Thread: Solar Electric for the home

These days with an .08c feed in tariff, the viability depends on a few things

Every customer of mine now gets a wattson energy meter, this will data log and show real time display on whats happening in your home

You need to manage your electricity consumption to get a good return on your investment, this tool allow you to do so, salesmen will tell you otherwise and the general public will usually be happy to see a reduction in their bill and ignore the fact the payback is 10+years on their outlay or it is cheap nasty rubbish and will fail priot to their payback

If you have a $300/Qtr bill, don't bother with solar, just pay your bill and maybe spend some money on energy efficient devices....not lighting, that's a bit of a farce when it comes to return on your dosh

The people who really benefit are large consumers, swimming pool/spa owners or push button stay (A/C on at 26*)at home mums, I have found

Keep in mind, most electricity consumption is by heating or cooling, that's air (think A/C) food goods (fridge freezer/s) water (HWS, pool, spa) clothes dryer etc, an energy efficient light that operates 2 hrs a day, is hardly a saving

You need to shift as many of these loads onto the time you are producing solar and try to get it to match your production, to really benefit

Numerous people I have sold and fitted systems to their houses do a fantastic job and are achieving paypacks downs as low as 3.5 years and my systems arent the cheapest, generally the cheapest for the products used though....no salesmen mark up

And of course there is others, whom paybacks are more likely 5-6-7 years as they are not as disciplined as they thought they would be with manageing the show, but they are still all very happy

My advice is no salesmen will tell you the truth, their is heaaaaaps of dodgy installers and dodgy gear, heeaaapppps of price gouging, I did alot sub contracting to probably a dozen or so mobs, even more doing repairs for others, some of the installs you see and prices people pay for their gear makes you want to cry

Try and use someone who is extemely reputable, preferably an electrical contractor who does solar himself, that way you will get the better price and hopefully if he is local to you, will care enough to some back if there is any issue down the track, regardless of time

Oh another aside to making your energy management work nobody tells you, is when you make a solar deal with your retailer, its likely the peak rate of electricity will also move up a few cents (if not it soon will) and then if you mismanage to much, you pay more peak rate, which is eating into your return on your investment

Oh, don't mess with a small system thinking upgrading is ever a good idea, it will just cost you more in the long run

Hopefully start work on 100KW system on a customer of mine when I am back in oz obviously not a house

In densely populated suburbs with high take up of online (non-storage) solar, chances are you won't get anywhere near quoted export figures anyway.
Keeping it simple, you can't all locally push power into a network equally.
House with the best connection wins on average.

Doesn't mean don't use solar, just means go into it with your eyes open.

Originally Posted by SuperMono

In densely populated suburbs with high take up of online (non-storage) solar, chances are you won't get anywhere near quoted export figures anyway.
Keeping it simple, you can't all locally push power into a network equally.
House with the best connection wins on average.

Doesn't mean don't use solar, just means go into it with your eyes open.

Ooooh, could you ellaborate on this theory please?

Perhaps someone could tell us how it works too.
We are on a rural property and are the only one connected to the step down transformer on a pole inside our boundary.
The bloke that hooked us up could not explain to us how the power we generate goes back into the grid through this transformer.
The voltage on the other side is so many thousand, so how does a mere 250 odd push back in to the high voltage side and then get used by someone else?

Originally Posted by 123rover50

Perhaps someone could tell us how it works too.
We are on a rural property and are the only one connected to the step down transformer on a pole inside our boundary.
The bloke that hooked us up could not explain to us how the power we generate goes back into the grid through this transformer.
The voltage on the other side is so many thousand, so how does a mere 250 odd push back in to the high voltage side and then get used by someone else?

[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformer"]Transformer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

Originally Posted by 123rover50

Perhaps someone could tell us how it works too.
We are on a rural property and are the only one connected to the step down transformer on a pole inside our boundary.
The bloke that hooked us up could not explain to us how the power we generate goes back into the grid through this transformer.
The voltage on the other side is so many thousand, so how does a mere 250 odd push back in to the high voltage side and then get used by someone else?

The voltage is transformed up to the higher voltage through the transformer.
Don't look at it as voltage, look at it as power. If you are putting 4kw back in, that's 4kw through the transformer (ignoring the losses in the transformer). Where that 4kw is measured, is at your installation your side of the transformer.
A kw your side of the transformer is a kw the other side of the transformer (ignoring the losses in the transformer).

Originally Posted by SuperMono

In densely populated suburbs with high take up of online (non-storage) solar, chances are you won't get anywhere near quoted export figures anyway.
Keeping it simple, you can't all locally push power into a network equally.
House with the best connection wins on average.

Doesn't mean don't use solar, just means go into it with your eyes open.

I think you may be getting a little confused. What I think you are referring to is this:
The overhead (or underground) infrastructure in your street has a certain capacity.
What has been happening is people have been putting whopping great solar installations pumping power into that infrastructure to the point it can take no more.
Then, more people in the street want to connect solar installations to that infrastructure only to be told they can't because it is at capacity.
So, in some cases, first in best dressed.

Originally Posted by Mick_Marsh

I think you may be getting a little confused. What I think you are referring to is this:
The overhead (or underground) infrastructure in your street has a certain capacity.
What has been happening is people have been putting whopping great solar installations pumping power into that infrastructure to the point it can take no more.
Then, more people in the street want to connect solar installations to that infrastructure only to be told they can't because it is at capacity.
So, in some cases, first in best dressed.

I don't know that there is enough roof space to get to this situation. Most people struggle to get 5 kW systems on their roof in suburbia. That is just enough to do two fast boil kettles. Then again in the old days of satellite coverage of the Ali boxing matches, the grid had trouble coping with people putting on the kettle and the toaster between rounds.

I thought that I read somewhere that the line voltage was being pushed up as a result of solar installations trying to push power into the grid. I don't know if this is another measure of capacity.