
Currently we have 12x470W panels, hopefully will add another 4 before winter.
So far this month we used 60kWh from eskom, November was best with 20kWh
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What was your kWh usage before going solar?
 
droidx said:
That’s a decent saving. Would be great to see the comparison for winter.
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Based on last few rainy days I can generate around 5kWh on cloudy day so it will be interesting to see.
Maybe some CT people that have their systems longer can chirp in.
 
aleksandar said:
Based on last few rainy days I can generate around 5kWh on cloudy day so it will be interesting to see.
Maybe some CT people that have their systems longer can chirp in.
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I'm in CT and had my system in since beginning of May last year. Worst month was 360kw in June and best was 660kw in November. That's with 8x545w. So seems a little over half
 
Mzezman said:
It seems they have quite the backlog so be prepared to wait
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Looks like everyone has a backlog, but need to be in it to win it so need to choose a supplier. They gave me a 6 - 8 week lead time for installation.
 
Napalm2880 said:
Just placed my order.

I'm starting small, and will expand when I better understand my usage patterns, and add batteries and panels accordingly.

Earliest date I could get for installation was 8 May :eek:.

View attachment 1486373
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And how did it go on 8th May? Did you add any battery to the lone ranger? With one battery, I can only assume it gets topped up by 12pm, if not earlier than that ?
 
surface said:
And how did it go on 8th May? Did you add any battery to the lone ranger? With one battery, I can only assume it gets topped up by 12pm, if not earlier than that ?
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Yeah, I'm happy with the setup. I've got the single battery with everything incl. the geyser and pool pump on essential load. Unfortunately I ran short of roof space so I was only able to put 6x 550w panels facing North and 6x 550w panels on the South East side.

I asked DRES (the installer) to install the Sonoff loadshedder for me. It's essentially a relay and timer that only powers on the pool pump and geyser when there's grid power. So far this has worked well and it prevents any risk of the geyser draining the battery overnight or on overcast days. The only thing I still plan to do is to move from a 4kW element to a 2kW element to see if I can rather heat the geyser over a longer time period and not short bursts where I exceed panel production end up pulling from grid.

Frightening how much power a geyser draws when you're monitoring it :(
 
@Mike Hoxbig - with 14 x 455W JA Panels, what is the max you were able to generate per hour/day ? Is it anywhere close to its peak theoretical capacity ?

p.s. I guess that if your batteries are fully charged at the start of day and if you don't use much during day, then generation won't be much but I am just checking about average daily use scenario.
 
surface said:
@Mike Hoxbig - with 14 x 455W JA Panels, what is the max you were able to generate per hour/day ? Is it anywhere close to its peak theoretical capacity ?

p.s. I guess that if your batteries are fully charged at the start of day and if you don't use much during day, then generation won't be much but I am just checking about average daily use scenario.
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I have 16x 460W panels, so 7.36 kWp. Although I have half facing East and half facing West due to my roof layout, so not ideal. In summer the PV power would usually peak around 6.4 kW, now it barely gets over 4kW. In terms of production, max in summer was 47 kWh in a day (but you really need to try and use all that energy), in winter about 22 kWh is the max for a day.
 
surface said:
@Mike Hoxbig - with 14 x 455W JA Panels, what is the max you were able to generate per hour/day ? Is it anywhere close to its peak theoretical capacity ?

p.s. I guess that if your batteries are fully charged at the start of day and if you don't use much during day, then generation won't be much but I am just checking about average daily use scenario.
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Depends on the season, in winter the angle of the sun is lower.

With 6.3 kW installed, it typically peaks at about 6 kW in summer and 4.7 - 4.8 kW in winter.

How much you generate per day depends on whether you have enough load to draw power continuously. The panels can't produce what isn't being asked of them. Running them flat out, in summer the most I've generated was 41 kWh and in winter this drops to around 24.

Plan to add 6 more panels in August to take it to 9.1 kWp, and after that I'm done with solar upgrades...
 
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