Solar can be confusing and difficult to understand.....we thought some high level advice would be beneficial to share
What is our advice?
Off grid or a Hybrid Inverters?
Off grid means you disconnect entirely from Eskom.....while this sounds ideal, solar needs our sun to recharge batteries and power devices during peak sunshine hours. A few days of bad weather could leave you stranded. In addition, solar solutions typically within this price range are not suited to run high power devices (such as electrical heaters, ovens or geysers)
What we provide
There's a few important components that we include with our solution, firstly we represent leading manufacturers across all components. We supply the highest performing solar panels (monocrystalline technology which is more efficient at capturing energy, producing more power and naturally more expensive than Polycrystalline panels). We include lightening protection, extra overload protection to protect your inverter from plugging in too many appliances and a 63A change over switch in case of inverter maintenance. Lithium Ion battery backup which provides the best longevity and performance. We include all brackets and components and the Wi-Fi App. We've added all possible extra protection to ensure the highest quality of components, performance and system design. We are not here as a low cost short term solution provider.
What are the hidden costs?
Extra costs may be incurred if you have a double story house or tough to reach area's related to the placement of the solar panels (potentially an extra add on cost of R5,000 to R10,000). We do need to connect the Solar and Battery system to your existing power plugs, if your house wiring is old and difficult to trace, running new power plugs may be required to get you up and running
What are the drawbacks?
Any appliance with a heating element (such as an Iron, Geyser, Heater, Stove, Oven, certain tumble dryers, dishwashers or washing machines may consume most of your available solar energy (from your panels or your battery back-up). We recommend converting those appliances to a Gas appliance or powering Dishwashers/tumble dryers or washing machines during sunny hours directly from your Solar Panels
Solar performance on bad weather days
Your Solar Panels operates at approx 20% efficiency on overcast, cloudy or rainy days with 4 to 5 hours available to capture this energy via your solar panels. Our 5kW solution is able to produce approx 660W of power from the 6 x 550W solar panels. We recommend that 20% of the available energy be directed to recharge your battery with the remaining 80% of the 660W of power to be sent to your appliances. For example, a fridge that requires 200W of power would leave 328W of power for other devices. As soon as the late afternoon arrives, the energy is then fed from your battery storage.
* Please note these are guidelines that will differ based on your appliances power consumption, solar panel installation angles and weather conditions
Solar performance on good weather days
Your Solar Panels operates at approx 80% efficiency on sunny clear days with 4 to 5 hours available to capture this energy via your solar panels. Our 5kW solution is able to produce approx 2,640W of power from the 6 x 550W solar panels. We recommend that 20% of the available energy be directed to recharge your battery with the remaining 80% of the 2,112W of power to be sent to your appliances. For example, a fridge that requires 200W of power would leave 1,912W of power for other devices. Washing machines typically consume 1,200W of the power therefore its advisable to run on sunny days between 11am until 2:30pm. As soon as the late afternoon arrives, the energy is then fed from your battery storage.
* Please note these are guidelines that will differ based on your appliances power consumption, solar panel installation angles and weather conditions