South Africa's rooftop solar explosion

Lupus said:
But are they also still running at batteries on the first peak of the day :)
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Sure, but that's the point. Their settings would be configured for when they actually need power, i.e. during the peaks. During the day they have PV.

And after the evening peak, they'd have no issue running off the grid - if there is LS, demand is low enough that it wouldn't drain the batteries too much. And still have enough to cater for the morning peak which partly coincides with the sun coming up...
 
wingnut771 said:
That's not a real peak.
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It is indeed can be 2GW over the afternoon. You know your supply side :-) why do you think it generally looks like it does, peaks in the morning dips until around 3/4pm and dips again from 9pm.
 
Mike Hoxbig said:
Sure, but that's the point. Their settings would be configured for when they actually need power, i.e. during the peaks. During the day they have PV.

And after the evening peak, they'd have no issue running off the grid - if there is LS, demand is low enough that it wouldn't drain the batteries too much. And still have enough to cater for the morning peak which partly coincides with the sun coming up...
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You and I would do something like that and quite a few of the other MyBBs, but a lot of the people out there who just got an install done? Are they going to know that? I mean I had a guy complaining his 200k solar system wasn't covering him at all, and it turned out firstly his entire house was still incandescent lights + the settings were all over the place.
 
Lupus said:
It is indeed can be 2GW over the afternoon. You know your supply side :) why do you think it generally looks like it does, peaks in the morning dips until around 3/4pm and dips again from 9pm.
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Can you point to the morning peak?
1713443196591.png
 
wingnut771 said:
A couple post back on California.

Anyway, every time eskom increase their prices, those peaks will come down as people buy more batteries. Like I aid earlier, batteries will be cheaper than eskom soon.
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Aah California
 
Lupus said:
They are, but how many of those batteries actually can last the whole night?
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It requires a bit of planning and as you said design also matters but it is possible to do it.
I'm planning to add 4-5 panels to the west side which will delay battery usage and help out during winter.
That was not planned but with panel price drop it makes sense to do it.
As others pointed out there is peak in the morning, in my case geyser was one using most of the electricity but now we heat up water during the day to the max and it only starts heating if water drops below 45 degrees.
1713444221307.png
 
G.A.S said:
Big difference between California and here though: Most PV in SA is backed by batteries due to loadshedding.
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This is a good point - even more reason Eskom needs to be measuring and reporting private battery MWh and not just solar MWp.
 
Tomtomtom said:
This is a good point - even more reason Eskom needs to be measuring and reporting private battery MWh and not just solar MWp.
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Problem is they are assuming a lot as well, unless a lot of shopping centers went with solar as well
 
Lupus said:
They are, but how many of those batteries actually can last the whole night?
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The current use case both "require" and "incentivize" it, since that is where your savings are: we can't economically feed-back into the grid during daytime hours.

Furthermore, nighttime consumption can be lowered* if you plan for it (e.g. geyser timer), so it is possible to go the night with a 10kWh system.

*: Of course this will be different due to requirements such as running the dishwasher overnight vs. during the day, electrical heaters, etc.

The main issue is rather multiple consecutive rainy or cloudy days.
 
chrisc said:
550 watt panels have come down to just over R2000. Inverters and batteries reduced by about 20%. Still a lot of work, placing the panels,. wiring them up in an approved manner and altering the house DB

But these savings can shave R25k off a new 8 panel installation, depending on the complexity

View attachment 1693165
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The deal I managed to get for my 5kw system in July 2023 is now 10k cheaper. If only...
 
Lupus said:
Problem is they are assuming a lot as well, unless a lot of shopping centers went with solar as well
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They already did ;-)

It is easy to assume that 'rooftop solar' means private households, but large malls can easily have as many panels as a thousand homes:

- Mall of Africa (4.7MWp)
Screen Shot 2023-10-02 at 13.19.42.png


-Cornubia Mall (5.2MWp)
Screen Shot 2023-10-02 at 13.19.09.png


More and more malls seem to have panels than before...
 
G.A.S said:
They already did ;-)

It is easy to assume that 'rooftop solar' means private households, but large malls can easily have as many panels as a thousand homes:

- Mall of Africa (4.7MWp)
Screen Shot 2023-10-02 at 13.19.42.png


-Cornubia Mall (5.2MWp)
Screen Shot 2023-10-02 at 13.19.09.png


More and more malls seem to have panels than before...
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If we didn't live in SA, with SA problems, they could add even more panels to the open parking and turn it into shaded parking...
 
Mike Hoxbig said:
If we didn't live in SA, with SA problems, they could add even more panels to the open parking and turn it into shaded parking...
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They'll charge extra parking fees for that too! :ROFL:

Edit: Other issues aside, I think it is just too expensive to install rigid shading to install panels, as opposed to using rooftops.
 
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