The problem with completely going off the grid

ESKOM ESLEG ESDOM ESKELM said:
Nee wat I don't understand what you are trying to say.
To approach a court of law to fight this kind of thing is going to cost you more than the solar system. Besides there has been a massive decline in the quality of high court judges especially here in the Cape, probably due to the previous judge president. You just can't rely on our justice system anymore.
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Love the username hahahahaha
 
tetrasect said:
Rubbish article.

You don't need to "oversize your system by a factor of three" to overcome week-long rain/cloud.

Firstly, this "massive problem" only happens like once, maybe twice a year. Secondly, you will still get power, just not as much. And thirdly, that weather is conducive to conserving energy because you're unlikely to be running pool pumps, washing clothes etc when it's raining outside.

Beats loadshedding by a long shot.

Also, if you really struggle during long rainy spells, you can just buy a small generator (which many already own) and charge your batteries back up in a couple hours. That will last you days and is way cheaper than "buying 3 solar systems" or running the generator 2-6 hours a day during loadshedding.
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It's not as simple as buying a generator and just plugging it in. Most grid-tied PV systems adhere to the grid code - if the grid code's specs isn't 100% correct, it disconnects from the grid. Therefore you need a seriously good generator to adhere to the same grid code - or your inverter will disconnect.

You can of course get a separate AC charger for your battery and connect that - thereby increasing the cost of your system.
You can get a better inverter with multiple AC inputs and multiple grid codes - thereby "relaxing" the one for the generator - and thus pushing up the cost of your system.

Also, if it is raining for a day you will postpone laundry, sure. If it rains for a week, you're very likely going to want to wash clothes AND dry them after a week - thereby using MORE electricity.

If you're offgrid you're most likely going to have to decide if you fit a gas geyser - thereby increasing the cost of your setup. Sure, you can do solar, but if you're without sun for a week most solar geysers are useless.

I honestly don't think the idea of oversizing your system by 2 or 3 times is far-fetched.

Most people I know happily fall back to Eskom when the weather is bad. But then again, most people I know are in Pretoria where there's no insane grid connectivity fees.

EDIT: OK, to be fair, if you're going off-grid you can likely relax the grid code on a single AC inverter to be able to work with a genny.
 
Daniel Puchert said:
Massive unspoken problem with going off-grid

With Eskom reportedly planning to apply for another massive electricity price hike and its proposals that households pay higher fixed rates for access to the grid, many people might be contemplating completely severing their grid connection.

However, doing so could have severe unintended consequences for service delivery, which is already in crisis in many towns and cities.
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Missing from the argument is that most solar, generator and battery installations are not costed by uptime ( the cost of own generation vs grid) but by the cost of downtime — Can my shop run without electricity? if I work from home, can I afford to be idle during load-shedding? and the like — or by lifestyle choice: adding ~R120 k to the cost of a R2-R25 million house might make sense to be able to watch TV, charge phones & laptops and have "civilised" lighting.

The next step for "solar" households will be to adopt EV, using the solar kit to recharge the car. This will have a monster effect on fuel and RAF levies and possibly petrol-pump attendent employment (and tips).

Rather than play King Canute, fighting technology disruption, national and local government needs to redesign their business models:
Allowing households to feed in to the grid means electricity utilities can pay them less than the cost of coal electricity (unlike a commercial power entity, the solar installation is a sunk cost; any recovery is pure profit) and on-sell at a markup to other consumers, rather than losing all their revenue during loadshedding. (This ignore the externalities such as less air pollution, climate change, savings in foreign exchange, etc)
Solar generation creates jobs in the smaller entity sector.
MyBroadband readers should be familiar with the concept of "RAID" [redundant array of inexpensive devices). "Hive" electricity generation is also a risk avoidance over government's "big is beautiful" mindset.
Revenue collections, whether fuel or electricity is already down due to loadshedding (a "sunk cost" and risk to national and local government revenues). Avoiding loadshedding will boost revenues compensating for the disruption.
While the benefits of technology advances benefit the wealthy first, increasing adoption and lowering of costs does trickle down to the rest of us.
 
In my opinion, remember a few years back or was it recently, the government mentioned that idiotic thing about, "you will be taxed for using the sun's energy and all that Yadda Yadda Yadda? Well, they still plan on doing this, but trying to use these big words that you need a dictionary for to understand, to bluff us. Where can one be taxed or charged for using the sun's or wind energy to be charged extra?
I know our leaders are not the brightest bunch in the acker, but for them to say something like that, it's a f-ing joke. No wonder other countries laughs at us.
 
ebendl said:
Also, if it is raining for a day you will postpone laundry, sure. If it rains for a week, you're very likely going to want to wash clothes AND dry them after a week - thereby using MORE electricity.
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No, You can simply take your clothes to the laundromat, and they will wash and iron them for you.

I have lived off the grid for several years without any issues. The key is to manage your electricity consumption during cloudy days.
 
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ebendl said:
It's not as simple as buying a generator and just plugging it in. Most grid-tied PV systems adhere to the grid code - if the grid code's specs isn't 100% correct, it disconnects from the grid. Therefore you need a seriously good generator to adhere to the same grid code - or your inverter will disconnect.

You can of course get a separate AC charger for your battery and connect that - thereby increasing the cost of your system.
You can get a better inverter with multiple AC inputs and multiple grid codes - thereby "relaxing" the one for the generator - and thus pushing up the cost of your system.

Also, if it is raining for a day you will postpone laundry, sure. If it rains for a week, you're very likely going to want to wash clothes AND dry them after a week - thereby using MORE electricity.

If you're offgrid you're most likely going to have to decide if you fit a gas geyser - thereby increasing the cost of your setup. Sure, you can do solar, but if you're without sun for a week most solar geysers are useless.

I honestly don't think the idea of oversizing your system by 2 or 3 times is far-fetched.

Most people I know happily fall back to Eskom when the weather is bad. But then again, most people I know are in Pretoria where there's no insane grid connectivity fees.

EDIT: OK, to be fair, if you're going off-grid you can likely relax the grid code on a single AC inverter to be able to work with a genny.
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This sounds like it was written by that photographer who thinks he's a nuclear "expert" who hasn't actually owned a solar system themselves because they think they need one 5 times the size than in reality.
 
WollieVerstege said:
Do you have anything to substantiate this?

I am off the grid in CoCT and have been for years. Know of a few in my neighborhood that have disconnected as recently as March this year.
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Didn't you emigrate last year or something?
 
"legal and financial implications of going off-grid, including obligations to pay municipalities for services that a house might no longer use."

Garbage. Let them do this and see the lawsuits roll in. If they hike the prices much more I'm going off grid 100%. They can come and remove their 'power' connection from my property.
 
it’s a sort of Catch22 situation. Eskom is the cause of the potential
problem. They are holding the country to ransom. They have cost SA an untold fortune to date an now make it difficult for any who wants out of their control.
 
ebendl said:
It's not as simple as buying a generator and just plugging it in. Most grid-tied PV systems adhere to the grid code - if the grid code's specs isn't 100% correct, it disconnects from the grid. Therefore you need a seriously good generator to adhere to the same grid code - or your inverter will disconnect.

You can of course get a separate AC charger for your battery and connect that - thereby increasing the cost of your system.
You can get a better inverter with multiple AC inputs and multiple grid codes - thereby "relaxing" the one for the generator - and thus pushing up the cost of your system.

Also, if it is raining for a day you will postpone laundry, sure. If it rains for a week, you're very likely going to want to wash clothes AND dry them after a week - thereby using MORE electricity.

If you're offgrid you're most likely going to have to decide if you fit a gas geyser - thereby increasing the cost of your setup. Sure, you can do solar, but if you're without sun for a week most solar geysers are useless.

I honestly don't think the idea of oversizing your system by 2 or 3 times is far-fetched.

Most people I know happily fall back to Eskom when the weather is bad. But then again, most people I know are in Pretoria where there's no insane grid connectivity fees.

EDIT: OK, to be fair, if you're going off-grid you can likely relax the grid code on a single AC inverter to be able to work with a genny.
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If you're going off grid you wouldn't get a grid-tied inverter to start with...
 
Not sure who did this study but its complete BS. Most house holds will get by with a 5kw system and 10 to 15kw battery. Hot water needs to be solar or heat pump or both if posible. Increase hot water storage if posible. 400 to 600 litres. Led for all lighting and gas hob as most people cook after sunset. Backup generator would be required for off grid. I have only run my generator twice in the last 10 months, once as a result of 23power outage and once with prolong overcast weather plus load sheading
 
People Power said:
Not sure who did this study but its complete BS. Most house holds will get by with a 5kw system and 10 to 15kw battery. Hot water needs to be solar or heat pump or both if posible. Increase hot water storage if posible. 400 to 600 litres. Led for all lighting and gas hob as most people cook after sunset. Backup generator would be required for off grid. I have only run my generator twice in the last 10 months, once as a result of 23power outage and once with prolong overcast weather plus load sheading
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What is the point in having a 15kw battery on a 5kw system?
 
People Power said:
Not sure who did this study but its complete BS. Most house holds will get by with a 5kw system and 10 to 15kw battery. Hot water needs to be solar or heat pump or both if posible. Increase hot water storage if posible. 400 to 600 litres. Led for all lighting and gas hob as most people cook after sunset. Backup generator would be required for off grid. I have only run my generator twice in the last 10 months, once as a result of 23power outage and once with prolong overcast weather plus load sheading
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Do you have a super duper generator that complies with the "grid code"?

ebendl said:
seriously good generator to adhere to the same grid code - or your inverter will disconnect.
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A 5kw solar panel system will happily charge 2x5kw lithium batteries.
Creating the electricity is easy. Storing it is another can of worms.
Panels are so cheap now its time to buy.
Batteries are also going down about R16k.
Voltex has huge stock they are trying to get rid of.
So dudes fusk Escum and go solar.
 
Thugscub said:
A 5kw solar panel system will happily charge 2x5kw lithium batteries.
Creating the electricity is easy. Storing it is another can of worms.
Panels are so cheap now its time to buy.
Batteries are also going down about R16k.
Voltex has huge stock they are trying to get rid of.
So dudes fusk Escum and go solar.
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Just had a look, Voltex looks like a rip off.

5kWh now R15k:

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