And now the requested “delay charging” please.
I guess a good idea but I’m sure geysers are more of an issue than inverters, at the moment!
Numnuts…. What percentage of households have battries vs geysers….
Groetnis
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And of those with batteries, what persentage charge them battries from Eksdom? Numnuts….
StoopidGroetnis
The UPS trolleys … ? 
Mmmm, I was off last night, 2023-05-22 from 22:11:29 for 9h, 51m, 8s.
This included LS fro 00:00 - 02:00.
Reason: Eskom voltages > 250v the whole time. Tripconnect disconnected the DB from the street.
Then 8am LS hit.
Become aware of this because for 10m before 8m LS, the power “came back on”.
Guys, just because the UPS-crowd is a small number doesn’t mean they cannot be a significant problem. How many people, upon hearing that cockroaches are often ground up with the cocobeans to make chocolate (it’s a small amount, but it is there) doesn’t find that idea at least a little unsettling? 
Of wot, ±60mil people:
How many have UPS’s?
How many have geysers?
Not sure if it is fair to divide by 60 million. For starters, not the whole 60m has access to electricity, but further than that, that problem is a lot more local, it hurts the local supplier (who has to keep to a budget, so to speak) more than it hurts Eskom.
I’m not contesting that geysers aren’t a bigger problem. Of course they are. And I agree that the UPS-guys probably don’t deserve to be blamed for this problem… but let’s not make the mistake of saying that it is not a problem at all. Of course it makes the problem a tiny bit worse, and as the EAF worsens, we should expect that there will be requests to NOT do that.
The UPS crowd also wants to use 2-4 hours of electricity in 15-30 minutes if it is lithium. Geysers will only kick in if you showered in that time. UPSes are also local. Rich neighbourhoods on the same transformer might all have UPSes by now. And in expensive apartment blocks/town houses no one has solar panels.
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| Shoprite Ceres, Western Cape | 279 kWp | 422 197 kWh |
|---|---|---|
| Shoprite Primrose, Gauteng | 160 kWp | 250 250 kWh |
| Shoprite Evander, Mpumalanga | 292 kWp | 519 900 kWh |
| Shoprite Dundee, KwaZulu-Natal | 270 kWp | 409 252 kWh |
| Shoprite Harrismith, Free State | 260 kWp | 418 000 kWh |
| Shoprite Waverley, Gauteng | 193 kWp | 438 200 kWh |
| Shoprite Louis Trichardt, Limpopo | 345 kWp | 498 243 kWh |
| Checkers Hyper Brookside, KwaZulu-Natal | 661 kWp | 921 381 kWh |
| Shoprite Lenasia, Gauteng | 265 kWp | 440 600 kWh |
| Checkers Hyper Drakenstein, Western Cape | 648 kWp | 1 003 694 kWh |
| Freshmark Polokwane Distribution Centre, Limpopo | 778 kWp | 1 275 421 kWh |
| Brackenfell Distribution Centre, Western Cape | 631 kWp | 1 021 751 kWh |
| Basson Distribution Centre, Western Cape | 1 750 kWp | 2 730 000 kWh |
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Well done to them.
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They should really start working with MWh… 50,000,000 kWh sounds funny.
“they” (being eskom) now include in their power alert social media messages about stages of loadshedding a specific request to switch off geysers between 17:00-21:00, so they are probably not targeting battery charging while ignoring other consumers.
Many municipalities still have some influence over geysers through ripple relays - the munis have no control over individual plug circuits in homes. So, geyser load can still be mitigated a bit during peak times without residential occupants having to intervene.
Another possible factor to consider is that especially during peak times, charging batteries adds a further peak to the existing “normal use” peak since especially residential smaller systems start charging while the other big loads (cooking supper, firing up the heaters/aircons etc.) also come on. Up to now eskom would probably be able to predict the load from geysers to a large extent but charging of batteries probably represent bit of a large variance. Those super 1C batteries that allow you to stick only 1 on your 5kW inverter and save some money to not have to buy 2 batteries probably get sucked dry during loadshedding and are charged at highest possible rate to be ready for the next loadshedding.
Other interesting issue around post loadshedding peak - if eskom does not request holding back/staggering introduction of loads; the local municipality might. One factor as pointed out by @jykenmynie likely to do with infrastructure capacity. The other is that the munis have a contracted peak demand that influences the rate they get charged by eskom - if they exceed this they are penalised/move to a higher bulk rate, they will have to pass the cost on to residents.
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Member of the “UPS crowd” here. Is there a way of setting the MPII to delay syncing when the grid is restored?
My suggestion, having done it, hit “two birds with one stone” and install this:
One, your entire DB is protected.
Two, you set it to delay 5min before your DB is connected, after LS, the MPII then syncs ±66s later.
EDIT: I have seen a huge increase of times that the grid volts go >250v in the last few months.
The Tripconnect stops that too before Victron has to disconnect from the DB at ± 253v or some such.
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Thank you! My installers freshened up the mains protection, but not one with a time switch. I’ll chat to them.
[Had my MPII installed just Tuesday past having lurked on the forum for a while. So many thanks for all the great discussions (and I think I’m starting to actually understand bits here and there) 
]
Anyone driving along the N1 past Century City in the last decade would have noticed that the Vodacom office’s entire roof is covered with solar panels.
The building boasts more than 2000 panels and generates the bulk of its power.
Over the last ten years, the building has generated roughly 7-gigawatt hours of renewable energy.
We’re at Century City in Cape Town unveiling the largest array of solar panels on a single building in Africa
But is there a setting on the inverter itself? I suspect that delay is going to become a requirement at suburb/complex/apartment block level.
(Our substation can be wobbly and some time ago, the suburb association asked everyone to delay turning on their geysers and pool pumps when the grid returns, which has helped to minimise the sub tripping in the first 5 or 10 minutes. Inverters, especially us “UPS crowd”, are the new culprit …)
https://community.victronenergy.com/questions/116502/time-delay-grid-sync.html
that is getting “complicated”, more devices, where the problem starts outside the house, keep it there i.e. delay the DB from connecting, solving two problems in one go.
Google for a cheaper price on Tripconnect. There are cheaper prices, same hardware.
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Will do. (Clearline’s own shop on Takealot is 25 to 33% cheaper than its website 
.)