How South Africans can optimise their solar system for big savings this summer
Many South Africans do not have their home solar systems optimised for maximum financial savings – and with the longer daylight hours of summer on the way, it is important that you avoid leaving money on the table.
Marc du Plessis, executive head of the LookSee home efficiency platform, notes that while solar systems typically keep on running without interventions, there are things that households can do to improve their performance.
“With electricity tariffs rising, families need their solar systems to deliver maximum savings on their electricity bills. However, many simply just don’t know what to do to make this happen. That’s why we’re sharing the top tips we give our own solar customers.”
Your batteries are not just for backup
In South Africa, many solar systems have been set up to prioritise keeping the battery 80-100% full for when load-shedding strikes.
This ensures that you do not run out of backup electricity during long periods of power cuts.
However, load-shedding has been gone for over seven months – so it is advisable to adjust your battery settings to maximise your financial savings.
“We’ve found that many households are not taking full advantage of the savings potential of their solar system’s battery storage. Now that load-shedding is not in play, families can use this power to cover some, or all, of their nighttime electricity needs. This reduces the home’s usage of grid power and can bring down bills significantly,” says Du Plessis.
You can ask your installer to change your settings or do it yourself on your system’s app by following the steps below:
- Check your battery manufacturer’s recommended depth of discharge (DoD) settings to learn how low you can safely deplete your battery.
- Add a safety factor for unexpected power outages of 10-20% to determine how much of your battery’s capacity you can use.
- Then subtract this figure from your full battery storage to determine how low you can run your battery.
For example: If your battery’s recommended DoD is 80%, and you want to include a safety factor of 20%:
- 80% – 20% = 60% battery storage available for use.
- Full battery storage of 100% – 60% = 40% minimum battery charge.
You would therefore set your battery to deplete to 40% before switching your electricity use to grid power.
Importantly, you should set your batteries to only recharge with solar power, says Du Plessis, to prevent drawing additional electricity from the grid and ensuring you don’t waste the free electricity generated by your solar panels.
Optimise your solar usage
Summer brings more daylight hours, which gives you more opportunity to produce power and increase your savings on your electricity bill.
Achieving these maximum savings, however, will require that you take a considered approach as to how you use your solar power.
Du Plessis explains: “While your solar panels will start generating power earlier in the day, it still takes time for the sun to get to a position where they can produce at their best. This is called a peak operating period and typically happens between 9:30 and 15:30.”
This peak period is the best time to schedule those tasks that require a lot of electricity like running your geyser, washing machine, dishwasher, tumble dryer, pool pump, vacuum cleaner, and more.
Another common mistake households make is scheduling all these loads to happen at the same time, particularly in the morning, says Du Plessis. This means your appliances need more electricity than your solar system can produce, so you start drawing additional power from the grid.
“If you want to increase your savings, it’s best to schedule your heavy loads one after another so you can maximise your solar usage and minimise your grid requirements. Pay particular attention to loads that can be moved to the afternoon – like your geyser, pool pump and vacuum cleaning – as this is the time when your household electricity demands tends to drop off.”
Your solar panels will also fill up your battery quickly during the summer days, giving you more than enough battery power to get you through the night.
Panel maintenance
Another critical consideration as we enter the summer months is ensuring your solar panels are operating at full capacity.
If they are not, you are literally losing money.
There are two main reasons your solar panels may not be operating optimally – both of which are extremely easy to fix.
Firstly, your panels could need cleaning.
While rainy weather does clean your solar panels to some extent, stubborn built-up dirt and bird droppings will remain.
This dirt will attract leaves and debris, too, reducing the effectiveness of your solar panels.
The solution is simple: Twice a year, hop onto your roof and give your solar panels a clean.
Secondly, make sure your solar panels are not are partially covered by shade during the day.
This is caused by overgrown shrubs and trees, which block direct sunlight.
As solar panels are installed in a string, one shaded solar panel will have an impact on the generation of your entire set of panels.
Solving this is easy – simply prune the offending branches or leaves.
To determine which branches and leaves are casting shade on your solar panels, check your panels – both in the morning and afternoon.
This takes into account the sun’s movement throughout the day, which moves the shade over time.
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