Solar installers and suppliers

Mounting plus labour comes to 16k from Somewatt solar who is doing the install on June 5th.

For 12kw inverter and 16panels. Roof is not easy to work on and panels are spread east and west roof (terrible roof shape) and inverter and batteries are being installed a fair distance from my db board.
 
Got another quote from Absolute Solar. Another master installer. They only doing shoto batteries.

Are Shoto batteries worth going for? kindly advise

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Katelknaap said:
Installation of a 8kw inverter, battery & 14 panels for R 5k labour ????? Jeez, you guys in Gauteng are lucky!
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R5k seems sus but it looks like they added a small markup on all the equipment so that's probably subsidising it.

The Cape Town "tax" is crazy though, a family member in Durban had their entire installation (including cabling, trunking, separation of DB) done for R17k and they also added more plug points on top of that :crying:
 
Botha22 said:
I started off with a single Dyness 4.8kWh battery (0.5C). On days with intermittent clouds and daytime load shedding, I had to manually manage my loads as the system would sometimes shut down on battery overload. e.g. when PV output dipped (a cloud passes overhead). With 2 batteries or a 1C battery, the system is able to better ride through those PV dips (during daytime load shedding). Now I have 2 x4.8kWh batteries. But if I was starting over I would prefer a 1C battery.
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I am going through entire thread just for my understanding. I looked up and google says "1C is equal to 60 minutes, 0.5C to 120 minutes and a 2C rating is equal to 30 minutes. The formula is simple."

Now, it means 1C has a benefit as it will charge quickly as well but some other link says it discharges quickly as well so what the heck is better ?
 
Will have to look at the datasheet and work it out. Can't really say what's "best" as it depends on your use-case, price, total bank capacity etc.

From what I've seen when looking for batteries, 1C is a farce because in the datasheet they recommend 0.5C discharge to prolong the battery lifespan.
 
ands45 said:
I would say R21k is a little high just for labour if they supplying no other materials but in saying that I don't know if you going to find too many installers who want to just do the install. I went this route and most places only wanted to install their own equipment, especially the well known ones. I managed to get sorted and ended up paying 12k for labour about a year ago (and mine wasn't a simple install - db in kitchen and inverter in garage about 20m away) . Also in coct and did my own drawing and registration
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so with the DB in the kitchen one should not install the system there safety wise ? Our 3 phase power board is next to in the yard so presume it's best to install there I take it, its partly under cover thankfully ?
 
Wild Cape said:
so with the DB in the kitchen one should not install the system there safety wise ?
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Mine is installed in the kitchen area... aside from it being an eyesore there isn't anything i am aware of that prohibits it. my DB is also in the kitchen
 
Wild Cape said:
so with the DB in the kitchen one should not install the system there safety wise ? Our 3 phase power board is next to in the yard so presume it's best to install there I take it, its partly under cover thankfully ?
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Mine is installed in the garage purely because I dont have enough space in the kitchen next to the DB to install it. No issue with it as far as I am aware. I looked at installing outside of the kitchen but wasnt really practical and prefer having my equipment inside
 
surface said:
I am going through entire thread just for my understanding. I looked up and google says "1C is equal to 60 minutes, 0.5C to 120 minutes and a 2C rating is equal to 30 minutes. The formula is simple."

Now, it means 1C has a benefit as it will charge quickly as well but some other link says it discharges quickly as well so what the heck is better ?
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I think it is fairly commonly agreed that using a lower charge and/or discharge rate is better for battery longevity. If you have a small battery bank a 1C rating is nice as you're able to discharge from the battery faster but apart from that the C rating isn't really relevant. Most people have at least two hours between LS slots which is enough to fully charge from 0% to 100% at 0.5C.

Also, just because the battery can charge/discharge at 1C doesn't mean you have to.
 
Mzezman said:
Mine is installed in the kitchen area... aside from it being an eyesore there isn't anything i am aware of that prohibits it. my DB is also in the kitchen
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perhaps it also depends on the size of the system.. safety wise ?
 
Wild Cape said:
so with the DB in the kitchen one should not install the system there safety wise ? Our 3 phase power board is next to in the yard so presume it's best to install there I take it, its partly under cover thankfully ?
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I can't remember which inverter you're going with, but do remember the SunSynk/Deye 8kW and above are pretty noisy.
 
Paul_S said:
Yes, it's usually enough to charge the 10.6kWh battery pack to full by 16:00 and the batteries last until morning. I switch off the pool pump when there is inclement weather and I don't have electric geysers. I leave my mains switch from the municipality off and if by 5AM I can see I'm not going to make, it I switch it on for a few minutes to use 1 or 2kWh to topup. Total import for April so far has been 3.3kWh. I'm averaging an import of 15kWh/month since December so quite happy so far.
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This seems a lot of daily monitoring and juggling by yourself would that CBI Astute Smart Controller not make life easier for this type of thing when programmed to prioritise certain appliances over others ?
 
Speedster said:
I can't remember which inverter you're going with, but do remember the SunSynk/Deye 8kW and above are pretty noisy.
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I'm still doing the research as all new to me, so thanks for the heads up on the noise ..
 
Speedster said:
I think it is fairly commonly agreed that using a lower charge and/or discharge rate is better for battery longevity. If you have a small battery bank a 1C rating is nice as you're able to discharge from the battery faster but apart from that the C rating isn't really relevant. Most people have at least two hours between LS slots which is enough to fully charge from 0% to 100% at 0.5C.

Also, just because the battery can charge/discharge at 1C doesn't mean you have to.
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Thanks. So, if battery is 5.32 kWh, like Sunsynk, then there is no advantage of 1C or 0.5C, right ? I was talking to someone and he mentioned that with 1C, it would charge quickly and then google confused me.
 
surface said:
Thanks. So, if battery is 5.32 kWh, like Sunsynk, then there is no advantage of 1C or 0.5C, right ? I was talking to someone and he mentioned that with 1C, it would charge quickly and then google confused me.
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C rating refers to the current at which a battery is charged and discharged at. It's perhaps easiest to explain if we think of batteries in terms of their Ah ratings. Take for example the Sunsynk 5.12kWh battery - this is a 100Ah battery with nominal voltage of 51.2V. 1C would mean that it is able to charge/discharge at 100A (or 5.12kW), while 0.5C would mean it can charge/discharge at 50A (or 2.56kW).

So yes, if you have a 5kW inverter and a 5kWh 1C battery you can still use the full capacity of the inverter when there is no PV available. If you had a 0.5C battery it could only supply 2.5kWh which would then be the maximum the inverter could provide if there was no PV or grid available at that time.

EDIT: To answer your question/comment above - yes, a 1C battery can charge from 0%-100% in 1 hour although I would strongly recommend not doing that, unless you have a very good reason. Charging at 0.5C greatly increases your battery longevity.
 
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Taking the discussion on C-rate a bit further, here are two images from a study on various lithium cells. The first image shows how remaining capacity decreases relative to cycles for different discharge rates (still charging at 0.5C though). The second graph compares degradation across different chemistries.

Most batteries in SA are LFP although a certain popular brand is NMC


C-rating.png
Chemistries.png

Source
 
surface said:
I am going through entire thread just for my understanding. I looked up and google says "1C is equal to 60 minutes, 0.5C to 120 minutes and a 2C rating is equal to 30 minutes. The formula is simple."

Now, it means 1C has a benefit as it will charge quickly as well but some other link says it discharges quickly as well so what the heck is better ?
Click to expand...
How long your battery will last you during load shedding depends on your total load, not the C rating. A 5.12kW battery rated 1C means it can supply those spikes in load up to 5.12kW. Your load is very unlikely to be a continuous 5.12 kW for one hour, but if it is you need a bigger battery bank.
 
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