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Why Your Prepaid Electricity Meter Doesn't Work With Your Inverter And What To Do About It

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In South Africa, prepaid electricity meters have become somewhat of a tenuous refuge from utility monopoly price gouging. In Johannesburg, you can expect to hand over around R1000 (about US$55 at the time of writing) for a post-paid electricity connection before even using a single unit of power, a number that has steadily increased over the years. Given this fixed cost alone could purchase the equivalent of around 400 kWh of usage on the same connection, many people, especially solar users, have switched to prepaid meter connections. Prepaid connections, typically have no or much lower fixed monthly connection costs, at the expense of higher per-unit pricing, which is of course, ideal for solar users.  An issue that tends to crop up fairly frequently with solar users that have existing or switch to prepaid meters is intermittent or non-functioning of the Customer Interface Unit (CIU). The CIU is the mobile /battery backed unit typically installed indoors that contains a display an...
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Automated Exterior Lighting Control Using Texecom Premier 832 Security System

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  Note: This article assumes some basic electrical background knowledge, e.g. the difference between AC and DC, voltage and current ratings, live and neutral and so forth, and is for informational purposes only. Please don't attempt to do any electrical wiring yourself if uncertain - electricity is dangerous, not only as a shock hazard, but can also result in fire if improperly installed. With one of the highest crimes rates in the world, home security is a fundamental consideration in South Africa. This usually involves creating multiple security layers, starting with boundary security using physical boundary barriers, exterior threat detection using devices such as passive infrared detectors and/or cameras, eventually culminating in building entrance detection and protection as well as interior detection. Many of these components are usually integrated together as sensory inputs into a single security controller, that detects breaches of areas or zones that in turn, can be used t...
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Sunsynk 5 kW (5.5-K-SG01LP1) Hybrid Inverter - Technical Review

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Note: Since this is a review of a residential-type inverter, the context of this article is with the energy requirements of a residential solar/energy installation in mind. Welcome To Load Shedding The Sunsynk hybrid inverter was a small revelation when it began to gain prominence in the South African solar energy market circa 2019/2020.  South Africa was in the midst of a growing energy crisis that had begun in 2008. The government-owned energy parastatal, Eskom, was increasingly unable to meet energy demand, resulting in daily  energy cuts  euphemistically termed "load shedding" that operated on a graduated "stage"  schedule depending on the severity of the energy generation shortage. The greater the energy shortage, the higher the stage and more frequent the number of daily power cuts that lasted between two to four hours at a time. The growing energy generation crisis, shown in total number of hours of energy cuts.  Naturally, businesses and residents that c...
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