This morning I received a quote from a friend of mine which I asked for about 6 weeks ago. Better late than never and kind of expected if you know what he is like and I should have pestered him a little more. Some people are just wired differently lol and he is unique in many ways being very good with his hands and not so much with the admin. I think this is more of a male problem so I should just keep quiet.
My friends company is a registered distributor for this particular solar company so I get the added benefit of a distributor price which is a flat 15% discount which makes things a little cheaper.
I need to add another 8 solar panels to my existing system with them being 560 W each this should be enough to take me off the grid. All the extras you see on the quote are things like brackets and various connectors. The cabling I will purchase separately as my installer believes in a thicker grade than what this company supplies. This invoice is just over R13K which is around $800 when you convert so it gives you a rough idea.
The only thing missing which I asked for is another battery which I believe is a 5.12kwh size which I am expecting to cost about the same as this invoice so $800 and some change. The idea is to start by adding all of the above and one battery and then the following month add one more depending on how the system is operating.
This would give the household 30kwh of energy to make it through the night and this in my estimation should be plenty with some power left over. Will this be enough for the extra long winter nights which are around 14 hours is going to be the big question.
The investment may or may not end here as topping up from the grid is a no go zone due to the excessive crooked fees they are charging. If these new additions to the system are not enough then I will have to get the generator converted as I have been told a normal generator will not work. I am no electrical expert and guess it must be about direct and indirect current so I will ask the installer for his assistance. Thankfully I have a few generators so that expense has already been done and converting it to whatever is required I imagine cannot be that costly.
The aim when we installed the solar system back in November of 2024 was to eventually be off the grid due to the number of power cuts. The power cuts are still ongoing, but not as bad as they once were and these are more about cable theft and general substation break downs. The electricity tariffs was the other reason as the prices are being hiked up by 15-25% annually so every year you have solar the quicker the investment is recouped compared to paying a monthly bill that is always rising.
The plus side of this is this is not wasted value and whilst you are recouping your investment monthly when it comes time to sell the property you get everything back and much more. Properties that are off the grid are in demand and are actually quite rare due to the cost of getting this done. Not many people have $25K floating around and I am sure most have taken this out on their bond. Maybe in hind sight I should have done it that way and kept the cash. Anyway that is too late to change and hopefully within the coming weeks will have some new photos to share of the additional panels which should cover around half the roof space.