Solar Panels

[Quickstatus]

financial decision

Yep there will be valid non financial reasons.
The problem with “benefit” is there are other consequences with the intermittency. Always got to look at both sides of equation - financial or otherwise. Opportunity cost exists for non financial as well. I would argue that intermittency will actually result in higher prices.

We are having issues with grid voltage in my street. As more solar goes up in my street the grid voltage rises especially around 10am-2pm. This is because of the imbalance between demand and supply. Couple times this year we have had the inverter not able to export because that would have pushed the grid voltage above the max limit - which can damage surrounding houses electricity equipment. When the max limit is reached the inverter automatically trips

Nothing Ausgrid can do without changing the street transformer from a static transformer to a dynamic which is able to tune the output voltage. Currently the static transformers all have a set output voltage.

Batteries do help in this situation but is cost prohibitive as above. For my situation I would have to get 3x Tesla powerwalls

 

[RAM]

After reading many 'incorrect' claims about batteries 'paying their way' etc - I finally created a detailed spreadsheet that creates an exact NPV calculation for adding a battery taking into account billing frequency, round trip efficiency, FIT (& changes), cost of power from the grid (& changes) AND most importantly more recently - checking the sensitivity to changing interest rates. Also points to consider - all discussions assume the ability to both fully charge & discharge the battery every day (not something that virtually any capital city location in Australia can achieve btw), no decrease in battery capacity over the time period (which there is & is specifically referred to in warranty documents).

A number of people (from Solar blogs etc) have sent me their details on current FITs, projected FITs, round trip efficiency, grid power cost & forecasts.

Summary - not one case (using interest rate levels from 3rd week of July) achieved a positive NPV within ten years.

If you take your property totally off grid then the numbers CAN improve depending on the ratio of self-use. Or if you've been quoted a major cost to run the wires to your property (in regional Australia or need a transmission capacity increase for a city business) then batteries can make sense.

Despite many (sales) claims to the contrary - there are very few households that have high self-consumption UNLESS they are running single speed pool pumps for large pools +/or run AC during the day whilst not home in an attempt to pre-cool/heat home before the evening. However households doing this then face the risk of not having sufficient surplus to fully charge their battery during much of the late Autumn/Winter period.

In our case where we have contributed slightly more to the grid over 9 years (around 4% or so) but typically only manage self-use between 17 to 26% (no pool nor AC) even then a battery does not work. If we were to go off-grid AND buy a 2 kW (diesel) generator which would run for single digit hours per year - then adding some more panels could just work (based off daily figures for the last 9 years). Or at least it may have just prior to the latest round of battery price increases.

Fun fact: The cost of household batteries are multiples the cost per kWh for EV batteries. Perhaps that is why Tesla (& most others) do not allow using your car to run your household. The Ford Ranger (Lightning) does and could force Tesla et al to respond.

Ford F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck can power your home in an outage

The power of a pickup truck is not all about torque, horsepower, towing and hauling. Ford’s newest electric F-150 Lightning, which was unveiled Wednesday, is trying to change the meaning of truck power with a system that can provide energy to a customer’s home in the event of an outage. Ford...

techcrunch.com

or any other time actually (if it is home).

For example: Tesla Powerwall 2 provides 13.5 kWhs for say $15,000 vs a Tesla 3 with 60 kWhs for say $66,000.

To get the same battery capacity using Powerwall 2s = (60 / 13.5) x $15,000 = $66,667.

If Tesla allowed running a house from your vehicle then you'd get a car thrown in for free as well as a saving of $667 to boot! Anyone think that residential batteries are over-priced?

 

[JessicaTam]

I think the Nissan Leaf is the only model currently available that can be used for home storage. The vehicle needs to be set up specifically which adds to the cost. Something that Tesla may not be willing to bear.

 

[Pushka]

Our 6.6 kw solar system has been operational for about 6 weeks now. On a sunny day with some cloud, eg yesterday, we seem to be producing around 32 kw a day. I think that's good?

 

[cove]

We are going to instal an additional 300kW on an industrial building in Adelaide.
The first 100kW is running well.
The tenants are running big machines and the power consumption has been costing almost $40,000 a month before we got the consultants engaged.

 

[RB]

Our 6.6 kw solar system has been operational for about 6 weeks now. On a sunny day with some cloud, eg yesterday, we seem to be producing around 32 kw a day. I think that's good?

Web site PVOutput lets you search comparable nearby systems to see how your system is going

 

[samh004]

Web site PVOutput lets you search comparable nearby systems to see how your system is going

I used to use that but never had a system that easily output to it, and manual entry got old fast.

Been a while since I posted here, but figure an update is well past due. I eventually upgraded my system from 6.6 to 13.2 with a 10kW inverter. I don't seem to have an export control issue at the moment, but if I ever did, that would be when I would look at a battery. Lately I've been running at peak output between 10:30 and 2:30, give or take, and over 5kW from 9:00 to 4:30. To say the upgrade has been successful is an understatement. I had been tracking for another month of credit in the high teens, but recent weather has revised that to just a few dollars, still good enough for me!

Prior to the upgrade my highest days were 40kWh and months of 0.9MWh during summer. Since the upgrade my highest month was in winter with 1.566MWh and highest day 72.2kWh in September.

Graphs below from March to October, with the upgrade happening mid-May.





My best day (below).

 

[lovestotravel]

Our 6.6 kw solar system has been operational for about 6 weeks now. On a sunny day with some cloud, eg yesterday, we seem to be producing around 32 kw a day. I think that's good?

Yes that's pretty good, as it's likely a realistic 5kw system.

In Melbourne on a good sunny Spring day it's about 35kw per day,

 

[Julesmac]

We installed solar panels 2 months ago. Apart from having to get used to running appliances during the day it's proving good (and this is in Melbourne where we're expecting Noah to sail past any day) Given all the kerfuffle about alternative sources of energy I just don't understand why the Federal Govt doesn't make installing solar panels cheaper. And if they were cheaper surely economies of scale would come into play. In our climate it's just dumb not to

 

[cove]

We have one 8 year old solar system that has been storm damaged in Sydney on an industrial building out in Western Sydney. Our insurer is involved as the two inverters got shorted out. The original installer/supplier has gone bust so the $37,500 supply was incorrectly protected. We are waiting for our insurer and we need to go a bit bigger than 30 kW when it gets back running.
In Queensland we had an inverter fail and that was replaced under warranty on another industrial building.
Losing 3 inverters out of about 20 makes me wonder about SMA inverters. That may be harsh as the Sydney two may not have had proper storm protection. Sydney weather has been quite dreadful too.

 

[kookaburra75]

We took the plunge back in June to have solar panels fitted to Chez Kookaburra in Canberra. The ACT Government were promoting a scheme where there was a $7500 rebate and an nterest free loan through Brighte capital to pay off the cost. The sales person who dropped around was one of their electrical engineers, and happy to answer my questions about the brand of panels, the inverter and wiring - which I picked up through the information in the posts in this thread.

We have 8kW of Hyundai panels (with a efficiency and a lifetime warranty) and Sungrow invereter. Since it was switched on at the start of July it has just worked without any problems. It's currently a sunny Saturday morning and it's pushing out 6.7kW, and we're only using 1.3kW of that. Overall we're going to be ahead on costs. The loan repayments are half our old electricity bills, and when I retire in a few years we'll pay out the loan. As long as our overall bill (loan + elec useage) is less than our current bills I'm happy, as in a few years when I retire our bills will drop to virtually zero, and we've added to the capital value of our property.

 

[Cossie]

We went with a Solaredge converter and Korean panels. We don’t use a huge amount of electricity, hopefully it will add to the value of the house.
We are also in Canberra, we will replace gas water heater later on, but will keep the gas cook top as we both like using it.
I would highly recommend our installer, pm for details if interested.
When battery prices drop we will get one but it will not be the well known one starting with a ‘t’.

I asked about the fires not advertised by the local government, they don’t want you to know about. Our installer said majority were related to wiring issues.

 

[Flashback]

In the UK it doesn't have much of an impact on house pricing, but makes sense that in Australia it might I suppose.

 

[GarrettM]

We're hoping for quotes to put a system on our new place. Have to wait a bit cause we're not even in it yet. Reached out to SolarGain and Infinity Solar here in Perth. We used SolarGain on our last place and were happy with their product and service. Jingko panels and Enphase micro-inverters.

 

[exceladdict]

We're hoping for quotes to put a system on our new place. Have to wait a bit cause we're not even in it yet. Reached out to SolarGain and Infinity Solar here in Perth. We used SolarGain on our last place and were happy with their product and service. Jingko panels and Enphase micro-inverters.

Would be keen to know who you choose and how you go. We're maybe 9 months behind you.

 

[RAM]

Prices for PV installation in Australia are massively cheaper than in the US. Even more than previously - I got a shock when I checked last week.

To get 9.2 kWs installed on a 2 storey house costs an eye watering USD 46,940 + tax. Potentially you may be able to claim a 30% tax credit and a $9,200 State tax credit at tax year end - but you are still required ot fork out nearly USD 47k upfront.

At current exchange rates it works out at a cost of AUD 8,100 per kW.

 

[Rnwillia]

Sometimes energy companies use estimates in lieu of actually reading the meter, which IME invariably means they over-estimate your usage. Maybe check if they have been doing that under some pretext such as they couldn't get access to the meter because you have a dog etc. etc. Good luck getting any sense out of them though. I was getting big electricity bills for a newly built medical clinic I owned which was vacant. AGL person suggested there may have been a squatter living there!!! WTF? The meter readings confirmed there was actually negligible usage but it still took over 6 months sorting it out through the ombudsman.

We decided against solar only because the capital costs would have taken way too long to recoup through cheaper electricity - in the order of 20 years. Also suggest you check some blogs for hidden pitfalls - a lot of the info / figures touted by solar companies is suspect

The only way to achieve a quick return on solar is to install about 20Kw of panels and push 15KW into the grid using 3 phase; then you should be able to repay the cost in about 4-5 years.

 

[Rnwillia]

Prices for PV installation in Australia are massively cheaper than in the US. Even more than previously - I got a shock when I checked last week.

To get 9.2 kWs installed on a 2 storey house costs an eye watering USD 46,940 + tax. Potentially you may be able to claim a 30% tax credit and a $9,200 State tax credit at tax year end - but you are still required ot fork out nearly USD 47k upfront.

At current exchange rates it works out at a cost of AUD 8,100 per kW.

Interesting, it cost us $30,000 for 6.2Kw in South Australia in 2011 but it just cost me $15,000 for 19.25Kw today.

 

[lovestotravel]

Give

The only way to achieve a quick return on solar is to install about 20Kw of panels and push 15KW into the grid using 3 phase; then you should be able to repay the cost in about 4-5 years.

At 5c per KW hour in VIC, that's not going to work

 

[Rnwillia]

Give


At 5c per KW hour in VIC, that's not going to work

Can’t you get 10c?