Switched to Off Grid {good bye Eskom}

Today at around 11am I switched our house and home to Off the Grid with a 10 panel, 8Kw, 10 Kwh solar system and am telling the local disaster zone called Eskom to walk up the road and not come back. [About the most daunting decision I think I have ever made - - - - -]

No questions about this yet because we still have to make it through the night on the batteries!

But I have one question : the system is Sunsynk brand. I have found one or two API packs {Github python etc}.

Anyone have a Sunsynk system: tried any of the API offerings? Or, anyone already built a B4X app which will read these data so I can make my own UI for the technical types in the family circle?

Just for the shake of knowledge. How much did it cost you (panels - inverter - installing) ? Also what is the area they cover ?

I appreciate that SA is a sunshine paradise but... you've got a generator too that didn't rate a mention, right? ?

More on topic: I don't have solar but a couple of years ago I stumbled across a website here (Australia) to which many solar enthusiasts uplink their solar generation statistics, which might be useful for comparing your system's numbers to actual real-world numbers rather than brochure numbers.

I think it was this website:

In some areas in useless SA you cannot run a generator as the neighbours are full of sh1t and they would rather sit in the dark for up to 4.5 hours per load shed than having to run a generator. Too noisy for their liking. Eskom is an absolute disaster. Nothing works there other than stealing.

hatzisn said:

Just for the shake of knowledge. How much did it cost you (panels - inverter - installing) ? Also what is the area they cover ?

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173k ZAR. Not sure what you mean by what area do they cover. If it's the panels then they are 2280mm x 1130mmx10 units. (Photo in later post #8)

I think if I had waited a few months - prices are tumbling - but Eskom will go up by 12.5% before then. By that time I will have not paid them about 16kzar (pre-the increase) anyway.
So swings and roundabouts - just threw myself under the bus and Did It.

Johan Schoeman said:

Eskom is an absolute disaster.

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Too bloody true Boet......

emexes said:

you've got a generator too that didn't rate a mention, right? ?

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A What? ??

emexes said:

stumbled across a website here (Australia) to which many solar enthusiasts uplink

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Thanks - I'll have a look - but I likes to done my own reefers........ mainly it's getting the raw data out of either the inverter data logged or the APP API...

Struggled to get this uploaded - so called it a Meme - and whadayouknow.

Thought you might like to gawk.....at a meaningless picture.....? (Oops - 550w each.)

Johan Schoeman said:

In some areas in useless SA you cannot run a generator as the neighbours

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Luckily my nearest neighbour is almost a km away....

Incidentally - I guess you can imagine the number of 4 letter south African words left out of the subject line.

It seemed like a not very auspicious start when at 0645 this morning the whole thing died of flat battery disease. But I think we have a reason which is that the batteries come 50% charged so there probably wasn't enough time to get them properly up level. They're 98% now so tonight will be a better test.

Still they did well last night all things considered.Really weird when ESP says it's blackout time - and lights are still on..... REALLY WEIRD after all these years of Blerie Blessed EishKom's BS.....

Once more into the Pea Green Boat.....

emexes said:

I appreciate that SA is a sunshine paradise

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Yup unlike - where is it again - too far at bottom to find? Austrumminghere......?

I almost forgot - how's this one :
I read recently that by end of year 2025 the private generation of electricity (ShopRite, pick-n-pay, a host of other big businesses and me and my mates) will collectively be greater than ALL of the national energy utility - the EVER BELOVED Eskom - is capable of.

That's a very fast growing : take that governing powers that be - for you.

nothing to add that helps, but just wanted to say well done. I've got 4.7kw of panels and generate 30kwh on a good day in June. I'm in the UK, so can't go off grid, as I can only cover my electricity use for 6-7 months of the year. I'm a big supporter of generating your own power, and it drives me mad to see new housing developments being built with little to no solar built in.

rabbitBUSH said:

Really weird when ESP says it's blackout time - and lights are still on.....

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I used to live in a blackout-prone area, and if it happened at nighttime what I'd do is isolate the light circuits at the fusebox, and then run a back-to-front cable from my computer UPS to a light socket, which would then distribute power to the other light sockets. The UPS had no problem running a half-dozen CFL globes, and yes, it was weird being the only house with lights on amidst a neigbourhood of darkness.

andymc said:

new housing developments being built with little to no solar built in.

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Thanks.......

I'm with you - let's start a campaign ?

If I remember correctly there are countries (Israel is one I think) where plans don't get approved unless there is solar (water geyser seems to be baseline).

Govt here has changed legislation to allow us to install this stuff so there is huge money going into wind and solar farms (really big installs - hectares). The upshot will be the hopefully painful death of the state owned utility (#12). But nothing to mandate new developments other than buyer pressure may grow on them given we're all done in with state owned companies.

The state utility made one statement a while ago about it billing off-gridding towards their account....after the cacophony ....it only appeared that once. I think at least you guys get paid cash for tie-back. Here Eskom only credits your non-existant cancelled account. Go figure which genius.......

And some other stuff constituting blah blah blah not here included.

rabbitBUSH said:

The state utility made one statement a while ago about it billing off-gridding towards their account....

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Lol we had a similar thing here with water companies billing people for rain water collected from roof into water tank. Tbh it was half-reasonable, because the charge was actually for disposing of waste water, until you considered that, hang on, the water that fell on the roof has always been sent down the drain pipe, the only difference now is that most of it is being used to water the garden and evaporating into the sky and less of it is being sent down the drain pipe.

I don't know if they ever resolved that anomaly because I've never been responsible for that side of the water bill with a water tank involved..

rabbitBUSH said:

changed legislation to allow us to install this stuff

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"allow" ???

I'd like to ask for clarification, but I fear the answer would just induce sadness in us both. ?

Good shot. I was listening to a video yesterday that alleges that our president with his coal company benefits from this shed-loading as he sells coal to eskom for them to generate the electricity that is needed during load-shedding.

Charging people for installing solar is kinda weird though. Off-grid charge, for the why?

Amazing. I guess in another time it would be good to afford something like this.

emexes said:

clarification

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Well you got me started now.

Up untill late last year (or whenever recently) it was illegal to generate your own electricity, hang on, and feed it back into the grid. But, we couldn't sell it to, or, buy from any entity OTHER THAN the state owned enterprise. So the govt (to the consternation is those with deep back pockets) had to rush through legislation amendments. Now, the private generation people have to get govt permission to generate and they are limited to e-MWs (as in Nth notation). I guess so they don't outstrip the national entity - no one added all the applications together though - hence collectively - you see where this is going??? Lekker politicians!

So the privates will have to get permission to link into the grid - the grid isn't able to cope with that - not immediately. Solution - run backwards very fast. The state utility (Eskom) is being broken into three. Distribution, transmission and generation.

We still will have to buy through that distribution thingy because the privates have to sell....etc.

You get it - FOOBAR.
THE REMARKABLE THING is - Eskom has been REALLY REALLY REALLY efficient at setting up closing and finalising our account. It took ten minutes in their office today and they will be here tomorrow to make final reading - while complaining that they could have come today (We're on a farm and we were in town to tell them where to go - they knew that - been here before....)

You asked ....??

Mashiane said:

Charging people for installing solar

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Okay - Mash - get this and then consider why stop loadshedding....

Shoprite spends R500 mill per year on combatting loadshedding...then take every other business that spends an amount going down from there...calculate the diesel VAT on that (FYC it's R75 million odd for Shoprite). That doesn't include their solar installs which are considerable.

Shoprite still made a profit last year, incidentally.