44 Solar panels fitted today

[spudboy]

Just switched over to Solar today, and am now typing this on "free" electricity from the sun instead of that evil black electricity from down a hole :D

Got 44 panels on the house & carport roof, pushing out 2500-2600W as I type. Installed just in time for summer, luckily.

Reckon the initial cost will be recouped in about 5 or 6 years which is not too bad.

[richard4u2]

are you storing the power on site or reversing it to the grid

[spudboy]

Back to the grid.

I know someone who tried to do it all with batteries and it became a big headache for him, so I thought I'd take the simple way out.

[olbod]

Nice going.
All you need now is an electric powered Landrover !!

[buzz66]

Cool..How much did it cost?
Did you get any money back from the government?

[spudboy]

Got quite a lot of rebate back from the government, because I got the application in before the cut-off date, back in June.

$8000 rebate from the federal Govt.
$2700 rebate from SA govt (I think that's who gave it) for RECS??
$2000 discount from supplier.

So from an original price of $29K I ended up paying just over $16K.

It's a long term thing. We are hoping to stay here for another 20 years, so it should well and truly pay for itself, and when we retire we won't have to worry about power bills (and in fact hope to get about $1000 a year from the electricity we generate and sell back to TRU Energy)

[dickyjoe]

Good stuff,

I have an approved application from the Feds for my place too. Just trying to work out if it is worthwhile. For my 1Kw system its costing me 1500 out of the pocket.

I live by myself and that will generate more than I typically use over an annual basis.

But its good to see taking leadership with things like solar and going for it. What sort of panels and inverter do you have?

44 panels seems alot for a 2.5 Kw system...

Rich

[spudboy]

The panels are a 60W 48V Japanese brand called Kaneka ('sp) I think. I saw the boxes they came in, but didn't really pay attention. They are very tough - you can walk on them.

The inverter is a SunnyBoy.

I am hoping to get more than 2500W on a sunny day, but so far I have only had overcast and patchy sun weather. In 2 days it has generated 14.8kW hrs.

[Tombie]

Mate across the street just had a 2.8kw system installed last Friday...

We get over 10.5 hours of useful light at the moment!!! He's loving it!

We are getting 5kW system fitted tomorrow on the shed roof with a SB5000TL which will hook into my LAN for monitoring just nicely ;)

Sent from my iPhone using Forum Runner

[rovercare]

I've been installing for the past 3 months, lots of happy customers, haven't had bad feedback.........yet:D

[big guy]

Sunny boy(german made) best inverter on the market if not the world atm.

Not sure about the 60 watt panels as we only use 190 or 230W panels but if they work, all is good.

Did they go through best practise etc.

Like doing washing and ironing etc after sunset or when panels are not producing power. That way, when panels are producing you are getting 44c plus 6 cents credit during the day rather than power being generated being used as you go.

Check install that all panels are earthed and all that stuff.

Good work mate.

[rovercare]

Sunny boy(german made) best inverter on the market if not the world atm.

Not sure about the 60 watt panels as we only use 190 or 230W panels but if they work, all is good.

Did they go through best practise etc.

Like doing washing and ironing etc after sunset or when panels are not producing power. That way, when panels are producing you are getting 44c plus 6 cents credit during the day rather than power being generated being used as you go.

Check install that all panels are earthed and all that stuff.

Good work mate.

They are different style panels, they work better in partial shading and bad azimuth, earthing of all panels is not required yet and certainly is a joke, you need to earth the rail on non isolated inverters which pretty much anything over 3kw is, they hope to blanket rule to earth everything in the next as5033, idiots!

[uninformed]

any idea of what the performance or efficencey for the pannels is after 25 years?

as far as earthing and such, up here in QLD where flooding is a real chance, which could easily mean being stranded on a metal roof top, would it not be wise to have an isolator or main on off switch on the roof????

I do realise you are in SA, the driest state in Oz...

[Reads90]

I live in Qld and have solar panels and I bought a house that won't get flooded so I don't need a switch on the roof :-)

[Tombie]

I live in Qld and have solar panels and I bought a house that won't get flooded so I don't need a switch on the roof :-)

In SA both arrays must have isolators on the roof as well as at the control box.

[Tombie]

Produced a lazy 38.93kWh today

[uninformed]

ill ask some stupid ????

is it light or heat? does humidity change anything?

would the energy used to rotate the pannels on some sort of mech. to keep them in best angle to sun both long and lat, be overcome or out produced by the energy gained from doing so?

[Tank]

Mate across the street just had a 2.8kw system installed last Friday...

We get over 10.5 hours of useful light at the moment!!! He's loving it!

We are getting 5kW system fitted tomorrow on the shed roof with a SB5000TL which will hook into my LAN for monitoring just nicely ;)

Sent from my iPhone using Forum Runner
Living in Whyalla you would need to keep that red iron ore dust off the panels, when I worked down there you couldn't walk across the street after having a shower without the red dust settling on your hair, hope it's improved somewhat, regards Frank.

[Tank]

Had a bloke from Enviroment and Hertage round the other day and he reckons that it would take about 20 years to get the cost back (use about $1200/year) for an installation on my place, not only that but it is doubtful whether the panels and inverters would last that long anyway, so more replacement costs, is he right, Regards Frank.

[rovercare]

ill ask some stupid ????

is it light or heat? does humidity change anything?

would the energy used to rotate the pannels on some sort of mech. to keep them in best angle to sun both long and lat, be overcome or out produced by the energy gained from doing so?

Irradance from the sun, humidity can only have an effect on panel temp, every 1degree over 25 is .5% loss

Tracking works, can yield almost another 50% but the cost of tracking is not viable, the energy used to track is minimal

[rovercare]

In SA both arrays must have isolators on the roof as well as at the control box.

Vic is the same, rooftop and by the inverter for all arrays, also AC isolator by the inverter if >3m or not line of site

[rovercare]

any idea of what the performance or efficencey for the pannels is after 25 years?

...

80%

[rovercare]

Had a bloke from Enviroment and Hertage round the other day and he reckons that it would take about 20 years to get the cost back (use about $1200/year) for an installation on my place, not only that but it is doubtful whether the panels and inverters would last that long anyway, so more replacement costs, is he right, Regards Frank.

Sunny boy inverters are built to a 20 year life span, the cheaper jobbies lessen from there

Its merely math, work out average output of the system and do the sums

[Hoges]

Had a bloke from Enviroment and Hertage round the other day and he reckons that it would take about 20 years to get the cost back (use about $1200/year) for an installation on my place, not only that but it is doubtful whether the panels and inverters would last that long anyway, so more replacement costs, is he right, Regards Frank.

$25000 @ 6% is $1500 per year in " opportunity cost" to start with (i.e. if you just put the capital cost $$$ in the bank for interest) , add in the depreciation costs of the panels (how many years to write them off) plus the rebate money from the rest of us taxpayers...The recs are now questionable (scams) etc etc and it all adds up to another pink batts (= Green mafia) fiasco.:wasntme:

Went to Canberra a few months ago and was stunned at the number of windmills around Collector and the Sth/Eastern area end of Lake George...there must be close to 90. Once all the tax breaks etc have gone and the 'first movers' have sold out to the suckers (= superannuation funds etc) and the market collapses...what's left? hundreds of squealling rusty windmills ...the reclamation costs are going to be enormous...

time for a cuppa tea and a slice of organge (make that yellow) cake:eek:

[Lotz-A-Landies]

My neice must have got the deal of a lifetime this month, 4.3Kw system installed for $4,500.00 including the panels.

The company had gone broke, the panels written off and the installer left out of pocket for unpaid work. So my neices job was for the installer to recoup some cash.