W@P's Solar System

DTBA said:
How much did the panels work out price per watt?
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Current wholesale prices are around R5.90 - R6.20 per Wp. Retail is whatever margin the dealer wants to apply on top of that.
 
Price you paid per panel divided by the panel wattage.
 
R5 for me (Dec '21)

Need to buy more in Feb / march and i am sure it'll be closer to R7
 
Do these voltages look right to you clever guys ?

1642073812678.png
 
Do these DC current inputs look fine to you guys? Isn't the max DC input on the Sunsynk 8kW 18A ?
1642076836202.png
 
W@P said:
Nice, I haven't seen you posting in the solar threads. What system do you have?
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System is about 1 year old, main components are

1. 8kW Sunsynk inverter,

2. 10x 455w Canadian Solar Mono perc panels (plan is to add 6 more at the end of 2022)

3. 10.8kWh LFP in battery storage (4x Rentech batteries). The BMS on one of them recently started giving issues (it would not accept a charge and would only discharge at a high current draw), fortunately it is being replaced at no cost to me but there is no stock.

Total cost was about R155k. The shape of house roof made the install rather challenging (if you could look down onto the roof from above it looks like a staircase veiwed from the side). So we ended up with 5 batches of 2 panels on separate pieces of the roof. The panels face magetic North (within 3 to 4 degrees) and are at a 28 degree angle (the angle impacts Summar production but makes up during Winter time).

We are also gradually replacing the old appliances in the house to more energy efficient alternatives (this was the Carrot to convince the "boss with long hair" that solar was a good idea).

So far we have managed to reduce our summer consumption from 25kw per day to about 16kw per day. The largest contributors here were the

1. Heat pump tumble dryer. At R13k it was expensive but it is an amazing piece of technology. It uses between 300w to 550w depending on the program ( compared to about 2200w to what we had before) plus it converts all the moisture to water so no more hot and humid air being blown out. We use this every evening (when no solar is available) often for 2 full cycles, meaning it is on for 2 odd hours and we still make it through the evening on the batteries (even with the reduced capacity due to the one broken battery)

2. 5.4 kWh ITS Heat pump, again at almost R30k (incl installation) it was expensive. We still have the 3.5kWh element in the geyser should the heatpump fail. It draws between 1400w and 1900w depending on where it is in the heating cycle (compared to the consistent 3500w draw of the element). It takes about 60 to 70 minutes to warm the water to 60 degrees Celsius in Summar, compared to 70 to 80 minutes for the element (I have done a number of tests on this, the 10 minutes difference is an average, sometimes it is more and sometimes less as the heating time is impacted by the starting water temperature).

3. We also replaced the washing machine, saving here was marginal (550w for old machine vs 420w for new one)

Next up for replacement is the fridge freezer. Current one draws 180W and will be replaced with a 90W or 100W alternative, likey a Bosch. I have been monitoring my current fridge with a smart wifi plug, I was surprised to see that it never turns off during warm evenings meaning it draws 180W on a constant basis.
 
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