SauRoN's SomeWatt Solar Install

Right that and two heater panels did the job to make it dip into the battery.

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shadow_man said:
I had to switch 2 geysers on to force load to compete
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Bloody hell.

Seems best I’ll get is 25 kWh.

But lesson learnt to start dishwashers and tumble dryers by 12:00 or earlier because now I’m eating battery.
 
SauRoNZA said:
Bloody hell.

Seems best I’ll get is 25 kWh.

But lesson learnt to start dishwashers and tumble dryers by 12:00 or earlier because now I’m eating battery.
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Yep - it's all about timing those heavy hitters for peak sun if you can!

I ended up at 38kWh for the day - but had high use due to washing machine, vacuum, saw (doing flooring), geysers.
 
SauRoNZA said:
A cracking day for solar.

If this is winter then I’ll generate more than I can store in summer.
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You won't be able to. You'll only be able to generate as much as you need to cover your load. Some of that will go to charge the batteries. Then welcome to the predicament of "what can I waste power on to get my production up?"...
 
Mike Hoxbig said:
You won't be able to. You'll only be able to generate as much as you need to cover your load. Some of that will go to charge the batteries. Then welcome to the predicament of "what can I waste power on to get my production up?"...
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That’s what I meant, it will all just go to waste as I’ll have nowhere to put it.

But I have enough air cons to compensate for that.

Most uneventful load shedding ever…literally a push notification and that was that.

Of course it won’t stop all the alarms going off in the middle of the night, sadly.
 
Pixies said:
It never gets old!
As for the 20w... think of the 80s before CFLs where the average globe was 40-60w and some even 100w... and we'd leave them on until bedtime. Eish lol.
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Yeah and to think the only reason we didn't do better was because nobody cared to make it less.

Changed my No Grid feed down to 10W...let's see how it goes.
 
Mike Hoxbig said:
And how did it go?
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Sadly, nowhere.

He didn't relish the layout of the roof and amount of work required (there are two existing solar panels and hwc smack bang in the middle of the North facing roof).

Basically said it wouldn't be worth it for me 'cos I have 3 phase (so only the 12kva is viable) and the additional panels required would need all kinds of inter connects to provide sufficient juice.

I have a rather high roof and suspect that he just didn't smaak a complicated job given that his jobcard is full until the end of July.

I'm awaiting a quote from someone else in the meantime.
 
AfricanTech said:
Sadly, nowhere.

He didn't relish the layout of the roof and amount of work required (there are two existing solar panels and hwc smack bang in the middle of the North facing roof).

Basically said it wouldn't be worth it for me 'cos I have 3 phase (so only the 12kva is viable) and the additional panels required would need all kinds of inter connects to provide sufficient juice.

I have a rather high roof and suspect that he just didn't smaak a complicated job given that his jobcard is full until the end of July.

I'm awaiting a quote from someone else in the meantime.
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You must have a big place if it's 3 phase and you are using all of the phases.
It's a good thing that he came around physically, also that he gave you some useful feedback, even if negative. It's also not uncommon (in Gauteng) to have good installers that are fully booked, considering Eskom forecasts. Also good that you have others lined up, I also kissed a lot of frogs before I found my princess, it's part of the process.
 
Setting the Zero Export to 10W had the desired effect of zero grid usage today…but had the weird result of sending 0.1 kWh back into the grid according to the Sunsynk.

So set it to 15W now to see what it does tomorrow, but I suspect 20W may be the magic number after all.
 
RonSwanson said:
You must have a big place if it's 3 phase and you are using all of the phases.
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I would convert to single phase because one can maximize the output of the inverter more easily. With 3 phase you need to balance the phases which is less efficient as you always have unused capacity on each phase.

e.g.
12kW three phase is 4kW per phase. Let's say you balance your loads and end up with 1kW spare on each phase. Now you decide you need to add a 1.5kW iron/kettle to the load. You still have 3kW spare on the inverter but you can't use it because it's split across three phases. Good luck finding a 380V three phase iron or kettle. :)

With single phase you can use all the spare capacity up the the maximum limit.
Three phase makes sense where one has high power requirements or longer runs of cheaper (thinner) cable.
 
Paul_S said:
I would convert to single phase because one can maximize the output of the inverter more easily. With 3 phase you need to balance the phases which is less efficient as you always have unused capacity on each phase.

e.g.
12kW three phase is 4kW per phase. Let's say you balance your loads and end up with 1kW spare on each phase. Now you decide you need to add a 1.5kW iron/kettle to the load. You still have 3kW spare on the inverter but you can't use it because it's split across three phases. Good luck finding a 380V three phase iron or kettle. :)

With single phase you can use all the spare capacity up the the maximum limit.
Three phase makes sense where one has high power requirements or longer runs of cheaper (thinner) cable.
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I have no idea why it's 3 phase - it's an old house, fairly large but not massive.

How easy is it to convert to single phase?
 
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