One Year On - Solar Installation

[koffiejunkie]

we have a wall mounted heater in our sons room which we leave on overnight

Assuming your insulation is up to scratch, the next thing to look at adding is a heatpump for some sort. Perhaps a reverse cycle split unit aircon. Heatpumps are much more efficient than electric heaters. Electric heaters convert electricity to heat at a 1:1 ratio (at best). Heatpumps can achieve 2.5-5 times the efficiency, and that's in much colder climates. It really blows my mind that this hasn't taken off in SA yet.

 

[Snyper564]

Winter is well on it's way with both the amount of sunlight per day decreasing and the angle of the sun on our PV arrays changing to be less effective but we are still making decent PV from our little system and the new batteries are proving their worth. We had load shedding last night from 18:00 - 20:30 or thereabout and at the moment I have set the ESS to use battery from 20:00 at night until 16:00 in the afternoon. The batteries are currently sitting at 43% SOC with the washing machine on and 800w of PV being produced, assuming we have good weather today the batteries should be charged and ready by 16:00 for more load shedding at 18:00 again. We will use the batteries less and less at night as winter gets darker and colder, we have a wall mounted heater in our sons room which we leave on overnight and less effective daylight means charging the batteries and running the house is a harder task.

Remember cooler temps mean higher production my highest production day was late last month with 2 hours less sun than normal

 

[Snyper564]

Assuming your insulation is up to scratch, the next thing to look at adding is a heatpump for some sort. Perhaps a reverse cycle split unit aircon. Heatpumps are much more efficient than electric heaters. Electric heaters convert electricity to heat at a 1:1 ratio (at best). Heatpumps can achieve 2.5-5 times the efficiency, and that's in much colder climates. It really blows my mind that this hasn't taken off in SA yet.

I believe the high installation/unit price + maintenance is likely the reason

 

[Neuk_]

Assuming your insulation is up to scratch, the next thing to look at adding is a heatpump for some sort. Perhaps a reverse cycle split unit aircon. Heatpumps are much more efficient than electric heaters. Electric heaters convert electricity to heat at a 1:1 ratio (at best). Heatpumps can achieve 2.5-5 times the efficiency, and that's in much colder climates. It really blows my mind that this hasn't taken off in SA yet.

Insulation over the bedrooms and bathrooms is good, I will sort the living area of the house next with more insulation. We only use the wall mounted heater for our sons room because he is still very young and it uses 400w which is minimal and fairly effective. We have a 9kw Morso wood fireplace in our living room which heats up the rest of the house well and an A/C unit in our bedroom which we sometimes use on especially cold mornings.

 

[Snyper564]

Insulation over the bedrooms and bathrooms is good, I will sort the living area of the house next with more insulation. We only use the wall mounted heater for our sons room because he is still very young and it uses 400w which is minimal and fairly effective. We have a 9kw Morso wood fireplace in our living room which heats up the rest of the house well and an A/C unit in our bedroom which we sometimes use on especially cold mornings.

Im loving our new fireplace (5-7kw)! installed last week in the main living area and if run from 5pm on low-med manages to warm up the bedrooms no problem, this was not the goal only the living area was but my wife and I wfh home now so ill run this the whole winter from the morning then

 

[Neuk_]

Remember cooler temps mean higher production my highest production day was late last month with 2 hours less sun than normal

View attachment 1302648

View attachment 1302650

I haven't really noticed higher production due to cooler temperatures but this is probably because of how our PV arrays are setup.

 

[Snyper564]

I haven't really noticed higher production due to cooler temperatures but this is probably because of how our PV arrays are setup.

Ah ok. My split the one incline is higher than the other I would like to believe best of both worlds for summer and winter. Only time will tell

 

[Neuk_]

Im loving our new fireplace (5-7kw)! installed last week in the main living area and if run from 5pm on low-med manages to warm up the bedrooms no problem, this was not the goal only the living area was but my wife and I wfh home now so ill run this the whole winter from the morning then

Wood fire place? The best I have seen is my inlaws anthracite fire place in their soon to be ex house, it used to be run all through winter and was very economical to run.

 

[Neuk_]

Ah ok. My split the one incline is higher than the other I would like to believe best of both worlds for summer and winter. Only time will tell

View attachment 1302686

We have no true North facing roof and the closest to it can have around 3 of our 360w panels with morning shade So we went for two separate arrays, one facing sort of East and one facing sort of West so we get early and late PV generation although it is minimal with maximum being between 10:00 and 14:00 during the day.

 

[Snyper564]

Wood fire place? The best I have seen is my inlaws anthracite fire place in their soon to be ex house, it used to be run all through winter and was very economical to run.

Multifuel - anthracite and wood. We are however burning alien bluegums

Fireplace advice

Good, warm long weekend everyone Jeez how many pieces is that

mybroadband.co.za

The fireplace was specifically sized for the library/tv room area but its warming up the whole house. House has the thickest insulation in the ceiling so it makes sense that the heat goes all over




Location in relation to the rest of the house

 

[Neuk_]

This cloudy winter weather is not helping with PV production, this was yesterday and today is much the same with sever dips when clouds roll in...



Winter is also a difficult period to make PV with our East/West PV string arrangement.

 

[Lupus]

I haven't really noticed higher production due to cooler temperatures but this is probably because of how our PV arrays are setup.

Gauteng gets lower uv over in winter vs the coastal areas so that could also explain it

 

[Lupus]

Wood fire place? The best I have seen is my inlaws anthracite fire place in their soon to be ex house, it used to be run all through winter and was very economical to run.

We have a fireplace in the main lounge, problem is it won't warm up the bedrooms as they are quite far from it

 

[Koosvanwyk]

Gauteng gets lower uv over in winter vs the coastal areas so that could also explain it

Gauteng is significantly better from a PV perspective compared to Cape Town, not sure about the other major coastal areas.

Comparison below, not even a close race


Johannesburg



Cape Town



Edit: I am in Cape Town, this is the reason why I have a 7.2kWp array with average daily consumption of just 15kWh. Last winter we only had 4.2kWp, learned my lesson.

 

[Neuk_]

My wife bought me an Ambient Weather WS-2902 weather station for my birthday and I made a plan to get it up and running temporarily last week as we move in November. It measures and records a lot but I am keen to monitor solar radiation to see what potential PV is available compared to what we are making. The below is in w/sqm for this last Saturday...



This is our PV yield for the same day, so there is room for more PV to be taken advantage of in the late afternoon...

 

[Neuk_]

Playing around with data from our ESS and weather station, this is yesterday where batteries were charged 'early' and then I put the dishwasher on before leaving for a braai at the SIL...

 

[Lupus]

Playing around with data from our ESS and weather station, this is yesterday where batteries were charged 'early' and then I put the dishwasher on before leaving for a braai at the SIL...

View attachment 1362309

So the solar radiation was good yesterday? Cause yeah batteries did seem to charge faster than today, yesterday it was done by now, today it's getting there. Also we were hitting 3.3kW now I maxed at 3.1kW and it dropped down to 2.98 granted the dishwasher is finished.

 

[Priapus]

So the solar radiation was good yesterday? Cause yeah batteries did seem to charge faster than today, yesterday it was done by now, today it's getting there. Also we were hitting 3.3kW now I maxed at 3.1kW and it dropped down to 2.98 granted the dishwasher is finished.

As the weeks go on, you'll notice more and more generation. In summer and Winter my peak generation is 4.1kW.

But that's because of how the roof setup and that it faces almost true north.

 

[Neuk_]

So the solar radiation was good yesterday? Cause yeah batteries did seem to charge faster than today, yesterday it was done by now, today it's getting there. Also we were hitting 3.3kW now I maxed at 3.1kW and it dropped down to 2.98 granted the dishwasher is finished.

Yes, our weather station peaked at 528W/sqm with a good spread of solar radiation during the day, our batteries weren't as low as normal since our son's heater wasn't switched on for as long as during colder temperatures. The data is obviously specific to our location and our ESS, I am seeing higher peak PV generated but still some influence from shading early in the morning and late in the afternoon.

 

[Lupus]

Yes, our weather station peaked at 528W/sqm with a good spread of solar radiation during the day, our batteries weren't as low as normal since our son's heater wasn't switched on for as long as during colder temperatures. The data is obviously specific to our location and our ESS, I am seeing higher peak PV generated but still some influence from shading early in the morning and late in the afternoon.

Is the new place setup for solar? Are you going to do it? As you seem to be enjoying the whole experience, sure you weren't supposed to be a meterologist?