Thread: Power prices, gas prices- ouch or Solar perhaps?

Originally Posted by Graeme

Are you export limited? Essential Energy only allowed us 5kW so our 8kW system, which can get to 8.3kW, is often throttled. AGL allows us 10kW.

I'll be keeping an eye on plans around April when our feed-in averages not very far above 14kW.

No, not to my understanding Graeme. Being in the Sydney basin we are on the Ausgrid network which allows 10 kW per phase, my system is just under that. The highest peak power so far is 9.3kW, the peak power on the day we generated 64kWh was 8.4kW.

Originally Posted by SBD4

I am with AGL and installed solar on 6.9.22. When The smart meter was installed I was moved on to the AGL Basics plan then from that to the AGL Value Saver plan when solar was activated.

I was going to change over to the AGL Solar Savers plan but decided to wait so I could get some history on usage. I am not sure how much of a saving going to the Solar Savers plan would be given that all tariffs service charges are about 6% more expensive that what I am on now (demand tariffs are the same) for a maximum of 70c a day extra FIT. Not sure where AGL see the savings for the solar power generator.

The saving grace for AGL here is the significant on time payment discount of about 13% on the total bill.

.... and GB, you're definitely on a good wicket, that FIT is from sometime in the middle of the last decade, you lucky bugger. My advice is to never query your bill

BTW the system we installed is just under 10kW. best day so far saw an output of over 64kWh(50kWh exported). I am now, strangely, very interested in advancements in battery tech which will hopefully see a better value proposition from an environmental, longevity and ..... financial perspective.

ROI for batteries is terrible, can't say we have ever sold a battery for ROI reasons, all have been for grid supply issues, money to burn, wasted excess pv generation to the grid, or **** factor! Hey, I got a Tesla

Originally Posted by Vern

ROI for batteries is terrible, can't say we have ever sold a battery for ROI reasons, all have been for grid supply issues, money to burn, wasted excess pv generation to the grid, or **** factor! Hey, I got a Tesla

That was what we found when looking at battery systems.

The ROI exceeds the projected lifespan of the batteries in our application.

Instead a couple of EU22i and a changeover switch gives us power security during those events. (We keep plenty of fuel and cycle it out regularly to keep it fresh).

ROI on batteries is bad -Unless your in South OZ perhaps in some business sectors?

Poor sods in some ares having a long black out now!

Dinner by candle light is nice of course

Cold dinner, followed by a cold shower?

Originally Posted by JDNSW

Cold dinner, followed by a cold shower?

BBQ I hope for some

Just had a quick look at the panels above my house- If I did it again it would be at least 15% more panels than inverter! Inverter and panels are 5kw (5.2 really) and I would have 10kw+ of panels and inverter.

Screenshot 2022-11-20 11.25.38.jpg

The are much better in Nov- March here. Cool and sunny is best of course. The 6000kWh year in and year out is mostly used by me. All of it in Winter Some spare in summer is exported. Screen shot below shows this very clearly.


Screenshot 2022-11-20 09.40.13.jpg


Still Looking for way to use my spare home power at work. The 'community Battery model' seem to allow this. Google is not my friend on this topic. 'transfer solar power between houses' is not a big hit for what I am looking for.

Honestly I would be very happy to pay others exporting solar power for their excess as well. Might be of interest with those with feed in tariffs like my 6 cents

My work system is almost the same - Home panels are laid flat. Work is on a optimal slant. There is not a big difference.

If you assume .36 cents grid price per kWh, or much higher soon, its about $2000+ per year of power. 6 years (first was part year only) I think systems were about $5000 each installed. Given I expect 20 + years from them the maths is pretty clear

Originally Posted by Vern

I'm in the Solar game, and have never heard of this. I will mention this to our sales team tomorrow and see if they know what's going on.

regarding my $0.70 FIT, I did a bit of digging and found our premises is one of the 88,000 Victorian properties on the PremiumFIT , Previous owner must have negotiated it. Looks like its around till 2024 .

Solar premium feed-in tariff