Solar Panels

27 X 370w Trina's
8.2kw Fronius.

Panel warranty is 12 years not 25. The 25 year performance warranty is kind of meaningless, from what I understand at least.

All panels are North facing and my best days in summer were just under 70kwh, Still doing mid 30s if there's sun.

Can't fault it so far.

 

Since April 2020 till now, our avg consumption is 20kwh/day with the occasional 25kwh/day so solar may beneficial

 

Your electricity plan/daily fee and time you use power (self consumption) will determine time to payback. Even with no self consumption if you get a decent feed in tariff then payback is 5 to 6 years from what I can see (unless you risk the cheapest installers or overpay).

 

Just thought i would update my Savings

Sept 2019 till today total saved $5544
Solar Consumed $3064
Solar Exported $2480

Getting close to being paid off $3k to go, might be even quicker than the 3.8yr estimate i was give in 2019.

 

I'll add my thoughts if someone bothers to search for this in the future.


As a sparky who's done solar. Who understands the intricacies of it and who demands top shelf results regardless what I'm doing.


String inverters work fine. They lose the race when you're forced to put the stupidest rooftop isolator on the roof that we legally need here. The number one source of failure and fires.


Zero chance I'd ever recommend someone to put one onto someone's roof!


What are the alternatives?

You've got micro inverters previously mentioned. The only real contender is Enphase.
Each panel has an inverter underneath the panel, no DC isolator and maximum 40v of unregulated voltage.

They also have panel level monitoring. This allows you to see if there's an issue with inverter or panel instantly and you get an email saying where it is and what's going on.

It doesn't give someone something to steal like I've seen a few fronius go missing locally. People miss the fact if they're programmed they're useless but that doesn't stop someone with an ice addiction.

All wiring is on a safety switch so cabling can be completely concealed without steel conduit (impossible in retrofits esp 2/3 story houses. I never run external conduit on enphase, it's simply not necessary. (It would be way easier and cheaper for me!)

They are more efficient. They turn on earlier and turn off later than string inverters.


They cost more upfront. That's the only negative.

10 years (upgradeable to 25) genuine parts and labour warranty.


As for panels, LG, sunpower or REC n type are the best choices. Winaico looked good but they've not lived up to the hype and are being obliterated performance wise to the N peaks I have installed alongside them. The rec are also a lot cheaper than LG.



Even after using quality gear cost for gear minus labour will pay itself back in under 2 years. Maybe 3-4 if paying for an installer. How can you lose when all the gear is warranted for 10+years. Why bother with cheap crap. I have no idea why people consider the garbage but they're sold Risen/Canadian/jinko as a premium product even when they're sending 1000's of panels a year to landfill after 2 years.


Used solar edge (see photo) and it's good for commercial but it requires great design and still needs more components than micros for less efficiency. It does however allow DC coupled batteries which is the only reason I'd choose that option.

 

I'll add, photos are of my own house, I don't do solar and have no other agenda other than doing my bit to inform others. Solar quotes is not totally unbiased. Just be aware.

 

Can you tell which were my 6 panels before the asbestos roof was replaced and allowed a bigger system! This is the other advantage, modular. I can fit another 5+kw on the roof if I wanted.

 

At first glance, initially I thought there must have been some shadowing, then I read the comments.
The 6 darker blue with less production are part of an older system and clearly lower wattage panels
Doesn't look like you need another 5kw
Nice set up, plenty of jealous people looking at that array

 

I have a huge tree that does shade before 8am but in the first year they were on a carport and they all got varying amounts of shade. Worryingly those that were most shaded are now performing better than those which weren't, this is now a well known issue with the winaicos. The huge advantage is that I have pa el level monitoring so a warranty claim on degredation will be simple to prove. They performed well in the NT on their test rig but the recs are far better watt for watt. The winaicos have paid for themselves already so it's not a big deal.

 

I like the polycrystalline panels! One benefit (besides subjectively looking better) is that they've got a slightly lower deterioration rate than the black mono PERCs that are now dominating the market.

I bought some second hand DC optimisers, as I get some shading for a couple of months a year and I, unfortunately, don't have split cells. But the stainless bolts seem to have seized and even the impact driver could not get them undone. So I think I'll just leave it and perhaps try and get some more solar installed on the east and south facing roofs (it's only about 25% less yield than north facing) instead.

 

That's because morons (99%) use a rattle gun and don't understand what galling is. We ALWAYS used lubricant and even on 10+year old systems my boss and I installed they're not seized. Alloy nut+stainless bolt without something like tefgel WILL react.

But that would take an extra 30 minutes to install so don't bother...