šŸ˜– Why I wanted Solar for is not why I needed Solar

General Discussions
21

School fees. :slight_smile:

I dealed and wheeled like crazy, bought, sold, and upgraded all the time, cause it hurt big time when one looked at the actual costs of doing it from scratch.

Pretty much did not too shabby, if I may compliment myself. The biggest splurge ever was the 18-cell bank.

All was done in cash.

My justification way back that started it all, before I got caught up in my own sales pitch, we could not work, so I had to spend some money. That was a legit reason ā€¦ till I coined the NEED, WANT HOBBY thing ā€¦ as I hit the WANT level consistently with huge applause. :rofl:

Ps. In my own defense ā€¦ I must add, the reduction in Eskom charges was rather huge ā€¦ as I focussed on ROI first, lifestle changes ā€¦ and being a ā€œBenevolent Dictatorā€ ā€¦ read ā€œdaar is nie 'n manier wat ek jou gaan probeer help as jy aandring om stupid te wil bly en nie eers wil probeer aanpas!ā€

22

I think something people tend to forget when they look at the ROI on their system is the amount of spend you wouldve done on fuel for your generator that you are also avoiding now.

I calculated my ROI on the roughly R2500 a month I am saving on electricity costs - but with load shedding as bad it has been the last while I would surely have spent more than R1000 a month on generator fuel too.

So thats another reason why we NEED solar :slight_smile:

P.S. I installed my system to save on electricity costs several years ago and not because of load shedding - but it ended up being heaven sent when the load shedding really started to get severe.

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23

I never even considered a generator. UPSā€™es was my go-to.

Ditsim ā€¦ said to someone similar the other week ā€¦ donā€™t install a solar system for LS, install one with ROI in mind ā€¦ as a consequence you deal with LS.

Drilling down on that ā€¦ a Solis grid-tied inverter is THE best ROI.
When you add batts, the ROI still very much in mind, and you deal with LS as a consequence.

24

I like my conveniences - thats why we had a generator before the solar system. I didnt want to be unable to use the microwave, stove etc during loadshedding.

Its a big thing for me that if I have to live with crime and corruption and no service from the state - I am at least going to make my own life as comfortable as possible.

25

Got two of those mercer trollies, one LiPo and one normal batteries and a generator I bought about 25 years ago 6.5kW. Getting up and changing over to get me light working was a killer, everybody woke up when me doing that, normally just before LS and again after LS. Used that Ginny to the moon and back.

One Mercer blowing up when we lost a neutral on the feed from utility was the final straw. Solarrrrrrr from then on, was not about to get another Mercer ;( As mentioned, ROI was not my motivation, did do a proper calc as can be seen in my how to design a system on here.

SolarrrrGroetnis

26

Those things are horrible unless you have it properly installed underground. I hope the general middle class SA mentality agrees with me.
I have a neighbor who runs his intermittently. My strategy is to not confront the man (and wife) and hope that the realization will dawn on its ownā€¦

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27

Neighbours on both sides of us have generators. Conveniently situated at the boundary wall between them and us, so I get it from both sides. Our (and the little oneā€™s) bedroom windows are pretty much 5m away from the one side and that neighbour with just a precast wall in between.

I sort of got used to the white noise and I respect the fact that if we had a functioning electricity provider they wouldnā€™t need to run a generator, but when that neighbour got either solar or a battery backup it really was amazing.

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28

Yes we have noisy generators all around us too - but it doesnā€™t bother me. People need to have a replacement for Eskom and have limited budgetsā€¦

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29

I agree, for the most part that bit of noise is not too bothersome. What I do find a little more irritating is when it is a small petrol generator with an occasional misfire. It creates feelings if anguish, worrying about when the last time that thing was serviced, how impossible it has become for normal people to service carburetors, who even knows the black magic of carbs anymore, and things like thatā€¦ despite the thing not even being mine!

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30

And how does the crude speed regulator grab you?
Someone turns on the kettle and the thing almost stalls and then it over revsā€¦

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31

Correct me if I am wrong but AC Out 2 (non-essentials) on the Multiplusses waits 2 minutes or something of the sorts after grid comes back before making connection again. Is it just a time delayed transfer or will it not connect if the grid remains outside limits?

32

Itā€™s a time delay enforced from the grid code.

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33

A week or so ago we had the usual blackout, and then power simply did not return for 5 1/2 days. No idea why, but this is starting to hap[pen way more frequently of late. Some other areas (this seems to be tied to local transformer level) suffer from this on a more regular basis. Itā€™s not the transformer failing, since it is only in a few local areas, and no transformers gets replaced.

NotisiegeneemdeGroetnis

34

AC-out-2 is connected to the output side of the inverter, in other words, the transfer switch (the bit that connects AC-in to the grid) sits before it. And AC-in-1 will only connect once the grid is in range (as per grid code), and AC-out-2 only some time after that.

So it will indeed not connect if the grid is out of limits.

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35

Thanks Plonkster, makes sense :+1:

36

@plonkster I should have looked at this before asking a question out of the hip :blush:

Screenshot_20230911_101823_Samsung Internet
Screenshot_20230911_101823_Samsung Internet1079Ɨ1962 135 KB

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37

I went solar basically out of spite. No doubt (Iā€™m Scottish 5 generations back) I am looking for ROE and Iā€™ll get that in about 7.5 years, banking on a 10% average increase in electricity from eThekwini per year, but that was not the primary reason.

I did have a big incentive that I cannot be without power for family medical reasons, but Iā€™ve gone way beyond that in my sizing. And now, given the total collapse of eThekini services, the Metro has already blown their 2023-2024 budget (6 months) and are spending next years money, have just voted the City Manager a R1.3 million increase (to R3.8 million or something), votes R13 million for parties to celebrate superior performance for their staff (because we have this pristine city), there is a large swing to withholding rates and electricity/water bills until the eThekwini wallahs come to the party with financial transparency. I have not yet joined because I have a granny flat on the property, with their own meters but on my bill, so they will suffer from my decisions, but post a court case on 1 November - should the ERPM win, itā€™s gloves off, and I might need to be self sufficient.

2 Likes
38

The reason why I have solar is exactly why I got solar. It was 2019. There had been some load shedding. I had a big (I thought) battery/inverter combination and whilst it kept the TV and the wi-fi and some lights and one fridge on, I knew it wasnā€™t enough. Especially after we went away for a weekend during which a well known fiber operator hit power lines in our area and we lost the contents of the deep freeze.

Plus I was at war with my municipal bill.

Iā€™d been thinking about solar for a while, and been watching PV prices going down and Eskom prices going up and it was getting to a point where I could see how one might break even. Even soā€¦ we were already on pre-paid (significant saving if youā€™re on City Power) and only using 13 to 14 kWh per day.

Anyway, we got quotes. My back of an envelope calculations showed a payback of 7 to 8 years and I pulled the trigger. The wife said there goes that new car I was going to buy when I retired. A week later we had load shedding and she was big enough a person to say that I was right and thank you.

The flaw in my reasoning was that Iā€™d told myself that things will get worse for a while, then get better. But they have just gotten worse.

I no longer see a 7-8 year payback on what I save on the meter, but thatā€™s not the entire benefit. Think back to that prolonged outage and the loss of what was in the deep freeze. I donā€™t have to worry about that any more (or not worry so much). The whole house has power all the time. The wifi and security are always up. That stuff is all worth something. Itā€™s what I think of as soft value.

I can carry on working from home - more soft value. Indeed the guys I am contracted to told all their staff that if you want to work from home and your team leader permits it, load shedding is not an acceptable reason for not being available. So at a minium you need something to keep the wifi going.

There was a mention higher up about how this affects peopleā€™s mood. I get this. Multiple load sheds a day, some of them 4 hours, make a mess of oneā€™s planning and routines, and put you in contact with a lot of other people under the same stress. I donā€™t suffer as much of that frustration now - also a benefit.

So maybe Iā€™m getting more than I bargained for. The one thing lurking in the back of my mind is what happens if Eskom just rolls over and dies. Back in 2019 I had no such thoughts. But I donā€™t have those thoughts now because I bought PV.

4 and a bit years now. Itā€™s now getting to the point where if somebody asks me how PV is working for me, I donā€™t know what to say to them, because itā€™s now just a thing thatā€™s there and has been there long enough that itā€™s now what we are used to.

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39

And here is the trap. Itā€™s easy to fall into complacency because Iā€™m OK and I can watch the rugby and my beer is always cold etc.

No man is an island. I need to remember to be angry with the people who got us into this mess, and remember that load shedding has a terrible negative impact on just about everything around me.

2 Likes
40

Amen!

We must not go there ā€¦ dead seriously, it would be TEOTWAWKI. Eskom must limp on!

Ditto ā€¦ I cannot answer people either, it becomes so much ā€œdeeperā€ than just your lights.