Solar system with a prepaid meter and grid tie limiter

An exciting project for the solar system in a residential property with a pre-paid meter.

The challenge, as in many residential and commercial establishments, is to design a system that would be able to work with a prepaid meter.

Pre-paid electricity meters do not see the direction of the current, so when the customer has a solar system that at any stage is overproducing the power and start to push back to the grid – the pre-paid meter sees that as a standard electricity usage and bills one for the energy the PV systems produces.

To avoid this situation ExSolar connected the Fronius solar grid inverter to our very own Smart Energy Controller (Grid Tie Limiter), that has the ability to either re-direct the overproduced energy to specific appliance (like a geyser or a pool pump) or limit the production of the PV panels to meet the energy consumption needs of the client.

The system consisted of the following:

12 x 300W solar panels and aluminium mounting structures
1 x Fronius 35V-1 Solar Grid Inverter (3.710kW)
1 x Smart Energy Controller (Energy Monitor for grid tie limiting) with an Energy Monitor WiFi Module
Solar cable, connectors DC fuses, breakers
Saddles, cable ties, insulating flashing, silicon sealant, raw bolts, mains isolator, bus bar cable

Go to www.exsolar.co.za/blog/ to view other installations and references from happy clients.