Innovative solar technology and setups

Power companies get green light to charge solar owners for exporting to grid

From 2025 power companies will be able to charge Australians with rooftop solar panels for exporting electricity to the grid, under new rules introduced by the Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC).​

Combined with the ending of generous feedin tarrifs (for example 2028 for Qld) for those that had the good fortune to lock them in, as well as the average array size being Installed now being well above 5Kw, with many home owners opting to maximise their array (now limited on available roof size, and no longer equipment cost) for new installs, 10kw 15kw systems are becoming more prevalent - there's going to be an increasing demand for setups and tech that support optimisation of self consumption rather than exporting

Hot water solar diverters have been around for quite some time. The principle being excess solar is diverted to the hot water system.

There are a whole range of household loads that lend themselves to switched or variable power control. Particularly the larger load contributors - anything with a heating element or motor/pump.

The principle one being air conditioning and it looks there's some good innovation occuring, E.g.

Can Diverting Solar To Air Conditioning Help Reduce Overvoltage?

For some time, he said, modern air conditioning units have included a “Demand Response Enabling Device”, or DRED.
The DREDs were implemented at the request of electricity companies so that if there’s a shortage of power (for example, during a heatwave or when electricity supply is disrupted), the network can turn air conditioners down or off.
Smith told us his idea was the inverse of what the networks do – turn the aircon on or up to soak up excess solar electricity from a household PV system.
Paladin boss Mark Robinson added that the Paladin controller responds quickly enough to a whole household’s load that “as clouds go over, it reacts” – or if someone puts the kettle on, the controller cuts the amount of solar electricity going into the air conditioner​

Other candidates would be pool pumps/chlorinators, pool water heaters, In floor heating, and of course EV car batteries.

Batteries are still expensive and even as they come down in price there are still advantages for most battery types (flow batteries being an exception) in reducing the charge/discharge cycles - primarily increasing the battery life.

 

I've been watching this space for a while, given I've done solar and installed a bunch of aircons which took 5kw of solar panels directly wired into them to power when the sun was shining. Interesting concept when you've reached your 10kw limit on single phase.


I'm a huge fan of enphase and it'll be easier to adapt by simply shutting down a few panels as we begin to export. I made $4k/year in export last year so this news to me sucks, but the system will pay itself of by March next year so it's not all bad (3 years on quality gear!)

 

And it was only 10 years ago.

Home | iGrid - CSIRO Intelligent Grid Cluster

 

Yeah I'd rather keep the generator going at full throttle and dump the power into something I can benefit from though! Heating the pool in autumn/spring with an electric heat pump or cooling the house on summer would be a good start.

 

So basically off-grid or on grid but PV isolated somehow?

 

The grid operators had their chance and did virtually nothing. Technology and decreasing equipment costs mean optimisation at the household level is going to be where it's at.

I love seeing disruption of lazy rent seekers.

 

Water under the bridge I know but it would have involved investing funds and not returning profits to share holders. Cannot have that ya know.

Sheese, about $15 billion amortised over many years across multiple distributors. Ah well.

 

Probably for the best - those organisations likely too slow, dumb and beaurachratic to.do it effectively anyway. Better to return $s to shareholders and leave it to the disruptors!

 

I certainly didn't object and never handed back the funds on the basis "You shouldn't have given me these." No way.

But you make a good point. Most of them think in time frames of 10 years or forty max (life of loan) not 100 years plus which is what they should be doing.

 

They couldn't export, always connected to 240v AC, they were efficient becuase of rectifying it came in straight into the inverted dc bus through DC/DC converter.

If solar was 2kw output it'd pull a bit from the grid to top up shortfall.

Came in 3.5kw, 5kw and 16kw split options. Took ages for Energex to approve due to export potential (which was built into the original design but disabled)

 

My setup is not ideal for self consumption!!

 

Haha, you'd better find something else to do with all that power in a few years time when the power companies start making it difficult to export. In the mean time make hay!

 

Interesting, Ive obviously not been paying close enough attention. Something like one of these I suppose

Pros and Cons of Solar-Powered Air Conditioners

Solar Air Conditioning - Solar Air Conditioner - Solar Air

 

If you have solar, invest in a home battery.

Can always charge overnight if needed when off peak rates are at their cheapest, but during the hot sun hours you'll never run out.

Other benefit is that you're protected from grid surges and power outages.

 

A car with v2g is far better

 

This makes the whole "go solar" look like a scam

After years of being encouraged to reduce electricity use and save the planet by going solar they now want to bill us............

The government supplied incentives to get people to install solar, then you get a fit that is nowhere near the usage charge, and now that enough people are on board they want us to pay to export

It's just another business so taxes end up payable.

From the article
"if you can move your power around, you'll get incentives to do that."
So the government will pay you to move your power around also !

Feeling like the rug is being pulled out from under us.
Yes I know the grid won't be able to absorb the over production of power, there is already processes in place that the power company don't have to take your pv excess, the solar public shouldn't be footing the bill for this, look at SA, they put in batteries so why can't other states ?

I'd happily see a neighbourhood battery installed, I would even contribute financially, shoving the responsibility back on to households isn't what I expected at all...

 

Well I don't think it's a scam, but can't disagree with sentiment re shifting goal posts on export - but as you'll see there's plenty of people thinking about technical solutions and setups to minimise the impact of these new impositions.

Variable load and storage technologies
will allow you you to minimise your dependency on the grid and maximise the use of self generation.

Personally I think the current generation of battery technology is too expensive and not sustainable (I'm not taking environmentally I mean it wears out!)

 

My understanding is they are still not cost effective.

We use at least 30kWh and up to a peak of 60kWh per day and I'd like to use more if I could!

 

I'm finding it a bit annoying, but my solar will have paid for itself by then, and it will be time to add a battery. My solar was installed on the 3rd of this month, and I am loving the monitoring available. We are still transitioning our habits and usage to optimise self-consumption, and we wont be getting paid for exporting to the grid until the end of the month when out meter gets upgraded.


This is today, tail end of winter:


We've had a few days with the reverse cycle air-con going on early mornings and evenings which cause a spike in red (not this graph - those 2 spikes were the microwave I think... Our roof is less than ideal - we have about half east facing, and half west facing, but the west facing panels are in partial shade. I'm curious to see the generation as we go into summer, and equalling interested in the air-con usage. We have traditionally been conservative in using the aircon, but if this iso thing carries on in particular, I can certainly see us using a lower-level throughout the day.

I can already control my air cons (1 ducted, 1 split) via apps and my google home, so I may get the out put from my inverter and play with some ITTT strategies.

Hot water and stove top is gas, and I cant think of too many big energy appliances.

I was thinking of setting up a crypto-coin miner to run while solar was producing excess watts though

 

Nice. On the crypto mining - if you've got a decent gpu you should be mining 24,7. power prices aren't the limiting constraint for mining crypto ATM, its the hardware capex.