Karman de Lange

If muni insist on having something, surely you can then install prepaid meter and not buy any units? Lot is going to change this year. Eskom simply cannot make enough power and laws will have to change very quickly to allow other means of generation. We might even be allowed to feed back more electricity than we use like all other countries (/me faint)

My opinion/setup: I run my geyser of PV solar. Its these days its cheaper than the typical evacuated tube systems (or flat panels) and you can use the excess electricity for other things if you design properly. I changed they geyser element to 1.5kw (buy it at any plumbing store) . Heats up in 2-3 hrs (200l), and with proper insulation it keeps warm for 3 days easy. Enough for 2-3 showers as well if you do CPT shower. You also get other elements that can run direct of the PV panels, but then you cannot use the excess electricity for something else. Gas is always good backup, I would go with those cheap instant inline gas geysers, R3k at builders, R1k installation about. I'm cannot help on usage. but sure uncle google can help on that one

Why need dispose existing equipment? Just run the solar to the battery bank via MPPT. 1.5kw system is about R15k . If you want grid tied, I will not do that yet, the laws might change completely in next year, so will change your choices alot.

Gell cells last about 300 cycles if you use 50% DOD. so thats about 1 year off grid. With load shedding, you don't really use 50%, guess more 30-40% if sized correct , so should last about 1000 load shedding cycles before noticing big capacity drop. Mine lasted 3 years before they had about 20% capacity left. Good Lead acid (those very big 2v cells) is about 5000 cycles if you don't skimp on maintenance(weekly refills, balance etc) and you are religious with charge/discharge strategy. lithium , if you don't keep them fully charged (lithium degrade alot above 80% charged) you get about 5000 cycles at 50% DOD before reaching 70% capacity (so only lost 30% of capacity) .. no maintenance etc . So in reality , they should last a very long time if you oversize your bank. Just on that note: Solar panels is rated for 20 years, that means after 20years you have 80% of rated output still available. its not that they stop working, they simply don't perform at 100% anymore. So they should last longer than we can use them. So , in summary : If you don't use battery alot (grid connected backup system) then lead acid (gell/agm etc) is a option, but If we go into daily load shedding or you want off grid, they not going to last very long and lithium is the go to option. (been there, done that)

Im in such 2 minds about doing this again. ... I don't mind the suffering myself, but my poor wife need to sit around 20 hrs looking after me. Not sure I can do that to her again ... anyone have tips on doing this unsupported ?

Hope the comic sans means your not serious....

wind dont work in urban, you need about 4m turbine with clean average 20km/h wind to cover base load. (400w) Thats a massive turbine.. It works where there is big open areas with constant wind speeds . Lot easier to buy more panels and battery.

Inverter, I will always go with Victron. Ja, they expensive, but service is excellent and been around for ages. Check the Victron Quattro 5000 (you can connect generator to it as well) . (https://thepowerstore.co.za/products/vic-quattro-48-5000-70-100-100?variant=7291443773502&currency=ZAR&utm_campaign=gs-2018-09-19&utm_source=google&utm_medium=smart_campaign&gclid=CjwKCAiA0svwBRBhEiwAHqKjFuzBABIZZRGHecDNE2e6gYgveX8lM-41ZdJGMfvf8djzRyGDeCGmuxoCD8IQAvD_BwE) Battery, sorry, cannot really help there, there is tons of available now, think there local company that does packs as well. I did our system about 4 years ago, things changes alot since then.... I see here a option, need two of these: https://thepowerstore.co.za/collections/storage-systems/products/pylon-us2000b-plus-2-4kwh-li-ion-battery-excl-brackets so for about R100k you should be able to run for about 2-3 hrs . probably get away with less if you do lot of research and shop around. you can always go with 2kw inverter, with half the battery bank and later upgrade (victron can run the same model inverters in parallel to give more power).

If you want to stay on the grid, just get ~3kwh usable battery bank (thats about 5kwh lithium) and at least 5kw peak inverter. (5kw Victron quattro is my suggestion, I won't go with cheap aspect/mecers etc) Our 3kw inverter is touch to small, but we getting better at remembering not to switch all on at same time. This should be enough for 2hrs of normal house usage (cooking etc). and about 1.5hrs recharge time. your biggest "hidden" cost is the Electrician if you cannot do it yourself. They milk the cow at the moment, I would guess you going to pay about R30k installation now.

If you go good quality lithium battery, its a new battery bank in theory every 20 years. the normal AGM/Gell/lead acid crap that everyone sells lasts about 1-3 years off grid , they cannot handle the cycles. Proper Lead acid packs will last about 10 years, but they are a maintenance nightmare. Most houses cannot go of the grid without a MAJOR mental shift. You need to use less than 500 kwh/month to make going off grid viable. No more running electric heaters, just putting the dishwasher on with the vacuum and the kettle etc. a R300k system will give you about ~300 kwh/month in reality, unless you run the generator often.

tried it, made no difference....

Is it me or Category filter on left not work, click on anything and nothing changes? MS Edge

Sufferfest on Ipad running video's in offline mode .. Fan , get wife/hasbeen to blow (on) you so only need small ups for kickr

UPS => uninterruptable power supply. Battery bank with inverter --> UPS .. Go to APC website and have look , many ups's will run any home for long time, but you need the R 1mil or 2 to obtain it

Ups can run as long as you want(afford) it .. mine runs the whole house for 24hrs easy.. but to answer your question Check the amp and volt rating on the power supply , times the them with each other and times with 4hrs to give you a safe 2hr UPS size I'm to lazy to go check mines psu now. Googled it .. its 60w (12v*5A) .. so 2000VA UPS is about 15 hrs in theory (2000/60 ->33hrs *50%) (work on 50% true capacity)

Ops normal .. The Wheel suckers will do anything to stick to the group. Until PPA actually disqualify riders, this will always happen , but this is funride.. so rules don't apply Only option marshal have is to stop the whole bunch, its impossible to manage a few riders only. Stop group, tell them nicely to behave or get DQ'ed.

winning time takes nothing in consideration as far i'm aware, its just value .. might even be based on km/h average Beta is how easy/difficult in thoery race was .. Its purely how many slow people went faster (flat roads, lots of wheel suck) (low beta) or how many fast people went slower (team events) (high beta) ...

Its the theoretical value of the winning time if the winner of the CTCT of this year did this event its automated process ....

Damn, I guess good

so top of CE all now in B ... (if i got calcs right) .. o boy .. i see many a dropped rider on hels next year had start time wrong .. thanks DJT

beta?

I normally leave 4ish to attend most events .. 55min drive at least for me to most , wish they would make start bit later , would make the wind a real race factor and you miss the drunk 5 am drivers. Guess you can give yourself 15-30 minutes after few events .. if you have all numbers/boards/chips and loo (no2) at home

Give yourself a hour at venue ... Parking sometimes takes 5 minutes , other times 20 minutes Then you walk to start 5 - 10minutes.. If recall that start venuw parking is all gravel, so won't risk riding bike(thorns) so bit of trek sometimes. then Try find loo (anything from 0 minutes to 30 minutes). Its easier to hang around waiting than rush and mis your start group (don't ask how I know)

The Guy from F-E looks bit wrong at 2:03 with 4:30 CTCT time , unless he/she have some special training in last 6 months.... did quick calc and by my estimation top 50% of C-E bunch will get about ~20 index, which will put all into B group , messing whole seeding allocation again. Unless winner time and beta is lower than 1:55 and/or 0.8 . I did not do #8 so don't really matter in my world .......

all ppa events is seeding events cannot answer on the racetec chip .. had mine to long to try remember how it works