What you should know before installing solar power

[fedup51]

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.

That will work just fine as long it is a good double pole change over like this

 

[CaffeineOverdrive]

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

COCT = City of Cape Town

 

[fedup51]

My apologies, I am in JHB

 

[RonSwanson]

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

I have 275V ONESTOs myself, but I am seeing some really cool stuff coming from :hager, including combined type 1, 2 and 3 SPDs.

 

[fedup51]

HAGER is always a good brand to use - if they are not out of stock that is