How about some pictures of your setup?
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Sure!
The equipment is in our scullery since we don’t have a garage. Fortunately the inverter is whisper quiet.
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Nice. Did they give you a dedicated Eskom plug for your prepaid meter or something?
The bozos that did mine back in the day didn’t, so trying to check the balances and load tokens can be a mission.
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Yep, they did. I was very impressed with the installation.
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Is this company national or only in your area?
Actually nevermind, I remember, you said rental.
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I no longer want subscriptions and endless contracts. I’d rather pay up front. That’s what happens when you’re over the hill
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If you can secure the capital or have the savings I’d definitely advocate going the upfront route.
We don’t have that luxury but this is something we can afford and makes sense for us. It works out overall a little bit more a month but it gives us a solid solution to load shedding.
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I’m with you on that one. I’m trying to reduce my monthly expenses as far as possible.
Where possible, I’d rather try and finance it upfront and finish paying over 5 years. After that, you have at least 5 years of free electricity.
The plus side of renting though, is that you don’t really have to worry about warrantees or breakages. If some of the equipment blows or stop working, I assume the provider will need to replace, even if it is outside of the warranty period.
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Yep, that is one of the advantages. They maintain and replace as needed.
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Wait for little pietie to smash a cricket ball through your window. Yeah, that’s a great idea 
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Introduce Pietie to the wonderful world of sim racing. He won’t have money for a cricket ball.
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Pietie is already in the simracesa discord
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I’ve been really happy with our solar installation. The smart hybrid inverter seamlessly manages the power demand and we’ve saved a great deal on our municipal power costs.
But now with the current batch of load shedding I fully appreciate how much of a game changer this really is! The only difference felt during load shedding is that we can’t use the stove or oven. This isn’t too much of a problem as it just means cooking before 6pm or after 6pm depending on the schedule. The rest of the time we can carry on as normal, as if there wasn’t a power cut at all. It’s incredible!
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Have you determined how much you’re saving overall in power (percentage wise)?
Loadshedding is where these systems really shine. The only way we figure out the power is off is when we go outside and hear the generators or if we try to turn the stove on and the ignition doesn’t start.
My inverters have finally arrived as well. Should have bought them in the beginning of the year though… would have saved R4000 per inverter. The roof for the new house is going up in the next two weeks, so I want to look to get the panels up as soon as that is done so I can get some space in my garage.
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Since the start of this month we’ve averaged 7kWh of grid power per day which is 35% of our usual usage. So pretty much the 66% saving I was aiming for!
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Thread necro because I need final confirmation. @DarthMol how has your time been with this company and on solar? Would this be something you would recommend doing, because I am about to sign their contract but some additional confirmation of their ability to support and assist.
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I’ve been very happy with the service. The components that they use are good quality and work well. I’ve been able to set a custom battery power plan that maximises savings while keeping enough reserve for load shedding. Honestly I could never go back, aside from cooking meals where a little bit of planning around the load shedding schedules is required, we hardly feel the outages.
GoSolr themselves are very well run, I’ve recently got an email from their SSEG compliance officer to help with the necessary application forms. They respond to emails timeously.
These are the reasons why we decided to go this route and are happy that we did so:
- We didn’t have the capital to buy a system, other repayment options were a touch out of reach. The R1580 option fitted nicely into our budget taking the municipal bill savings into account.
- We are on prepaid electricity, no monthly connection fees etc. so the savings from the solar are most effective
- The power savings are great but the protection against load shedding is the real win here. It’s a game changer.
What I’ve learnt having had the system running for the last 2,5 months.
- Manually managing the geyser makes a big difference in reducing your municipal power usage. I switch it off after the kids have bathed and showered once the geyser is back up to temp. My wife and I can shower later or the next morning and water is still hot (I do have a geyser blanket). I then switch it back on between 11:00 and 13:00 depending on when I’m home. Looking into getting a timer or wifi-control for this to automate the process
- When the sun shines use as much as you can. The battery easily charges up in the morning, and with solar what you don’t use and store doesn’t get generated. Set the dish-washer, washing machine, etc. running when the sun shines.
- With the cloudy and rainy weather we’ve been having I’m grateful that this is a grid-tied hybrid system. You can still pull a fair bit when it is overcast but thick clouds block a lot.
- The app is amazing, all the stats! This will be a big help in developing the most efficient use patterns. For a stats nerd like yourself, this is the Promised Land
- Lastly, the buyout amount to take ownership of the equipment after 3 years (and then reduced each year after) is substantial. It basically factors in interest of financing the system. We’ll see where we are in 3 years time but my thinking is to either continue renting or pay the cancellation (which is halved after the 3 years period) and get a brand new system with the latest and greatest technology then. That said, this is a great way to introduce yourself to the in-and-outs and idiosyncrasies of solar power systems.
If you want to ask anything else in particular feel free to drop me a message.
TL:DR - We’re VERY happy with it!
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Right then, contract signed and sent.
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