South Africa is a sun drenched country.
Electricity is becoming expensive.
Solar panels are becoming cheaper.
QUESTION
Is it viable to run your home off solar power?
ANSWER
Watch this blog to find out!!!
The pics show an installation at a Port Elizabeth home.
REAL ANSWER
9 months have elapsed since the posting above. The system generates about 5kW.hrs per day. This is adequate to run all the household lighting as well as one plug circuit which carries critical items such as security, automated gate etc. The household demand is about 20kW.hrs per day. If the number of solar panels can be increased fourfold the house can run entirely independently of the grid. The lead acid batteries, MPPT and inverter have worked perfectly so far. Is it viable? Not from a purely financial perspective BUT the convenience of having power during power interruptions is priceless, as is the knowledge that some of the power in the house is sourced from somewhere other than a coal fired power station!
Will it become financially viable? In my opinion YES in the near future. PV panels are available at approximately half of the price I paid...and they are getting cheaper daily. The other elctronics are also being manufactured in higher volumes locally than before and are becoming cheaper. The batteries remain a problem. I sourced a hand picked set of second hand batteries which I pamper. So far they have worked very well and cost about a quarter of the new price.
Bottom line........It's not the cheapest alternative or the easiest BUT it is likely to be the only sustainable way to power our houses into the future!!
The future depends on it. Thanks for the information.
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ReplyDeleteDerrick Spies
about an hour ago ·
Front page of the Herald today... Five major companies say they simply cannot keep up with the cost of electricity and that the 16% increase a year by Eskom will cause them to close doors. 1,000 jobs already lost and another 5,000 plus on the line. One of the major gripes is that the municipality is not re-investing money generated from electricity sales back into electricity infrastructure (NERSA recommends at least 6%, but NMBM only investing around 2.5%), causing significant concerns around supply, which is crucial to these industries. (A simple dip in power, while irritating for us, could literally cause millions of rands in losses for producers that may have to scrap an entire batch of product and start again). The reason the money is not being put back into electricity, is because the municipality says it is cash strapped and is using the funds to keep the municipality from going bankrupt, a dire financial situation that is the legacy of the 2010 World Cup. In other news, members of the AFCON organising committee arrive in Nelson Mandela Bay today to discuss preparations for January's tournament.
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Bennie Visser Eskom has reported a massive profit for the first six months of the year (R12.6bn)
58 minutes ago · Like
Janine Meyburgh Time that we start getting smarter by installing solar panels and feeding back the power to Eskom. Eskom then will credit your meter with units / points.
55 minutes ago · Like
Ryan Allan If only it were that simple. Feeding back into the grid is not as easy as it should be
38 minutes ago · Edited · Like
Sipho Masondo Municipalities cannot invest in electricity infrastructure Derrick. They only distribute. Its Eskom that has to invest on Infrastructure. Electricity disruptions are as a result of two factors - power rationing by Eskom and/or old transformers and the ...See More
37 minutes ago · Like
Janine Meyburgh What are the issues Ryan?
37 minutes ago · Like
Ryan Allan The REFIT idea (which would have made feeding into the grid nice and easy) was being discussed a while ago, and it looked all set to get the go-ahead, but was scrapped out of the blue for some or other reason. As far as I know, you now have to be able to generate a certain amount (which requires considerable roof space...we're talking massive warehouse size) before you can put it into the grid and sell it to Eskom.
33 minutes ago · Like
Gareth Burley cn i also suggest that companies exhaust the energy efficiency route ... if you havent yet made them do so and it will save you more than what the increase will be ...
16 minutes ago · Like
Derrick Spies Ryan: Agreed, it's not easy. But imagine if, say, an entire townhouse complex (eg Smallville Ridge with it's 105 units) fitted solar powered geysers, as well as solar panels, to their roofs and harvested the rain water as well, while we're at it? Whether they then fed the excess back into the grid, or used it to run the communal pool pump and street lighting...
Sipho it is the municipality's job to maintain the infrastructure it uses to supply its customers, including the transformers etc. This is what is not being maintained, which results in power dips and blackouts. PE has had two transformers explode and numerous line faults, all along the municipal infrastructure.
Gareth, I'm sure the companies in question have already rolled out energy efficiencies to produce cost savings... it is simply in their best interests to do so if they wish to save, and thus make, money.
6 minutes ago · Edited · Like