New Solar install - Cape Town

[sheedl]

R75,000 later, I'm now the proud owner of 3 x Victron Multiplus 24v / 3000W inverter chargers, and a very minimalist 2 x 12v /220Ah battery setup.

That should get me running off-grid from Eskom when they go offline for "load shedding" for as long as I need daytime, or about 4-5 hrs @ 50% discharge during an outage at night given our usual usage rates of 700w an hour. 

I'll be adding more batteries when I can afford some..  Money, she no grow on the tree's   

[SeanB]

Looks very nice, and yes the load shedding is getting to be a pain. Luckily i put in gas for cooking and the hot water in the kitchen, so I can still make coffee in the outages and cook.

[warlock]

Yip, I installed a inverter/charger and 4 x 12v 100ah batteries about 3 months ago, we have weekly power outage due to line breaks and cable theft,
Working out the costs involved, mine came in it at R10 000, but I have been wondering would it not have been better to just spend R7500 and install a 6.5KVA generator, fair it's not green, but then I can run my  whole house.

[MJLorton]

Ouch! Scary to hear load shedding has become the norm again in SA...that's what drove me to have our first solar and battery backup system installed.

[Pyrope]

Can I get some advice on sizing a small off-grid system. I just want to run 10 lights and a deep freeze on the system. I woul prefer to work with Victron products.

PS - Excuse me if I'm posting under the wrong topic

[MJLorton]

Have a look at #3 in this series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDBuVMDVJaX3NWnfSRufx8tlawtd6O8Fw

There's also a link to a spreadsheet on this forum in the video details.

Cheers, Martin.