What you should know before installing solar power

What? In most places you can do it yourself and I know people in the middle of nowhere who did so. The CoC requirement is also for mains power and perhaps insurance so how about an article on off-grid for once? They are also completely wrong on the technical aspects. Apart from the inverter the batteries are the hardest and most expensive part to upgrade as older or mismatched batteries can cause drain on the newer batteries so it's generally recommended to install or replace all of them together. Solar panels would be the easiest to match as long as you can get more or less the same specs as inverters usually have a large range of acceptable configurations.
 
The Solar Industry is being flooded with regulations and wise comments. Engineers signing Off will drive the cost up that nobody can afford this any more - this is just more pressure from incompetet government departtment and new commissions and other nonsense that are just money making schemes - a lot of which are color based. After being in business for nearly 20 years we should know some thing about this ....
 
I installed my own system and added on as finances allowed.Our local installer,the only one,says I did not require a COC as it is a residential installation.
 
B@rrels said:
I installed my own system and added on as finances allowed.Our local installer,the only one,says I did not require a COC as it is a residential installation.
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If it integrated into the DB, you need a COC or the insurance will not cover you. You should have a Solar Sub DB with surge protection. The surge protection should be double pole so you can prove to the insurance that the Life was "by accident" connected to the Neutral when some ESKOM experts have been working on the sub station .....
 
The real Joke is: We are getting phone calls from people that just have been awarded a "Government Tender" and request our assistance for installation and equipment. They tell us , probably truthfully, that they have no tools or any idea what they are doing. The only true qualification one really needs is a B-BEEEE certificate, COC's we get offered via SMS on our business number starting from R 50.00 to R 1500.00 - from R 2000.00 you can even choose your preferred color ....... we generally decline either offer .....
 
Our system was installed by a reputable solar company. (As far as one can tell these days)

The COC we received in the end was from another name - not theirs.
So it seems like installers can just fill in the form and have it rubber stamped by another authorized company - which draws doubt in how legit most installs really are.
 
Yes, this is true ..... the main difference is that Solar/PV installations are basically DC power and the design and programming of e.g. the inverter is done by the Solar company. A solar company may not employ a full time electrician. A qualified electrician , solar proficient, will execute the DB integration. To note is that a normal electrician may NOT be solar proficient and Inverter systems need to be integrated in a specific way into the DB board such as certain circuits are split off to be supplied by the Solar systems while other circuits remain on the ESKOM supplied circuit. As long as you are able to determine who actually is issuing the COC, this practice is acceptable - a good old fashioned reference may be advisable
 
fedup51 said:
If it integrated into the DB, you need a COC or the insurance will not cover you. You should have a Solar Sub DB with surge protection. The surge protection should be double pole so you can prove to the insurance that the Life was "by accident" connected to the Neutral when some ESKOM experts have been working on the sub station .....
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what type / make of surge protection would you recommend?
 
fedup51 said:
If it integrated into the DB, you need a COC or the insurance will not cover you. You should have a Solar Sub DB with surge protection. The surge protection should be double pole so you can prove to the insurance that the Life was "by accident" connected to the Neutral when some ESKOM experts have been working on the sub station .....
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I have surge arresters in my combiner box.I don't have a separate Solar sub db.I use my main db under normal and back up power with 2x20amp contactors/relays,1 n/o and 1 n/c,coil powered by incoming mains voltage.
 
Well, ONESTO makes a good surge protector 2pole - what you need to watch is the Uc value of the surge protector and the Inverter internal max. voltage. Many installers use a short cut by installing surge protectors with a Uc 380V AC and the inverter max. protection is 275V - therefore you should use a a Uc 275V surge protector. Other wise the inverter will blow before the surge protection activates. Combiner boxes are not really necessary. They cost more then the funtionality is worth. All depends on the inverter type - SCS values. A good quality and correctly sized DC switch (NOT AC MCB) do the same job but reduce single points of failure.l The problem with the surge protectors is the price - a Uc275V costs about R 1000 and a Uc 380 costs about R 350 - the insurance companies also know this and often asks for photos of the installationIMG-20220627-WA0010.jpg
 
fedup51 said:
Well, ONESTO makes a good surge protector 2pole - what you need to watch is the Uc value of the surge protector and the Inverter internal max. voltage. Many installers use a short cut by installing surge protectors with a Uc 380V AC and the inverter max. protection is 275V - therefore you should use a a Uc 275V surge protector. Other wise the inverter will blow before the surge protection activates. Combiner boxes are not really necessary. They cost more then the funtionality is worth. All depends on the inverter type - SCS values. A good quality and correctly sized DC switch (NOT AC MCB) do the same job but reduce single points of failure.l The problem with the surge protectors is the price - a Uc275V costs about R 1000 and a Uc 380 costs about R 350 - the insurance companies also know this and often asks for photos of the installationView attachment 1369665
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thanks for the info.

My inverter backup system is totally independent of my house main DB. the system has it's own DB / EL / DC fuses ect. and only requires charging power from eskom (for now).

I have noticed a +-10s delay before the inverter allows eskom power through again after load shedding, could this be the inverters own inbuilt protection?
 
fedup51 said:
If it integrated into the DB, you need a COC or the insurance will not cover you. You should have a Solar Sub DB with surge protection. The surge protection should be double pole so you can prove to the insurance that the Life was "by accident" connected to the Neutral when some ESKOM experts have been working on the sub station .....
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What about generators? The setup that my electrician did was to install a changeover switch next to the DB board and you have to flip that over during load shedding.
 
A lot of these requirements are fairly new, try run with this same check list three or more years ago and you would have a hard time finding someone to tick all the boxes for a residential level installation, like the coct approved solar list. So those who got their installations done years ago are going to have compliance issues.
 
Yes - this is possible. Many of our systems are however controlled via internet WiFi - these cloud server often are located in China except the ICC from Centurion, and the app's are often latent. They do however communicate with the cloud parameters they have stored. As I do not know your precise equipment and system setup, there is not much more I can say. The AXPERT type of inverter by example have to power tolerance settings APL and UPS - these differ by the change over time between solar and grid - UPS being the shorter option. The a generator can be integrated via a change over switch without a problem. It is however advised to allow the generator to run for +/- 1 minute as most generators made in China have AVR's which are some what questionable and should be given time to stabilize. The ideal integration on a inverter system, please see diagram. As for using Contactor's I would not use them as they generate sparks on switching a SSR in comparison does not - regards Wolf GSSInverter-DB.png
 

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Mystic Twilight said:
A lot of these requirements are fairly new, try run with this same check list three or more years ago and you would have a hard time finding someone to tick all the boxes for a residential level installation, like the coct approved solar list. So those who got their installations done years ago are going to have compliance issues.
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Well, I don't know what "coct" is, perhaps a BEE invention - it is unfortunate, but there are many instances/government contraptions which are coming up with ever new "approval" procedures - most of them are utter nonsense. For scaling know your idle loads and peak load times and stick with a solar proficient electrician. There is nothing different over the past years just the ways of how the government finding ways to steal money from people have changed
 
fedup51 said:
Well, I don't know what "coct" is, perhaps a BEE invention - it is unfortunate, but there are many instances/government contraptions which are coming up with ever new "approval" procedures - most of them are utter nonsense. For scaling know your idle loads and peak load times and stick with a solar proficient electrician. There is nothing different over the past years just the ways of how the government finding ways to steal money from people have changed
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City of Cape Town.
 
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