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Cape Town – Frustration at Eskom's load shedding has moved many consumers to consider plans to reduce or even eliminate dependency on the grid.
Several Fin24 users responded to a story on how load shedding is forcing South Africans to cut their reliance on Eskom and provided interesting ways in which to cope with recent instabilities in power supply.
READ: Neccessity drives invention for SA power users
One user, Stefano Soprani, wanted to know whether the City of Johannesburg will allow a home owner to come off the grid completely.
Says Soprani: “I am really thinking of installing [at my new property] a complete solar system to power my home, thus cutting out inaccurate billing, no reading of meters, and to be held ransom by both the City and Eskom”.
Manager of network and services planning for Johannesburg City Power, Tony Whittaker, says bylaws do not stop customers from not having a connection.
Whittaker says the user will have to make an application to decommission the service connection.
Cost of going off the grid
He says a Photo Voltaic system will cost around R100 000 per installation with a battery.
Other installations should include:
• Conversion to prepaid
• Installation of a solar geyser (R10k - R20k)
• Installation of a UPS (uninterrupted power supply backup battery charger with a chop-over switch and inverter) which could provide four hours of power in the event of load shedding and will service critical loads like TV and lights.
• Installation of a gas hob (R5k)
According to Whittaker the user can expect to pay around R200 000 to get off the grid with solar, including battery backup but adds that there are currently no approved grid tied PV installations in South Africa in terms of the wiring code.
Another user, Dr Sepp Stoxreiter, who previously shared his success in getting off the grid with fellow Fin24 users has sent further information on the steps he has taken.
Stoxreiter said he decided on a plan of action after the first round of load shedding in 2008, and started to put together components for a Photo Voltaic system and had it installed in 2011.
According to Stoxreiter all the components are available locally: “The inverter being manufactured in Cape Town as well as the PV Panels...the battery bank comes from a large company here in Benoni. All of high quality, and even more important, in case of a problem, back-up is readily available”.
“It is a 6kWp (6kWpeak) system, comprising a 8kVA Grid Tied Inverter, 24x250W PV panels and a large 48V 1660Ah Battery bank and 2 100Amps MPPT's (Multi Point Power Trackers). I generate over a Mega Watt hour of power a month on average in the summer months run the entire home,” he said.
Appliances include two air conditioners, a Geyser via a heat pump, a heavily used 3kW kettle, stove, pool and an office with half a dozen staff.
Stoxreiter adds that it is a sophisticated system which can be costly. He advises that users can simply come off the grid by switching off their main switch at the distribution board.
“[Users] will still be charged the network fee by the council but that is small change. Then [they] will still be on the grid which can be used as a back-up,” he said.
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Disclaimer: All articles and letters published on MyFin24 have been independently written by members of the Fin24 community. The views of users published on Fin24 are therefore their own and do not necessarily represent those of Fin24.
