Switched to Off Grid {good bye Eskom}

[Mashiane]

Mind you diesel prices are more expensive than petrol now, because as soon as everyone moved to diesel because petrol was expensive, diesel was made more expensive. Go figure!

What hurt me most is that our kids were studying in darkness during exams due to this load shedding, yet when sports are playing, there is absolutely no load shedding what so ever. Anyway, let me stop venting.

 

[rabbitBUSH]

Maybe just a last word about this going off-grid.

Its been an interesting week. Not only was it fairly overcast but there is also the technial issue associated with the new batteries. Batteries come 50% charged. Obviously, that means that at startup one has half capacity (nominally). So, your first night WILL mean that you're most likely to go dark in the night. The next two days were quite overcast but there was generation and charging happening from the panel array (these latest panels are awsome in low light conditions). But, although the batteries did reach +95%, on both following mornings the batteries died (uncannily - right at sunrise - spooky). the third day had very broken cloud cover so good light and the battery pack hit 100%. Since then we have not had any overnight drop-out of power and have had (ave) 45% battery capacity at the start of mornings.

My take on this startup is that Lithium batteries are strange beasts - and - it took a couple of days for them to :cycle' into proper charge/dischage behaviour (I guess that the sentence might not make sense at first but its what seems to have occurred). So, now they have been through a couple of charge/dischaged days they're "burned-in" (like when we had to "run our vehicle engines in" in the old days).

We were a little unlucky with the startup weather which was caused by an infrequent system that moved down from the Mozambique Channel southwards.

My long standing electricity monitor shows our usage behaviour is still constant. The odd part, and, this relates to the GRID supply (nominally 240v in RSA +-10%) is that the monitor readings from the GRID are twice what I see from the Inverter (a stable 230v and 50Hz).

Lastly - as South Africans now used to LOADSHEDDING in the grid since 2008 (people call them black-outs the power utility insists its loadshedding) our attitude to the batteries/inverter going down was Ah well....it happens. Well, we started out here without the grid - now we're back where we started (except its a generator on steroids now).

 

[emexes]

What hurt me most is that our kids were studying in darkness during exams due to this load shedding, yet when sports are playing, there is absolutely no load shedding what so ever.

I feel like perhaps the solution is hidden in there somewhere but just can't quite put my finger on it

 

[agraham]

Lithium batteries are strange beasts

Most lithium batteries are smart in that they include intelligence to manage the battery as lithiums can be dangerous if not correctly charged. It probably took a few charge/discharge cycles for the processor to learn the battery characteristics.

 

[Magma]

As I know for laptop lithium batteries... all cycles must up to 80~90% charge.. and not go under 20%... if you want batteries long live.. I know that is difficult, perhaps if you add more batteries will be more secure...

But weather is not predictable always at those areas..

May be adding also a second way of charging like wind turbines will be helpful (not know if u have winds there)

 

[rabbitBUSH]

May be adding also a second way of charging like wind turbines will be helpful (not know if u have winds there)

In due course I will find a small generator which I can use elsewhere on the farm as well. Cheaper than either a third battery or wind turbine. It won't have to run much in the year - and it's a known viable solution.

Also, don't want a turbine and the panels competing - what they do is insert a throw-over switch for the generator and avoid the clash. If that switch is needed then a turbine seems to be a waste of money.

 

[rabbitBUSH]

but just can't quite put my finger on it

WHATHey Australia doesn't have a solution? So we can go back to calling the trees Acacia now and carry on beating you lot at rugby and cricket........Bonus....