Hello everyone,
I am flirting with the idea of installing a solar system for a friend of mine in Ocean View, Cape Town (South Africa). They experience load-shedding and hence regular blackouts. To counter this I want to install a small, 2-3KW system with battery backup, enough to go fully off grid because the feed-in tariff system over there doesn't really work (to my understanding..).
However, hypothetically speaking if something in the system goes down, and the house is not supplied by solar power anymore, I would like to still have the possibility to switch on the grid to supply electricity. I realize that this is what hybrid systems are, however, the current setup does not support connection with the grid.
So I was thinking about making a separate physical switch outside that either switches on the solar - battery system to supply the energy or switches off the solar system and opens the connection to the grid. This to separate the power from the grid and the solar system.
Are there schematics available for something like this? Or would this be overcomplicating things? Any suggestions on this matter?
Another thing, maybe in the future, through expanding the system, can the system be shared by neighbors with light loads in order not to waste any generated electricity, also while they would be still connected to the grid to supply the higher loads?
Attached is roughly the setup I had in mind. Any comments?
Thanks so much for the help!
Maurits
I am flirting with the idea of installing a solar system for a friend of mine in Ocean View, Cape Town (South Africa). They experience load-shedding and hence regular blackouts. To counter this I want to install a small, 2-3KW system with battery backup, enough to go fully off grid because the feed-in tariff system over there doesn't really work (to my understanding..).
However, hypothetically speaking if something in the system goes down, and the house is not supplied by solar power anymore, I would like to still have the possibility to switch on the grid to supply electricity. I realize that this is what hybrid systems are, however, the current setup does not support connection with the grid.
So I was thinking about making a separate physical switch outside that either switches on the solar - battery system to supply the energy or switches off the solar system and opens the connection to the grid. This to separate the power from the grid and the solar system.
Are there schematics available for something like this? Or would this be overcomplicating things? Any suggestions on this matter?
Another thing, maybe in the future, through expanding the system, can the system be shared by neighbors with light loads in order not to waste any generated electricity, also while they would be still connected to the grid to supply the higher loads?
Attached is roughly the setup I had in mind. Any comments?
Thanks so much for the help!
Maurits
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