Solar related Costs and Savings

Left Of Bang said:
Main house and flatlet is gas for hob and geyser.

TBH I am not enjoying the gas geyser (perhaps they are old and not working correctly), bought the house with them already installed. Thought I would run the household with the solar and get a gauge for things before making changes.
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Yeah, you dont want to rely on the man for anything except for the LPG generator.
 
denmendez65 said:
I meant you say it's never coming back.

The borehole? I saw costs of installs over 15k for the tank alone. Drilling the borehole is expensive.

I installed my own water tank, pump and did the piping for 6k total if I remember correctly. The most expensive thing was the fittings and piping.
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Ah I see.

No, not borehole, that is stupid money and also not sustainable, I would do rainwater collection.
 
Left Of Bang said:
Main house and flatlet is gas for hob and geyser.

TBH I am not enjoying the gas geyser (perhaps they are old and not working correctly), bought the house with them already installed. Thought I would run the household with the solar and get a gauge for things before making changes.
Click to expand...
9l/12l/16l gas geyser? What size is it? I recall reading that a 12L is only good for one shower running at a time, a 16L is the better one to get for a higher flow rate. The smaller ones, like the 9 litre, work best if the water is preheated by solar, for example.

Winter the 12litre and under struggle as the incoming water is cold.
 
Crowley said:
We used to spend about 6k a month on prepaid electricity. Installed the following which worked out to just under 300k including installation.

28 x Canadian Solar 550w solar panels
6 x Revov 5kWh batteries
3 x Luxpower 6Kw inverters

Everything runs off the batteries with municipal power as a backup. At the moment we spend R500-R1000 a month on electricity, depending on the weather.
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This is why I want to double my batteries and panels - at the moment I run my batteries down to 20 percent overnight and don't have enough to not have to use grid at some point - with more batteries, I can run right through the night on battery.

As you can see on the graph below (Eskom usage is the line), I run on battery until about 20h00 (battery to 40 percent), then switch to Eskom until 04h00, run on battery again down to 20 percent, use a bit more of Eskom until the solar generation kicks in and I then use zero Eskom - more battery will allow me to smooth those spikes away




1761826011376.png
 
AfricanTech said:
This is why I want to double my batteries and panels - at the moment I run my batteries down to 20 percent overnight and don't have enough to not have to use grid at some point - with more batteries, I can run right through the night on battery.
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Why not just halve your overnight base load?
 
AfricanTech said:
This is why I want to double my batteries and panels - at the moment I run my batteries down to 20 percent overnight and don't have enough to not have to use grid at some point - with more batteries, I can run right through the night on battery.

As you can see on the graph below (Eskom usage is the line), I run on battery until about 20h00 (battery to 40 percent), then switch to Eskom until 04h00, run on battery again down to 20 percent, use a bit more of Eskom until the solar generation kicks in and I then use zero Eskom - more battery will allow me to smooth those spikes away




View attachment 1859625
Click to expand...
What uses 30kWh overnight?
 
Left Of Bang said:
Main house and flatlet is gas for hob and geyser.

TBH I am not enjoying the gas geyser (perhaps they are old and not working correctly), bought the house with them already installed. Thought I would run the household with the solar and get a gauge for things before making changes.
Click to expand...
That
denmendez65 said:
9l/12l/16l gas geyser? What size is it? I recall reading that a 12L is only good for one shower running at a time, a 16L is the better one to get for a higher flow rate. The smaller ones, like the 9 litre, work best if the water is preheated by solar, for example.

Winter the 12litre and under struggle as the incoming water is cold.
Click to expand...

I believe it to be a 12L and quite old. From what I understand the previous owner left the electric geyser in the roof so I may look at swopping the element out for a lower one as this is what most days look like, solar for days1761826719178.png
 
Left Of Bang said:
That


I believe it to be a 12L and quite old. From what I understand the previous owner left the electric geyser in the roof so I may look at swopping the element out for a lower one as this is what most days look like, solar for daysView attachment 1859629
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If the geyser outlet runs to the inlet of the gas geyser, the cheapest thing you can do is just get a 1kW element from ACDC (500 rand) and get a plumber to install. Let it heat during the day off the inverter (even 2 hours would be enough). Even if it never hits temp, you will save a whole lot more on gas, and your water will be much hotter.

They can even modify the plumbing if needed to connect the geyser outlet to the gas geyser inlet. They can also raise the setting higher for the gas geyser in case it is set too low.
 
LCBXX said:
Chest-pain depreciation for those who bought back then.
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I paid R35K on special for my first 5kwh battery a few years ago and I added another 2 last year for R14K each and you can get one today for R12K.

It was still worth it for me as we had lots of power issues in between with a few days here and a week or two there. I just got to the point where I didn't want to live my life according to someone else's schedule and had the ability to do something about it so I did.

I do feel happy for people now though its so easy to save a bunch on your electricity bill and Greta might even give you a greeny if you show her how many tons of coal you haven't burned.
 
denmendez65 said:
If the geyser outlet runs to the inlet of the gas geyser, the cheapest thing you can do is just get a 1kW element from ACDC (500 rand) and get a plumber to install. Let it heat during the day off the inverter (even 2 hours would be enough). Even if it never hits temp, you will save a whole lot more on gas, and your water will be much hotter.

They can even modify the plumbing if needed to connect the geyser outlet to the gas geyser inlet. They can also raise the setting higher for the gas geyser in case it is set too low.
Click to expand...
**** that:
 
Left Of Bang said:
That


I believe it to be a 12L and quite old. From what I understand the previous owner left the electric geyser in the roof so I may look at swopping the element out for a lower one as this is what most days look like, solar for daysView attachment 1859629
Click to expand...

That's ~R40k sitting idle.

1. You have plenty spare for running your own water treatment plant.
2. You shouldn't be burning any gas at all with this much PV.
3. Might as well set battery SoC range to 30-70% for longevity.
 
wingnut771 said:
**** that:
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I refuse to be in the ceiling doing that. I can climb a roof to install panels but I dont take kindly to tight spaces. And trying to fit through that little hole in the ceiling to get there, hell no :ROFL: . Labour is only 1.2k so its cheap enough.
 
B-1 said:
I paid R35K on special for my first 5kwh battery a few years ago and I added another 2 last year for R14K each and you can get one today for R12K.

It was still worth it for me as we had lots of power issues in between with a few days here and a week or two there. I just got to the point where I didn't want to live my life according to someone else's schedule and had the ability to do something about it so I did.

I do feel happy for people now though its so easy to save a bunch on your electricity bill and Greta might even give you a greeny if you show her how many tons of coal you haven't burned.
Click to expand...
Yeah, same here.
Hundreds of thousands spent on shiit that shouldn't even be necessary, which also depreciates at the rate of a smartphone.

I'm using the fsck out of my system though, so that it "looks" like it is paying for itself quicker.

The next thing to grind our gears will be when our overlords come and charge us R7/kWh because all the renewable IPPs need us to pay off their loans and keep shareholders happy.
We'll be off course told that this is a good thing.

EDIT: My God...am I Siener van Resnsburg's descendant?
dailyinvestor.com

Eskom is being replaced

South Africa will rely heavily on private companies to build power generation as coal-fired plants that produce the bulk of its electricity are gradually retired.
dailyinvestor.com dailyinvestor.com
 
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LCBXX said:
Yeah, same here.
Hundreds of thousands spent on shiit that shouldn't even be necessary, which also depreciates at the rate of a smartphone.

I'm using the fsck out of my system though, so that it "looks" like it is paying for itself quicker.

The next thing to grind our gears will be when our overlords come and charge us R7/kWh because all the renewable IPPs need us to pay off their loans and keep shareholders happy.
We'll be off course told that this is a good thing.
Click to expand...
Convert your R140k gennie to run off LPG.

1761832264161.png
 
Mine was about R165k to R168 if I recall correctly. I bought when it was the most expensive.

10x450w panels. 5 facing east and 5 facing west. Not an issue in Summer but sometimes k@k in winter.
2x5.5kw hubble AM2. Bought just before people started complaining about hubble. Stopped me from adding more batterries.
1x8kw Sunsynk inverter amd wifi dongle.

Costs includes everything i.e. brackets, fuses, wiring, breakers etc.
 
Tomtomtom said:
That's ~R40k sitting idle.

1. You have plenty spare for running your own water treatment plant.
2. You shouldn't be burning any gas at all with this much PV.
3. Might as well set battery SoC range to 30-70% for longevity.
Click to expand...

Thank you all for the suggestions, I have duly set the max SOC to 80%. Agreed with point 1. and 2. with summer around the corner, will be a good test to see what usage will be with aircons being used more frequently and for longer sessions (12k BTU in the lounge and a 9k BTU in the bedroom).
 
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