Well, they are “adamant” that the Nerada batteries are very good and talking about something like 3000-4000 cycles. I highly doubt it though, but as long as it lasts for about 2 years, then it will have served its purpose for me as I’ll be selling. They also said that I think Mustek has a room full of Li-ion batteries with issues that are awaiting repairs or something so they prefer these.
When I build or buy the new house, I’ll install proper solar with Li-ion batteries. My focus then will be quality whereas now it is price. This will also be a good trial run for the next house. Also, I think the whole system is guaranteed for 2 years (the panels of course has its own 30 year linear warranty).
They are putting in Renewsys Tier one panels. They recon the 8 batteries will last me through the night if we adjust our habits a bit. I should be able to tell you by next Friday how things are working (then I would have had the system running for more than 24 hours). Unfortunately I cannot add more solar panels without adding an additional inverter. I’m going to try and make this work as-is and adjust our power usage habits and then monitor my electricity usage. If my electricity bill doesn’t come down significantly, I’ll look at converting to a gas stove and maybe do the geyser conversion to solar.
I should mention that this company is very new (I suppose that’s why they are this cheap). I did phone some of their customers and they are all very happy… so far.
Ok, after two long days, they are kinda done. They just still need to build a battery rack which will be done Monday. Can’t give much feedback right now as I need to run the system for a few days.
Ok, some feedback so long.
I have 12x 330W panels (total 4kw) but the most I’ve managed to draw from the sun at any given moment thus far is about 2.7kw. They are coming tomorrow to do a follow-up and check if everything is connected properly.
Our evenings have been irregular thus far so I can’t yet accurately comment on how long they last us through the night.
With regards to specific appliances, here is what I have found so far.
The computer (while gaming), TV, surround sound, fridges and camping freezer, approx. 4 lights and 3 fans plus the 12,000 BTU Inverter aircon takes up about 1500W of load. The aircon actually uses about 400-600W.
The 18,000 BTU, normal aircon uses about 1500W on its own
The tumble dryer, microwave and induction plate each uses about 1500W. Induction plate uses more on higher settings.
The dishwasher uses about 1500W - 2000W for 5-10 minutes and then almost nothing. Then much later, it again uses the same amount of power for about 5-10 minutes and that’s it.
The geyser can easily use over 4000W on its own so I’m going to lower the temperature, give it a blanket and remove it from the solar system. Don’t want to spend more money on an additional inverter to handle the larger load just for the slight electricity savings on the geyser.
So basically we have to carefully manage which things we put on at the same time as we’re limited by 5000W load at any given time.
Only running 2 batteries but that should be sufficient for the 2 odd hour loadshedding intervals, i can always add more batteries or solar panels if needed
Anyone else gotten any Solar powered systems? Can’t really consider it living in an apartment. Unless they let me put panels on the walls outside. But vertical panels are probably inefficient.
Trust me, test it thoroughly now, not when load shedding hits. My father-in-law didn’t, load shedding hit on Saturday afternoon, his system didn’t kick in, and he missed his rugby. Lessons were learned.
I don’t know how true it is, but my installer told me that you can’t add more batteries later on. Or you can, but with the normal deep cycle batteries, the new ones will degrade at a faster pace and “catch up” with the old ones so that when it is time to replace the old ones, the new ones will also be due for replacement.
In general, I am skeptical of their views, but it might be something worth researching to see if there is any truth to it.
Ok so the system works great, you dont even notice when the power goes off. 2 and a half hours on loadshedding only drained the batteries by 1 bar and i had all the lights on a tv, the surveillance system which has an old lcd monitor, my main pc with 2 monitors not doing anything intensive but it was on and a ps4 pro in the main menu and my load on the inverter lcd was only 22%. So a successful first run in my book. The fans are loud though an they ran for about 6-7 hours on full blast when the batteries were recharging. Through the night
