Solar opinions

isie said:
Not sure what your point is you get normal 2kw geyser elements as well they just meant for smaller geysers.
I never said they not real I said I am skeptical on their proclaimed benefits ,
I am yet to find and independent test comparing 2 150L geysers one with a standard 3kw geyser and one of theses Xtend or even Geyser wise or any PTC element.
Showing that a 2kw PTC element heats the same volume of water at the same amount of time or faster then a standard 3kw element

please provide a link to this test if it does exist.
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Google

One such discussion

I dont use electric geysers anymore so couldnt be bothered
I know a few people that have changed over and they say they have savings

If your solar system can handle a 4Kw element then there is no need for teh discussion
If it cant then it is something to look at
 
Major Boredom said:
Google

One such discussion

I dont use electric geysers anymore so couldnt be bothered
I know a few people that have changed over and they say they have savings

If your solar system can handle a 4Kw element then there is no need for teh discussion
If it cant then it is something to look at
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Saw that one they also didn't come to a concession

being able to handle 4kw is one thing but if it PTC really worked at getting same results at 2kw that a 3kw element does it would still help especially with low PV days
 
My setup
5Kw inverter flat with two UP5000. Last a day and a bit.
8Kw inverter house also with two UP5000. Also last a day and a bit.

House 550W panels 2 rows of 6 panels.

Flat 460W panels 1 row of 6 panels.
Then 470W panels 1 row of 6 panels.

Flat switched geyser over to PV. Geyser 150lt 2kW element.
 
isie said:
Tested this and would not recommend
sure it doesn't tax the system as much but you just increasing the time basically stays on the whole day - you using the same amount of energy just over a longer time period
rather push 3kw element for an our or 2 to heat water instead of 4+ that the 2kw.
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The whole point is that the geyer will run over a longer duration with a 2kW element. It's much better for cost saving that way. Think if it's overcast or you have a domestic running the washing machine and vacuum, it means that if you geyser comes on, it's less likely (with a 2kW element) to exceed what your panels are producing and pull from grid, therefore saving you money.

This obviously only works well if you change habits and don't have a household that drains your geyser. I've got a 250L with a 2kW. It's on a timer to turn off at 5pm, and I then still bath the kids at 6:30pm. Next morning I've still got plenty of hot water for a shower.

Also, because the geyser under most circumstances is running off solar, I've got the thermostat set nice and hot around 70C.
 
isie said:
Call me a sceptic but I still don't believe it :)
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I can't believe those ceramic elements are any more efficient that the R300 incoloy ones you find at builders, and certainly not by the percentages they're claiming.

My understanding is that, efficiency is about minimizing losses when converting energy from one form to another. In the case of geyser element, the whole point is to create a loss/inefficiency i..e Electrical energy > Heat through resistance. A 2kW element of either type will surely mean each type will generate exactly the same amount of heat energy. Surely?
 
Is SOLAR even worth it in the current non- loadshedding climate, for the middle class, cost saving on a bill v the time to break even with initial capital layout?And even when having solar, the buck doesn't stop right there, it is an ongoing maintenance issue like everything else, like having a swimming pool or whatever. It can just become another headache.

Not saying loadshedding is a thing of the past, but the City of Cape Town etc do have a strategy investment plan to overcome this in future etc. We will see. But personally investing in domestic solar currently for a home, seems like a hard sell. When selling it doesn't add anything significantly to your market value.

Is solar really that important?

Gosolr clients and the rest of the " renting solar " market clients must be pretty sour now.
 
joshuatree said:
Is SOLAR even worth it in the current non- loadshedding climate, for the middle class, cost saving on a bill v the time to break even with initial capital layout?And even when having solar, the buck doesn't stop right there, it is an ongoing maintenance issue like everything else, like having a swimming pool or whatever. It can just become another headache.

Not saying loadshedding is a thing of the past, but the City of Cape Town etc do have a strategy investment plan to overcome this in future etc. We will see. But personally investing in domestic solar currently for a home, seems like a hard sell. When selling it doesn't add anything significantly to your market value.

Is solar really that important?

Gosolr clients and the rest of the " renting solar " market clients must be pretty sour now.
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Solar is worth it for me
Based on 8% increase electrical prices / year . Actual increases are far higher
My antic maint is fairly aggresive
At the end of the 20 years I will still get most of my origional outlay back anyway

When selling it doesn't add anything significantly to your market value.
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Not from what I have seen. Houses with "green features" are being listed at a premium
I went the whole route of solar and water (10k liter tank / filtration and pumps ) and my combined savings are about R70k / year . My water filter maintenance is about R3k/year

When we had load shedding,not having to drive into the office every day losing 3 hours of billing per day paid off my whole solar system in under 2 months

1721531131723.png
 
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joshuatree said:
And even when having solar, the buck doesn't stop right there, it is an ongoing maintenance issue like everything else, like having a swimming pool or whatever. It can just become another headache.
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Solar has no moving parts that require maintenance. Maybe just washing off the panels a few times a year. My system has been running for 4 years now with almost zero maintenance needed. I think I only replaced a few connectors for the panels which was less than R100.

Batteries and inverter have been running continuously for 4 years with zero maintenance needed. There are no consumables needed. All I've done was to upgrade my battery bank by adding more batteries. My battery health is sitting at 94% after 4 years and at the current rate should last me another 10 years before I need to look at maybe replacing them. Even then they will not be dead but just have a reduced capacity so instead of our being a 24kWh battery it will be a 19kWh battery which is still very much usable.
 
joshuatree said:
Gosolr clients and the rest of the " renting solar " market clients must be pretty sour now.
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Just wanted to add

You dont need to have load shedding to get solar to pay for itself. That is only true for a pure battery backup system.
Having power during load shedding is just an additional quality of life benefit
 
joshuatree said:
Is SOLAR even worth it in the current non- loadshedding climate, for the middle class, cost saving on a bill v the time to break even with initial capital layout?And even when having solar, the buck doesn't stop right there, it is an ongoing maintenance issue like everything else, like having a swimming pool or whatever. It can just become another headache.

Not saying loadshedding is a thing of the past, but the City of Cape Town etc do have a strategy investment plan to overcome this in future etc. We will see. But personally investing in domestic solar currently for a home, seems like a hard sell. When selling it doesn't add anything significantly to your market value.

Is solar really that important?

Gosolr clients and the rest of the " renting solar " market clients must be pretty sour now.
Click to expand...
I got my batteries and inverter in Dec, mid stage 4 times. And panels in April, just as loadshedding was set to end. I’ve been a pain in the backside now, trying to recoup my cost. And my elec usage doesn’t match my solar footprint. What I look forward to is being able to use my aircons liberally as we edge towards spring and summer without constantly watching the usage.
Eg. I have an AC in my loft/office which I would only use on 35+ days. Now I can pump it
 
fruitbat said:
I got my batteries and inverter in Dec, mid stage 4 times. And panels in April, just as loadshedding was set to end. I’ve been a pain in the backside now, trying to recoup my cost. And my elec usage doesn’t match my solar footprint. What I look forward to is being able to use my aircons liberally as we edge towards spring and summer without constantly watching the usage.
Eg. I have an AC in my loft/office which I would only use on 35+ days. Now I can pump it
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I installed my system in the middle of bad load shedding and still kept a close eye in terms of trying to recoup and maximise.

In summer I run my aircons significantly more than I used to and still can’t use everything there is to produce. Previously I thought about to cost of running it for such lengthy periods.

It’s not the best financial decision since you paying for everything upfront and have to claw back, in my case over 10 years.
It does provide a shield against the increases we see coming through though.

From a convenience and quality of life perspective, I think this is more where the ROI lies which is a matter of opinion, hence the debate around the topic.
 
Napalm2880 said:
The whole point is that the geyer will run over a longer duration with a 2kW element. It's much better for cost saving that way. Think if it's overcast or you have a domestic running the washing machine and vacuum, it means that if you geyser comes on, it's less likely (with a 2kW element) to exceed what your panels are producing and pull from grid, therefore saving you money.

This obviously only works well if you change habits and don't have a household that drains your geyser. I've got a 250L with a 2kW. It's on a timer to turn off at 5pm, and I then still bath the kids at 6:30pm. Next morning I've still got plenty of hot water for a shower.

Also, because the geyser under most circumstances is running off solar, I've got the thermostat set nice and hot around 70C.
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I understand your point, I guess for me I set it to try and take from battery before grid and then push sun back to battery hence quicker Higher KW makes sense as opposed to longer low KW. I also use a geyser wise smart so I have different temps for different times.
I do agree no matter what habit changes is a must.


Napalm2880 said:
I can't believe those ceramic elements are any more efficient that the R300 incoloy ones you find at builders, and certainly not by the percentages they're claiming.

My understanding is that, efficiency is about minimizing losses when converting energy from one form to another. In the case of geyser element, the whole point is to create a loss/inefficiency i..e Electrical energy > Heat through resistance. A 2kW element of either type will surely mean each type will generate exactly the same amount of heat energy. Surely?
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I sent an email to geysers wise to see if they have any test data lets see - at least theirs is a relatively decent price compared to what Xtend is charging

joshuatree said:
Is SOLAR even worth it in the current non- loadshedding climate, for the middle class, cost saving on a bill v the time to break even with initial capital layout?
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If you getting Solar only for laodshedding you have wasted your time and money - I'm not saying laodshedding will or will not end , but grid stability isn't great so expect long term outages - but also the cost of electricity is going higher my payback period has already dropped significantly and I'm a <600Kw user
joshuatree said:
And even when having solar, the buck doesn't stop right there, it is an ongoing maintenance issue like everything else, like having a swimming pool or whatever. It can just become another headache.
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The are no moving parts so maintenance is not exactly a killer, lol a hassle is going up on the roof in the evening or morning to give the panels a rinse once in a while (especially our dry winters) but most of the time God is kind enough to do that for us the rest of the seasons, as for costs maybe in 10 or 15 years replace a few components but
joshuatree said:
Not saying loadshedding is a thing of the past, but the City of Cape Town etc do have a strategy investment plan to overcome this in future etc. We will see. But personally investing in domestic solar currently for a home, seems like a hard sell. When selling it doesn't add anything significantly to your market value.
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Selling back most of us would even at low payback but too much red tape and from what I hear the investment from COCT is like 15 for a meter - this makes it not viable municipality's are very short sighted here, they could increse long term profits but they looking at short term goals.
joshuatree said:
Is solar really that important?
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For me it definitely is -
 
For those interested in the PTC story Got a call from the guys at Geyser wise gave pretty simple honest explanation.

First thing the PTC is only about 10 or 15% more efficient then a standard geyser, so no a 2KW PTC will not be worthwhile to replace if you currently have a 3KW, its still going to take forever to heat up.

The way it works is the higher the temperature the lower its power requirement (not that if will work in a geyser but testing in air at over 260C it KW requirement is apparently close to 0) this is internal resistance story.

On the opposite end the lower the temp the more power it will require if water temp is less then 25C then it will actually use more then 3kw as temp increases its internal resistance increases that's when the kw requirement decreases ,so in summer sure it will use less but Eish this winter water temps going to actually use more power till it hits 25C.

Also things to add to cost need to replace flange as well as it doesn't fit in a standard element pocket in most geysers they did mention though once its installed if you need to replace it then you don't have to drain the geyser because of this.

So now is it worth the cost for the 10-15% efficiency?
 
isie said:
For those interested in the PTC story Got a call from the guys at Geyser wise gave pretty simple honest explanation.

First thing the PTC is only about 10 or 15% more efficient then a standard geyser, so no a 2KW PTC will not be worthwhile to replace if you currently have a 3KW, its still going to take forever to heat up.

The way it works is the higher the temperature the lower its power requirement (not that if will work in a geyser but testing in air at over 260C it KW requirement is apparently close to 0) this is internal resistance story.

On the opposite end the lower the temp the more power it will require if water temp is less then 25C then it will actually use more then 3kw as temp increases its internal resistance increases that's when the kw requirement decreases ,so in summer sure it will use less but Eish this winter water temps going to actually use more power till it hits 25C.

Also things to add to cost need to replace flange as well as it doesn't fit in a standard element pocket in most geysers they did mention though once its installed if you need to replace it then you don't have to drain the geyser because of this.

So now is it worth the cost for the 10-15% efficiency?
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Still sounds like snake oil BS. All that I see is the charge curve changing. No actual saving.
 
isie said:
On the opposite end the lower the temp the more power it will require if water temp is less then 25C then it will actually use more then 3kw as temp increases its internal resistance increases that's when the kw requirement decreases ,so in summer sure it will use less but Eish this winter water temps going to actually use more power till it hits 25C.
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factor in that your water will never get down to below 45 in an electric geyser, even in winter
Even if you heat up and then use a timer , it never loses more than a few C

1721648309484.png

Better description of how it works here

Website Inactive

www.orbicsolar.com www.orbicsolar.com
 
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Major Boredom said:
factor in that your water will never get down to below 45 in an electric geyser, even in winter
Even if you heat up and then use a timer , it never loses more than a few C

View attachment 1743951

Better description of how it works here

Website Inactive

www.orbicsolar.com www.orbicsolar.com
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Standing water wont drop much correct , but I don't know about your house, but water in the geyser will not stay in the geyser indefinitely, as soon as anyone opens a hot water tap cold water will flood in to the geyser and the temp will drop.
so even in the best scenario you heat the water up in the day and shower only at night , the next day that water will be an Icey cold <20C (well now in winter summer a decent<30) - so that element will need to warm that water up
 
My understanding around the benefits of PTC is that it requires no thermostat. Basically the PTC self regulates.

Had the geyserwise controller installed, can't recall why but I did enquire about the PTC element but eventually stuck with my standard element. Perhaps it was costs for the additional fittings + element.
 
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