Who amongst us have gone solar

Still ok! My sister spent 100k on a pool in Sydney... what happened is while digging the ground they discovered an old concrete pool that was filled in....

 

I couldn't justify putting a solar system in. I was looking at a cost of 8k last year to save about $400 per Q.... I figure I am better off waiting a few years until the technology is better and cheaper

 

Hmmmm. Interesting read. We had 12x200w panels connected to a 5kw inverter with a 60 cent feed in tariff. Cost $7000 to install and woulda got a better return at the TAB.

In four years no significant reduction in consumption and best quarter had a $53 credit from feed in but most quarters only $20 to $30. I thought it was a huge con and figured thats why the government reduced/removed the credits.

 

That's not good to hear @Ghoti . Most people I've met have not had these experienced BUT things I have found to be true
- people with the start up/early systems paid a fortune for them and they weren't the best - but did get the good tarriff so it sort of worked out but they were still on a 15yr pay back cycle which is huge
- some people didn't understand that a different meter would be installed and didn't change their power usage to suit - ie use everything during the day and their own power
- all systems are not created equal
- most systems need 20% more panels than the inverter system to generate/meet it's power limit
- savings for a single person who doesn't use much power isn't huge but if they had a good feed in tarriff they stayed in credit

After STC credits I can get a 10kw Fronius Symo with 40 x Zeus Appollo 250kw panels for $11k . I'm going to get 2 of these and offset our power bill which is currently around $4800 per annum for a house + pool + workshop. I'm really hoping to get down to at least half of that and therefore pay off the investment in less than 10yrs.

 

I think I saw an ad for solar panels

That is very puzzling. Especially on the 60 cent tarriff.

Your household may be using a lot of energy. Do you have electric in-slab heating by any chance?

Also, have you had a look at the message screen on your inverter - it may have a fault and not be producing energy. This happened to me twice!

 

$4800?!? Are you growing some stuff that you potentially shouldn't be

 

If I was that would offset the bill nicely but unfortunately not. Poorly designed house + air con + 3 phase requirements + pool pump and heating + workshop. Our 60 day bills vary from $650-950 - you can understand why we are getting a 20kw system

It could be worse. We don't even use the air con much and when we do it's set to 23 degrees.

 

@Westminster and @Joynz we got the biggest system we could afford coz our bills were huge...8 adults in an all electric home.

Over 4 years the peak production was 2.8kw but average only 1.6kw...so not enough to make a difference. Panels were Canadian Solar with a 5kw Aurora inverter.

Later on got a heat pump hws...dropped our bills almost 30% and cost $3k installed. Far better bang for buck!

 

Yeah 8 adults will chew through a lot of power. You only had 2.4kw of panels for your 5kw system though - it was probably losing before it even began.
I'm glad the heat pump HWS worked for you. We are going to go with Solar HWS with an electric booster - the PV array should offset the booster)

 

Saving $400 a quarter on an $8,000 investment........That's a 20% annual return, when the banks are giving 3%! I wouldn't find that hard to justify.

 

Utilisation rates of solar (in Sydney) are around 14%, meaning that the average should actually be only around 700W, or on an average day you'll produce 16.8kWh.
My 5kW cheap arse system maxes out at around 4.2kW.

 

The new Tesla Powerwall 2 is looking much more impressive than the first. It goes to show how fast technology and business are going leaps and bounds.
1 year after the original Powerwall and it's severely outclassed by the 2 with twice the capacity at 14Kw for pretty much the same price. $8000 for the system and around $2600 for installation

Tesla Energy | Tesla Australia

 

STCs (small technology certificates) are being discontinued by 2030, so this year is the first year where the deeming is reduced from an initial 15 year period. That means that every year you wait, you'll miss out on 7% worth of STCs. Currently STCs pay for close to half the costs of cheap solar.

I think there's a bit of fat in solar costs that can be cut, but will it be 3.5% year on year? I wouldn't bet on it.

Plus as with any investments it's not as much the timing in the market, but the time in the market.
I paid probably nearly twice as much for my LED downlights as I could get them for now. Does this mean I should have waited to get them now? No, as they've already paid for themselves now!

Same with your solar, if you waited five years to get it for slightly cheaper, you'd be behind as it would have already paid for itself by then!

 

Should've given more information, however currently 5 people living in the house, will be just me and my partner before the end of the year and we are always out so whilst I would save $400 per Q for the first 2 Q of the year, I think I would only be saving $50-$100 once its the 2 of us... gets awfully hard to justify then

 

We have orderd our solar but it won't get fitted untill February. To be honest I don't care if it will save me $xx per month or how many years it takes to pay itself back. These are just little bonuses.
I'm just glad to know I am helping out reducing pollution. It's mental how we get power in this day and age from coal , fracking, and other non renewable sources.
I do like all this new stuff thoe, bit of a geek for it. I Hope to get a tesla power wall 2 (14kw) when they come over here. And mayb even a model 3 if I can manage to.

Also I would consider adding solar + battery to an IP. I think it would be a huge draw card in harder markets (like now) having very minimal bills.

 

Yes. Have been "investigating" this myself.

 

@Sonamic Would love to know what you found. Before inviting the companies to measure up stuff at home, I'm wondering if you could share some research you did on Powerwall 2.

Cheers!

 

I would rather the Powerwall 2 be half the cost and same 7kW capacity to meet my storage needs for a reasonable price. Still too expensive IMO.

 

kW ≠ kWh
The Powerwall 2 is actually 7 kW(peak), however has a 14 kWh capacity.
If it was 7 kWh, it would still have to be more than half its current price, plus the not insignificant installation costs wouldn't really change from what they are now. Plus, 14 kWh is more representative of how much an average household would use during non-solar hours per day.

 

Looking at the spikey nature of that graph it looks like your local grid supply might be running too high.

To explain a bit further the grid supply target voltage is 230 volts +/- 10%

Once you start generating this can increase the voltage, if the voltage gets up to 255 volts (230 + more than 10%) the inverter cuts out / throttles back meaning you lose output.

Our new solar system graph has those sort of spikes

Our installer can monitor our system and has found the grid on our estate often gets to 254 volts even without our system running.

He is currently negotiating with our supplier (United Energy) to get the grid voltage reduced.