Home Solar System

Home Solar System

As some of you may already know, we have a huge energy crisis here in South Africa, where we have various stages of rolling power cuts. As I write this post, we are varying between stage 3 and stage 4. Stage 4 means we have 3 power cuts of 2h30 during a 24 hour period.

I decided to install a solar system to at least ensure power during the power cuts.

I installed the following:

• 10 x Solar panels of 550 watt each
• 2 x 5kwh Lithium Batteries
• 1 x 8.8 kw inverter

This system will not take me off the grid, but at least, I won't suffer from power cuts. (I have this system for just over a month, and did not run out of power yet. We however have summer rains, here where I stay, and we are now going into summer. (Over the week-end, I went as low as 31% power left on the batteries!!)

I also note that my electricity bill came down by 66%, which is quite a substantial saving. Taking into account that they want to increase our electricity rate by 30%, the savings will soon become quite large!!

The photo at the top is of the inverter and batteries, before the installation was completed, it looks quite a bit neater now that it is finished.

The video shows the power flow, during a power cut, I tested the system, with the kettle on, you will see with the kettle on, the power came from the sun and the battery, when the kettle switched of the power switched to charging the battery again.

These inverters are quite smart, and one don't even notice when the power cuts take place, everything happens automatically!!

I hope you enjoyed the post and that you have a wonderful day.