Loadshedding solutions

[ChrisF]

On 10/4/2022 at 3:31 PM, ChrisF said:

snip ...

- the logical next step is placement of the PV panels .....  The maths says the panels should face stellar North, and at an angle of "latitude + 10 to 20 degrees".  Realistically .. find that open roof that is free from shade ....  DO plan ahead for how you are going to route the cables ....

 

Just off Bottelary road ... this guy has a nice installation ...

 

 

And now the developer went and planted a row of trees against his North fence ..... looks like fast growing thorn trees ...

 

Not long then these trees will throw shade on the first couple of panels .... with the string loosing its ability to deliver power !!

 

And the developer is also busy with blocks of 4-storey flats to the West .... there goes his afternoon sun ....

 

That was a pretty expensive installation ... and it will loose most of its capacity in the next 2 years.

 

 

OUCH  !

 

Edited November 8, 2022 by ChrisF

[Swift01]

33 minutes ago, TheoG said:

That's very nice & useful.  Unfortunately, my inverter cant/wont communicate, so I need to monitor things manually.  Got 2 separate panels on my geyser and basically forget about it, I hardly ever use Eksdom to boost the geyser, even on bad sun days.

Have you used a "Mini Inverter" between panels and the geyser? If so which one have you sed?

[TheoG]

4 minutes ago, Swift01 said:

Have you used a "Mini Inverter" between panels and the geyser? If so which one have you sed?

No, there is no inverter, only a PV controller that feed a dual element directly in the geyser.  When they installed, the normal geyser element was replaced with a dual element that can run on DC (PV-Sun power) and AC Eksdom, separately or simultaneously.

[Swift01]

11 minutes ago, TheoG said:

No, there is no inverter, only a PV controller that feed a dual element directly in the geyser.  When they installed, the normal geyser element was replaced with a dual element that can run on DC (PV-Sun power) and AC Eksdom, separately or simultaneously.

Excellent, been wondering how this was done. we were thinking of something similar. Already have a wifi geyser switch which has more than halved the consumption, but as I have set daily timers, I sometimes forget about load shedding and don't switch it on before. had a few groans from the wife that the water was not hot. running on panels during the day will solve this issue.

[ChrisF]

1 hour ago, Swift01 said:

Excellent, been wondering how this was done. we were thinking of something similar. Already have a wifi geyser switch which has more than halved the consumption, but as I have set daily timers, I sometimes forget about load shedding and don't switch it on before. had a few groans from the wife that the water was not hot. running on panels during the day will solve this issue.

 

We have the same GeyserWise dual element system.  Works very well

[PhilipV]

2 hours ago, ChrisF said:

 

 

 

 

And now the developer went and planted a row of trees against his North fence ..... looks like fast growing thorn trees ...

 

Not long then these trees will throw shade on the first couple of panels .... with the string loosing its ability to deliver power !!

 

 

 

It would(n't) be quite a shame if something would happen to those trees, hampering their growth. 
But if I was him, I'd just cut the top of the trees off as soon as it reaches his roof height and keep it trimmed at that height. 
 

Can't do much about that block of flats, they don't trim easily. 

[MORNE]

3 hours ago, ChrisF said:

 

Just off Bottelary road ... this guy has a nice installation ...

 

 

And now the developer went and planted a row of trees against his North fence ..... looks like fast growing thorn trees ...

 

Not long then these trees will throw shade on the first couple of panels .... with the string loosing its ability to deliver power !!

 

And the developer is also busy with blocks of 4-storey flats to the West .... there goes his afternoon sun ....

 

That was a pretty expensive installation ... and it will loose most of its capacity in the next 2 years.

 

 

OUCH  !

 

What am I missing? unless the plan is not orientated north?
He has only two panels facing north, the rest are all west facing. Its obvious he didnt want to see them because between the two smaller roofed areas with single panels there was probably enough space to get them all facing north. As it is he doesnt have THE BEST facing panels anyway. 

i owned a row house ( about 5m wide by 25m deep) in town with a glass roof about 1.2m wide  in exactly the same spot (plan wise) on the western side…over a connecting corridor, and that literally only got full, proper northern exposure between 11 and 2 pm. Winters even less.

[Andreas_187]

Does anyone have a setup without batteries, i.e. Having solar panels power geysers, washing machines and pool pumps etc during the day

[ChrisF]

4 hours ago, MORNE said:

What am I missing? unless the plan is not orientated north?
He has only two panels facing north, the rest are all west facing. Its obvious he didnt want to see them because between the two smaller roofed areas with single panels there was probably enough space to get them all facing north. As it is he doesnt have THE BEST facing panels anyway. 

i owned a row house ( about 5m wide by 25m deep) in town with a glass roof about 1.2m wide  in exactly the same spot (plan wise) on the western side…over a connecting corridor, and that literally only got full, proper northern exposure between 11 and 2 pm. Winters even less.

 

To the East the house has a double storey, thus all the panels face west.

 

Going to be interesting to see how close thos flats are built to his house ....

 

 

Trees to the North will cast shadows over a few panels .... when one panel gets shade the STRING drops.  Thus one panel in the shade of the tree could reduce his pv drastically.

[Frosty]

How far are the trees from the building? If they grow higher than the distance from the building to the base of the tree, then there might be a problem. That would give a 45° angle to the base of the building, so add the height of the building to the panels, and that will determine if the trees are a problem.

Might be worth keeping them pruned in the early years, which helps to stunt their full growth potential. Trying to trim them once at full height is a bit harder.

Looking again at the layout, the panels can also be rotated 90° and then doubled up on the roof. from the bottom of the image working their way back to the road. 

Edited November 8, 2022 by Frosty

[ChrisF]

4 minutes ago, Frosty said:

How far are the trees from the building? If they grow higher than the distance from the building to the base of the tree, then there might be a problem. That would give a 45° angle to the base of the building, so add the height of the building to the panels, and that will determine if the trees are a problem.

Might be worth keeping them pruned in the early years, which helps to stunt their full growth potential. Trying to trim them once at full height is a bit harder.

Looking again at the layout, the panels can also be rotated 90° and then doubled up on the roof. from the bottom of the image working their way back to the road. 

 

Close enough that it is going to cause issues with the fence wall ....

 

 

And planted close enough to each other to create a green fence to the road ....

 

[ChrisF]

1 hour ago, Andreas_187 said:

Does anyone have a setup without batteries, i.e. Having solar panels power geysers, washing machines and pool pumps etc during the day

 

Yes.

 

I opted for the Enphase system.

 

My house layout makes it near impossible to install the typical system, read an extremely difficult and expensive rewire.

 

 

It does what we want - over the last 11 months 50% of our power came from solar.

 

 

PLEASE NOTE - It switches off during loadshedding.  We already had a UPS for the electronics.

 

 

It runs the pool pump and washing machine with ease.

 

 

The geyser is power hungry .... we previously changed it to solar.  Running it of your pv system would be costly .... unless you changed the geyser element to a 1 or 1,5kW .... understanding that it will take a few hours to heat up.

 

 

 

PS - Enphase uses micro inverters at each PV panel.  Thus 220V coming into the house.  No noisy inverters in the house.

 

Very expensive to upgrade to a battery system .... you need to buy a compatible inverter ....only go this route if you are SURE you wont be going the battery route

[Andreas_187]

10 hours ago, ChrisF said:

 

Yes.

 

I opted for the Enphase system.

 

My house layout makes it near impossible to install the typical system, read an extremely difficult and expensive rewire.

 

 

It does what we want - over the last 11 months 50% of our power came from solar.

 

 

PLEASE NOTE - It switches off during loadshedding.  We already had a UPS for the electronics.

 

 

It runs the pool pump and washing machine with ease.

 

 

The geyser is power hungry .... we previously changed it to solar.  Running it of your pv system would be costly .... unless you changed the geyser element to a 1 or 1,5kW .... understanding that it will take a few hours to heat up.

 

 

 

PS - Enphase uses micro inverters at each PV panel.  Thus 220V coming into the house.  No noisy inverters in the house.

 

Very expensive to upgrade to a battery system .... you need to buy a compatible inverter ....only go this route if you are SURE you wont be going the battery route

Thanks for the reply. I work with a laptop so don't need anything for loadshedding apart from my small UPS for fibre & router. 

I'm happy to let the sun power the geysers, washing machine etc during the day and work my schedule around them. 

[ChrisF]

IF I had a DB in the garage my approach would have been different !!

 

Much cheaper inverter options, than Enphase.  Though Enphase do come with a 25 year warantee.

 

There are so many inverter options that would allow you to use the sun energy, and blend in eskom for those moments where your peak usage exceeds your PV capacity.

 

And if your situation change, then it is easy to add some batteries .....  Though THIS is where the split DB comes in, to prevent the geyser from sucking the batteries dry ....

 

 

Just stay far away from the entry level inverters that gives either pv or eskom .....

[Frosty]

Had to resort to getting a third party in, to resolve problems my original installer couldn’t resolve.

Was getting 2800W on a good day before, and got to 4960W at lunch time. No change to setup, just lousy workmanship.

[TheoG]

My damn inverter is acting up.  Producing power from the batteries and supplement with Eskom as and when required, but the flippen solar charge controller is not cooperating.

In the past every 2 to 3 days I have to reset it and then it works fine for a while until the next time.  Today however it refuse to reset and start working, guess it time for a new inverter ...  

Edited November 9, 2022 by TheoG