Solar Panels

[Quickstatus]

It’s all about making electricity more expensive. Its the carbon tax you have without having a carbon tax. And at the same time paying over and above the cost of solar production making solar panels attractive. Makes sense if you see it as playing the long game. Don’t forget that at the time of your offer solar was minuscule in the scheme of things.
These days solar has accentuated the grid demand peaks of 6am and 6pm by pushing the quiet demand period of 10-2pm even lower so such an extent that the midday trough demand now looks like the 3am trough if Im reading the Aemo graphs right.

 

[cove]

With the end of the financial year approaching I was looking back four years to see our office/warehousing electricity cost has fallen by about $125,000. So solar and LED lighting for us has had a payback of under 3 years because we mostly work sunlight hours in our business. We did have an inverter fail in one warehouse this financial year but all the rest are working ok.
Have not been able to get a reasonable payback rate for a battery system so we have to wait for the price to drop by about half.

 

[Quickstatus]

If your supply more or less matches demand for the warehouse why consider batteries?

 

[cove]

There is a cafe /lunch bar that runs a cool room 24/7 and our computer room runs air conditioning 24/7. Apart from these we recharge our stock chasers and reach trucks overnight so they are ready for use in the morning. That isn’t every night for each unit but we always have some being charged somewhere in 5 sites with 7 buildings.
Next we may have some electric battery motor vehicles but for us that may be 3 years away as we are just completing our car fleet with the Toyota Camry Hybrids that take 3 to 4 months from order to arrival. They are running between 4.3 to 4.7 litres to go 100kms so our fuel bills are reducing.
We are close to not needing to consider batteries.

 

[Quickstatus]

With current demand profile I suspect I would net export at best about 30% to the grid. I’ll see how the game plays out. I would need about 5-7 Tesla 2 to time shift that 30% to the evening peak

 

[cove]

Looking forward to hearing how you go Quickstatus. Our home system has a slower payback because we are not always there.
Our Sydney home is getting a system but that will only cover the common areas rather than our apartment. The building is 9 floors so there are lots of common areas. Inside we changed the lights to LED and changed the washing machine to a more efficient unit.

 

[Quickstatus]

We already have LED lights. Next time I will not get a French Door fridge as they are at best 2 star. The 2x aircon units are the electric guzzlers. If I had a double storey house I would only need 1 as heat rises.
We had housesitters in January and their 7 day stint cost 1500kWh

 

[cove]

We were hit with the lucky stick when our two sons grew up and left home. At peak we were up at $1600 every two months and now about $400 with three of us at home. Our sons had their own air conditioners in their bedrooms........

 

[Quickstatus]

I should have never put in ducted aircon. I was tossing up between ducted and individual units for each room/area. But as the house already had vents in the ceiling from a previous dodgy ducted aircon system, I went for ducted.

The individual units would have been better.

 

[cove]

Yes we went for individual air conditioners but the problem then is the boys operated their own controls 24/7.

 

[VPS]

I should have never put in ducted aircon. I was tossing up between ducted and individual units for each room/area. But as the house already had vents in the ceiling from a previous dodgy ducted aircon system, I went for ducted.

The individual units would have been better.

What makes you say that - I'm thinking about building and want to get rid of individual units because I prefer the ducted that is quieter and less blowy

 

[downgraded]

What makes you say that - I'm thinking about building and want to get rid of individual units because I prefer the ducted that is quieter and less blowy

A bunch of reasons are normally suggested (I don't have first hand experience)
- The central unit consumes a lot of power that a more focused approach avoids.
- you end up heating/cooling areas you're not using so it's just wasted energy/money.
- generally ducting is very leaky and poorly insulated so energy losses are high.
- it depends upon the central unit but for heating gas is now much less efficient than the electric options.

 

[Quickstatus]

What makes you say that - I'm thinking about building and want to get rid of individual units because I prefer the ducted that is quieter and less blowy

The problem with ducted are many.
Individual areas cannot have different temperatures.
Zones are not really zones. Because while there may be ducts in individual rooms, the return ducts are somewhere else.

So lets say you have 4 bedrooms. And each bedroom is on its own zone and each bedroom has its own return duct. Lets say 3 zones are off and only your bedroom zone is on. So the aircon blows air only into your bedroom zone at 21C. And the other 3 bedrooms are at 10C (in winter). Air coming out of the ducts then has to go somewhere. The aircon sucks air through the return ducts. However most designs have the return ducts all open. so while the aircon sucks air back through the return duct of your bedroom, it also sucks air from the return ducts of the other rooms. So 21C air is mixed with 10C air. Where does the rest of the air in the 21C bedroom go?. Some go out of the house, the rest goes into the cold bedrooms as those bedrooms air is returned.

Most ducted aircon designs have return ducts in a corridor. So the aircon blows 21C into your bedroom. The return air goes out into corridor, mixes with colder air then returned. So while they say there are zones, you are still recycling air from other parts of the house and heating/cooling air in a much larger volume than a zone would imply

Individual air cons means each room can have their own temp and recycle their own air - that is a true zone.

 

[cove]

We are delighted with our home airconitioning which is in 9 systems over our 3 levels.
At the office we go for about 22 in Perth but in Adelaide and Melbourne they want it hotter.
I go tropo in high humidity.
This winter we haven’t been heating our outside pool to 27 degrees as it is currently close to zero most early mornings. We are using our solar for morning air conditioning .

 

[Quickstatus]

The other issue with ducted is illustrated by @cove . When his boys left home his aircon bill went down. You can’t do that to any great extent with ducted for the reasons above but with individual unit definitely.

 

[Hvr]

Had the solar people here today to discuss installing panels on my roof. A friend has them and his power bill has decreased dramatically. He's been very happy with them and the company so he recommended them to me.

One thing though, I have to get the power meter board updated. Still, with a list of really good tradies to call, the electrician is able to do it on Wednesday. Hope to have it done by the end of the month and get the rebate.

 

[amaroo]

We loved the ducted heating we had in Sydney.... how I miss natural gas.

 

[Quickstatus]

Had the solar people here today to discuss installing panels on my roof. A friend has them and his power bill has decreased dramatically. He's been very happy with them and the company so he recommended them to me.

One thing though, I have to get the power meter board updated. Still, with a list of really good tradies to call,

Our meter needs changing to one compatible for NFiT.
Panels are in but the meter changeover won’t occur until 16July. Has to be done via Energy Australia

 

[cove]

The delays can be annoying but once you get running it is time to start smiling.

 

[Quickstatus]

I discovered the 25kW inverter can actually be “overclocked” to 30kW without voiding the warranty.
I was planning to add another 5kW a bit later to the existing 20kW on the roof but I have space for 7kW more.
But I’m not sure if overclocking is such a good idea.