Haven’t touched anything yet!
But question arising: is it possible to achieve the “charge between specific times” using an alternative to ESS? I’m very happy to get the same result in the least finicky way possible. I ask for these reasons:
-
Not wanting to place demand (that’s not necessary) on Eskom during the morning and evening peaks. (The one option, to allow recharging but to leash the demand by reducing the AC input, doesn’t seem to have worked and I’m chatting to my installer about why. But the second option is to suspend recharging altogether at peaks).
-
My battery seems to be continuously topping up. This seems to me to be both wasteful and not warranted by my usage (95% of a 5kWh battery remaining after a 2-hour shed; 90% remaining after 4 hours; and on one memorable occasion, 60% remaining after 24 hours without power, though that was the result of being very careful).
Either the leak must be stopped, or topping up be confined to twice, thrice, four times a day depending on how brutal the loadshedding is. The ESS Manual’s reference to a “Keep batteries charged” setting rang a bell for this reason. This is presumably what’s happening at the moment, though I can’t see the setting.
-
Eskom Direct introduced TOU plans earlier this year for residential customers who generate power, as well as for others who want to move to TOU. I’m pretty used to TOU (we commute between the UK and ZA and it’s easier for me to apply a TOU routine in both places) and was thinking of switching from Eskom Direct’s flat plan (Homepower) to its TOU plan (Homeflex). It’s in the 23/24 Schedule of Standard Prices Tariffs and charges - Distribution paras 1, 3, 19.2 (Standard plan for non-local authority residential customers) and 20 (TOU plan for nonLA residential, with decent-seeming rates).
Not that “considering going TOU” is a reason to go ESS early if it’s intricate for a UPS system, but it does converge with the first two considerations.
