Going Solar

Like a lot of other people am thinking of adding solar panels to my home -
A question: At present I have off peak electric hot water - I am assuming this will not be the case if I go solar, how will this affect how my hot water is heated ... in other words what changes will be made to my hot water system?

 

The answer is 'depends'.

You can still get your HWS on the off-peak tariff or use the power during the day to heat your HWS.

A sparky would need to confirm whether it can do both or whether your surplus goes to the grid or battery

 

It is possible you may need an HWS electric booster as well in case you run out of hot water during the day.

 

I am doing something similar on my new reno project. Solar on the roof and a heat pump hot water system on a timer so that it only heats between 11 and 4 during the day. Normally the solar electricity will fully heat the water but on cloudy days I end up paying for some watts from the grid. Simpler than having a booster etc.

Worth noting that the old "off peak" is becoming obsolete with the increase in solar the cheap electricity is during the middle of the day.

 

Thanks for your reply ... some more questions

1. Heat pump hot water - this runs on power from the grid and you can set the time it heats?
2. Do you need a new hot water tank [I have a large capacity tank in garage]

Thanks for the tip on 'off peak'

 

Heat pump works like an air conditioner, takes/converts heat from the air and turns it into hot water.
Yes, it's an entirely new unit.

Recently added solar to the new place in Tweed, and got burnt.....

Ended up with a great system at a great price, issue was that being single phase we can only feed in 5kw, but after installation we were "limited" to 3kw feed in, so with falling FIT and limiting it doubles our payback period......

Plus side is I oversized the system, so currently being in winter Mr's Stoffo gets by each week with very little import, I summer she can expect to run th air conditioning etween 9am to 6pm for free and still export some power

Also we did away with the off peak meter
Theres solar hot water panels on tbe roof, and with the PV we can heat (top up with excess solar electricity during the day), we were being charged an additional supply charge of 30c per day for off peak, and as most know if you aren't home in time to flick the switch there's nothing but cold water that night, so doing away with the off peak means we can turn on the has any time it's not quite hot enough

 

Thanks for that info, adds to my limited knowledge of solar panels, have found the website 'Do's and Dont's' of going Solar which seems to have some useful information and guides you through the process ...

 

Now for the battery storage phase.

"In Western Australia, you can feed in more than 10 times as much power to the grid as you draw, and still end up with a bill.

But the low buyback rates are likely to stay, as the energy grid faces an enormous transformation.

Where rooftop solar once delivered healthy credits to households who fed their excess power back into the grid, feed-in tariffs have been slashed in recent years, meaning new adopters are likely to end up with a bill, even if they export more power into the grid than they draw from it."

Rooftop solar users feel bill heat as tariff rates cool

Solid state battery storage could get a kick along with the potential demand.

 

Regarding heat pump hot water. I got a flyer the other day which stated that their coy will supply and Install the whole heat pump hot water system for $248. That’s for everything. The whole kaboodle. Sounds too good. .NB This is not an April fools joke.

 

And all the pretty pictures in the flyer probably turn out as:




"Actual product is in short supply, so we substituted a suitable alternative."

 

You can’t trust anybody.