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Real life experience - my original system worked as good as new (except for batteries - about ten years) for twenty years until inverters damaged by a lightning strike, when the entire system was replaced by house insurance. There was no measurable drop in solar panel output during this period.
Ok,thanks,this is preferred quote.I have also known these guys for a long time,they have done electrical work for us many times over the years,and now have a specialist solar division.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vern
I was dreaming about the warranty,seems its longer than i remembered.[bighmmm]
" SolarEdge inverters (12 yr standard warranty) due to their optimiser solution and typically combine these with Canadian Solar, Trina Solar or similar panels. Most panels are a minimum 12 year manufacturers warranty but some brands have increased to 15 and even 20 years though price usually becomes a factor then."
That hospital job will keep you busy for a while[biggrin]
As long as the rain stays away.
Manufacturers. Most inverter companies have been around for well over 10 years now in one way or another. Most inverters can be repaired too, thats what we do a fair bit of as we have a specialised electronics division for this.Quote:
Originally Posted by 3toes
The very cool place in Vic that repairs 'Victron' is also a specialists for Off road, caravans and similar. Amazing busines I have not got to visit nearly enough[thumbsupbig] Services – RetroloomsQuote:
Originally Posted by Vern
And brake and more.
Where is your place Vern?
We are in Coffs Harbour. We don't do automotive, just solar, solarfarms, off grid, hybrid, wind etc...We are also a victron dealer and repairer, as well as repair ABB, solis, fronius, sma, selectronics, etc...and lots of weird and wonderful things.Quote:
Originally Posted by NavyDiver
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A mate of mine went into business with some colleagues importing cheap solar panels from China, and it nearly bankrupted him. His wife told us that up to 20% of the panels they'd imported were faulty - I presume that they then all had to be replaced at their cost.
We installed solar about 10 years ago but as early adopters we got the Vic premium feed-in tariff, so combined with a very low usage in our house due to insulation, double-glazing and LEDs we basically haven't had an electricity or gas bill over the last 10 years. As an asthmatic I hate the gas heating and wanted hydronic installed, but it made no financial sense to remove it and with the feed-in surplus it didn't cost us anything to run. The premium feed-in tariff runs out in 2024 so at that point we'll install more panels and a battery system and start operating it differently, so we're maximising usage during the day and not export.
Not uncommon. The guy I bought my generator off negotiated a 10% discount on the purchase and freight so he could put some aside for warranty replacement.Quote:
Originally Posted by Arapiles
When they started importing Hikvision CCTV cameras into Aus, the out of the box failure was about 10% with more than that again over the warranty period. The guys importing them just used to jack up the price and use that to cover the over-order to manage the failures.
Heck, I bought some copper "refrigeration grade" pipe which rusted. Don't even get me started on Chinese structural grade steel.
You can get quality from China, but you need to pay for it and make sure you run your own QA processes. If you don't have someone on the ground then it's pretty difficult.
When the time comes, you might want to consider an electric car, which is basically a battery on wheels as the new ones have software to talk to the grid. Saul Griffith of Rewiring Australia reckons if all our cars were electric they'd be 5-6 times the size of Snowy 2.0 in battery capacity. Interestingly he says "going green" is not a gloom and doom scenario of smaller cars, higher energy prices, etc. as we have an energy abundance in solar, wind, etc. There are a lot of losses in our current systems mostly in heat, when burning fuel in cars, boiling a kettle on gas, etc. not to mention transmission losses in power lines. According to Saul the green hardware like solar panels, ev's, seem to get cheaper at a rate of 20% per doubling of units produced, so your extra panels and batteries plans look better and better each year.Quote:
Originally Posted by Arapiles
We will get an electric car in the next 5 years, but I'm more likely to buy a private import JDM range-extender model like the Nissan e-Note. And I'd always presumed that Australia was like Japan and you could link your electric car to your house but apparently not.Quote:
Originally Posted by RANDLOVER