Monthly Usage before considering solar

How much KW does your household use a month

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Went_For_Beer

Went_For_Beer

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Hi Guys

Been thinking about taking the plunge into solar, but currently we live in a area that is (currently) immune to loadshedding,

We are a household of 3 (2 Adults and a baby) with my mother in law staying over for 2 weeks a month due to hospital being close to our place

We use roughly R1000 of prepaid elec or 300 KW. Some months we use 320KW but never more

How much do / did you use before solar
 
We are a household of three (2adults and a young child). Before solar we used about 300 to 350 kw a month. We do live a four bedroom house with a pool pump.

We essentially got a 5kw system a few months ago. If its sunny it can meet all our needs. But we have to be energy conscious and only use heavy users in die middle of the day. We will be expanding the system eventually as we have the funds, and I think a 8kw system would be perfect to get us completely off grid. Once you get solar you tend to use more power.
 
Fingerlessliz said:
We are a household of three (2adults and a young child). Before solar we used about 300 to 350 kw a month. We do live a four bedroom house with a pool pump.

We essentially got a 5kw system a few months ago. If its sunny it can meet all our needs. But we have to be energy conscious and only use heavy users in die middle of the day. We will be expanding the system eventually as we have the funds, and I think a 8kw system would be perfect to get us completely off grid. Once you get solar you tend to use more power.
Click to expand...
We have a 3 bedroom house with a pool as well.
 
Went_For_Beer said:
We use roughly R1000 of prepaid elec or 300 KW. Some months we use 320KW but never more
Click to expand...

You mean kWh. Small k, big W.

kW => 1000 Watts => power - rate of energy being transferred right now.
kWh => 1000 Watt-hours => energy - accumulated power over time - this is what is billed as a "unit".
kWp => 1000 Watts-peak => used to refer to peak power output of solar panels

You need to balance your solar kWp with your battery kWh and your maximum inverter kW required.
 
Went_For_Beer said:
Hi Guys

Been thinking about taking the plunge into solar, but currently we live in a area that is (currently) immune to loadshedding,

We are a household of 3 (2 Adults and a baby) with my mother in law staying over for 2 weeks a month due to hospital being close to our place

We use roughly R1000 of prepaid elec or 300 KW. Some months we use 320KW but never more

How much do / did you use before solar
Click to expand...
You'd have to look at both overall and peak usage. It is quite possible to only use 300kWh per month, but also have high peak requirements. If you have those do you want to have to juggle all the 2-3kW loads?

Fingerlessliz said:
Once you get solar you tend to use more power.
Click to expand...
I don't see how we'd do that. We already use whatever we want to use.
 
300 units of electricity for R1000? Ouch.

Must be a third party prepaid meter (not municipality/Eskom).
 
cpu. said:
300 units of electricity for R1000? Ouch.

Must be a third party prepaid meter (not municipality/Eskom).
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Yup, I used to pay that when I lived a complex that didn't have sub-metering for its units. Everyone was on the highest tariff all the time, it was terrible.
 
3 adults, in a 3-bedroom with pool and 1 geyser, using about 600 units per month. An 8kW inverter, 5.5kW in PV panels with 10kWh battery capacity does the job nicely, although we still use the grid on cloudy days. Prepaid electricity usage dropped by 2/3's.

Possibly an additional 5kW battery and a few more PV panels would reduce our dependence to almost nothing. My concern there is in the replacement of all the batteries in approximately 10 years
 
Fingerlessliz said:
We are a household of three (2adults and a young child). Before solar we used about 300 to 350 kw a month. We do live a four bedroom house with a pool pump.

We essentially got a 5kw system a few months ago. If its sunny it can meet all our needs. But we have to be energy conscious and only use heavy users in die middle of the day. We will be expanding the system eventually as we have the funds, and I think a 8kw system would be perfect to get us completely off grid. Once you get solar you tend to use more power.
Click to expand...
Before upgrading the inverter i would upgrade the battery storage first , to carry you overnight

That would bring more savings to help cover the 8kw inverter

As you will most likely need the extra battery to meet the 8kw amp requirements anyway

Unless your battery has a way higher amp rating that. Your 5kw inverter
 
flarkit said:
3 adults, in a 3-bedroom with pool and 1 geyser, using about 600 units per month. An 8kW inverter, 5.5kW in PV panels with 10kWh battery capacity does the job nicely, although we still use the grid on cloudy days. Prepaid electricity usage dropped by 2/3's.

Possibly an additional 5kW battery and a few more PV panels would reduce our dependence to almost nothing. My concern there is in the replacement of all the batteries in approximately 10 years
Click to expand...
The batteries will most likely not need replacing

Will most likely just be a situation of every 5kwh is just a 4kwh battery thanks to cycle degradation

Unless you are bad luck with bad cells

Edit: and even then you could replace the bad cells and get working battery again
 
Last edited:
This month (reading taken). 155kw for the month of March

Still very little usage to consider solar in my view
 
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