Hey guys,
long time user but just registered today because I've been seeing a lot of solar related posts.
Sold Solar Systems for one of the biggest energy players in Australia.
Would love to answer any queries regarding panels/inverters and system to go for
Thanks for the reply. Im aware of that but want to be able to see live data. I know it should show it but it just states 0.
you will need to install monitoring system. There is plenty out there.
The inverters we sold were Smart Inverters providing such data. Refer to your inverter's manual.
Whats your favourite excel formula?
Never used excel. I should learn it though, it's one tool that is required in any office job.
=sumifs(money earned, your mum visits, ">"0, your dad watches, ">"0)
i always get confuse about solar, i installed 3 kw solar. as far as i know, you use electricity from street poll and pay $.37 cent per kw and if you create one kw from solar goes back to poll and get $.20 cent and get adjusted in you bill accordingly.
My question is, if there is a sunny day and my solar creating electricity and i am putting my AC on, does it mean i am using my solar electricity, not poll(on the street) electricity ??
I understand simple calculation like IN(use)=$.37 cent i pay and OUT(create)=$.20 i get.
As long as your total consumption of power is equal to or less than the solar power generated, you won't be drawing energy from the grid/pole. As soon as the consumption exceeds the solar production, you draw that extra energy from the pole.
Example:
Using AC, watching TV and having a refrigerator = 14kWh
3kW system producing = 13kWh
that extra 1 kWh will be used from the grid.
Now if you were producing 14 and using 13, that extra 1kWh will go into the grid and earn you 20 cents.
Doesnt a 3kw system only produce perhaps 2.8 kw per hour? so you would have to use your appliances in sequence in order to maximize use of solar generation? so in QLD, just because a system produces a total of 13 kwh per day, and your consumption is 13 kwh, you will still have a bill since you are drawing from the grid at night?
@obiwan: a 3kW system is capable of producing 12-14kWh a day. I don't understand what you mean by using the appliances in sequence. Any surplus goes back into the grid. Yes, you will still have a bill as there will be no solar at night and then you have the supply charge.
@ozb91: If the solar system produced 2kw per hour for 6 hours (total 12kwh), but the household consumed 4 kw in the first hour they will import 2kw from the grid in the first hour and pay for it.
If they then consume 1.5kwh for the next 5 hours, they would export 2.5kwh back to the grid.
Their total consumption would be 11.5kwh, which is still less than the 12kwh the system produced, but they would still be worse off because the 2kwh they imported are way more expensive than the 2.5kwh they exported.
So it is not a simple math of how much you produce and consume in total, it is how much you produce and consume each hour (or any fraction of time).
In other words, to save money, you should not consume more than what the system is producing at any given time.
Also you seem to advise people who are not home during the day not to have solar, almost every appliance now has a timer, set it at night to use them in "sequence" and save heaps of money.
I am sorry but if you are the solar salesperson, this is why people don't trust salespeople!
A 3kW system produces 12kWh every hour, not a total for the whole day. Even a 1.5 kw system produces an average of 6kWh. Obviously, if the system is not producing as much as the consumption, the power will come from the grid, I clearly mentioned that.
My example was in terms of 1 hour of usage, not for the whole day. Thus, kWh. Clearly, you did not understand my example and this is why a two-way dialogue over the phone is better than communicating with a customer over the internet. Best not to discredit salespeople for no reason.
Yes, I'm aware the appliances have timers. It's just my general advise, at the end of the day it is up to them to get solar or not. There's more to it than just usage. I have seen customers with 40kWh daily usage and very low day time usage, would I tell them to get solar? No.
@ozb91: OMG! You sell solar and you think a 3Kw System produces 13kwh per hour!! It produces 3kwh per hour max!
This thread should end now!
@BestofOZB: smh you are right. To be fair, I did post that at 2 am after a night of drinking. Don't know what I was thinking. Apologies.
The system size will obviously produce its capacity. Thank you for rectifying that. :)
Could you neg that comment so people don't get the wrong info? Cheers.
@BestofOZB: I feel sorry for the people who bought a system from this salesperson. They wound have been in for a shock on their bills
Hi OP,
What would be your pick for the 5kw system (panels and inverter which can be hooked up to the battery in future)?
I am after the budget but a good reliable system.
I would appreciate your help on this.
Fronius inverter (compatible with Tesla Powerwall 2) and panels wise try Trina.
Focus more on the inverter than the panels.
Make sure your roof has minimal shading.
My solar panels are 6 years old and never been cleaned except by rain. They look dirty. I wonder if cleaning them will increase power or could it damage them? If they can be cleaned how would you do it?
Yes, cleaning will improve efficiency. Family had panels installed several years ago and had noticed the feed in had decreased since the system was new. We cleaned the panels with just some warm water and cloths and noticed the output increased.
Yes, cleaning is essential and does improve performance. How? no idea, so I'm not going to provide any tips on that.
Dirt blocks light, more light = more efficient.
In a fire, would a battery system be a lot more dangerous?
This thought never occurred to me. I'm looking for answers as well now.
is it possible to buy battery only units to pull from the grid only during off-peak/ cheapest periods, in order to save electricity to use whenever? If yes, is this even viable?
We didn't do installations for battery without solar systems but I was told that the Tesla Powerwall 2 could be used to charge from off-peak rates and then used during peak periods. You might want to look more into it if you're really interested.
The way I see solar panels are all initial investment eventually paid off in 4 to 10 years so what reasons out there to put off the idea installing one? High maintenance fee? High failure rate? Strata regulations?
Low usage is one reason. There isn't really a maintenance fee except the occasional clean up of the panels.
There was a high failure rate of Sharp inverters back in the day but now the technology is better, so inverter failures aren't as common as before. Bodycorp are definitely a pain in the ass to deal with.
It is a good investment. If you have the money, get a bigger system than you need. Surplus energy doesn't hurt anyone and then you have the feed in tariffs to utilise the surplus.
My parents installed their 5KW system back when SA had the desirable 50c FIT, this is going back more than 5 years ago now.
At the time they installed a NEDAP PowerRouter inverter which can apparently run external batteries. Do you much about these inverters and or if they are compatible with the LG Chem/ Tesla battery? Their solar system has just worked for them and they haven't had a an electricity bill for almost 5 years now. Considering the inverter had better technology at the time we've just never really bothered with anything else, and never hooked up the inverter to go on-line even, any suggestions on whether it it would be compatible with current batteries on the market?
Has the technology moved on that much from 5 years ago that the inverter itself maybe considered obsolete now?
I doubt the inverter would be obsolete. Other than newer features, the basic job is still to just convert DC to AC.
I'd contact LG to find out if it is compatible or not.
Did you work for EuroSolar? Are they in liquidation? Can you tell them to return my $100 deposit please 😣
No and I would never work for them.
TBH they did our 6kw system 3 years ago and it is running like a charm, we wanted to add another 6kw and upgrade to a 10kw inverter, they took the deposit and never turned up or returned our calls. We will get it back as we paid by CC, but this means no more warranty for us if they are out of business!
As I've been on Ozbargain for a long time I've got a really big stock of spare Eneloops.
What sort of inverter would be best for using my solar system to charge them?
Has anyone worked out how I can use them as to backup the power for evening?
Can someone please do the calculations?
The battery charger runs on DC power so no need to invert! You just need a voltage adjuster (exact voltage depends on your charger).
Using them as backup is easy. Use only portable electronic devices and a few of these:
https://www.pakronics.com.au/products/microusb-battery-holde…
Are there apartments that install Solar. It seems such an obvious things for builders to do to reduce ongoing electricity bills. It's a law now in California as far as I know.
Hi OP, thank you for taking the time.
Been toying with the idea of solar for a while. In SA
Two in the household with quarterly bills of approx $300 but more because we use gas heating.
How much would setup cost be and as a rough guess, ROI roughly over how many years?
RIP OP
Hi, I'm building a new house. I'm looking to install a small solar system, perhaps 3kw. I would like to go bigger but don't have enough north or west facing roof.
Now, I'm considering getting three phase power for air cond/future proofing.
My question is, is there any disadvantage of getting solar with 3 phase, or should I stick with single phase?
3 phase inverters are more expensive but in Qld you can have more output(panels) if you go 3 phase.
Also, you can buy expense panels with slightly higher output, ie 285W each rather than 250ish
Edit: or even 320W, see below
unfortunately I can't get more than panels on my roof..
So I'm thinking is it worth the hassles of going 3 phase.
I heard there are issues trying to 'balance' the solar panels whatever that means.
The original reason for going 3 phase was for the air cond.. however all the recommendations from air cond installers for my place seems to be single phase units (even though I told them they can install 3 phase units).
What happened to OP?
Probably got done for shilling
Is there a specialist I can hire to help me diagnose and optimise my house or place?
Owners are considering solar but with my limited knowledge it seems it would not be worth it but would love an expert to diagnose for me or on my behalf as I am not really feeling like learning up on solar again atm got other matters to discuss and attend to.
TL;DR recommend me a solar expert or guide to inspect my house and house needs. It may be a bit complicated and unpredictable as the routines of the housemates are unpredictable and erratic that is why I cannot also pinpoint a solid idea whether to get solar or not.
Right now there is only one person using electricity during the day and not even that much.. maybe a laptop, some gas cooking and a heater maybe for an hour or two if it is cold but only in winter.
Summer no need for a winter much so solar would be wasted and usage would only be a few computers less than 300 watts each.
Bill is random and always changing due to no schedule or routine so i honestly have no idea.
Normally I can self diagnose these problems but this one is a trickster.
We do use hot water for showering and washing dishes but not sure if it is considered a lot and most washing is done at night or early morning.
Definitely would not consider a battery at this stage.
If there is someone home who will intentionally move necessary electricity usage to daytime (dishwasher, washing machine, etc) then you would have a use case. But otherwise I would say no for that level of random usage.
Yeah it's totally random so I don't think we would make a good fit for it though some days I wish we had it alas that is the price we have to pay for random usage.. for example today I'm gonna have a hot shower at night but tomorrow or the next day after I might have one in the morning/early afternoon.. ago no schedule totally random.
Is it true in Australia, most solar panels weren't tested to our extreme summer heat, and cells would die before they can even get a reasonable runtime.
25 year warranty on some panels.. Take from that what you will.
How long does it take on average to recoup the outlay price I'm thinking many years
I was thinking about that one.
In most cases the benefit is that your "bill is smaller".
So you are charged a big lot per kWh but because of the panels you use less of that expensive juice (kWh)
But I was thinking. Say you are away (zero use of electricity), and solar panels produce and not use 15 kWh a day. That will be, at say @$0.15, an income of $2.25. But connecting to the grid (service) is about $1.10 per day.
So you are only making $1.15 a day.
About $420 per year (excluding income tax or other aspects)
~$420 per year. Not much, isn't it?
Depends where you live, prob about 5 years
Is it true that you get put on a higher tariff for grid power if you install solar?
Good power companies e.g. Powershop (I'm a customer) don't do that but some have deals you can't have solar with.
Why is the OP's account now disabled?
Even me too wondering why his account was disabled. Anyone here to answer?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH, I'm guessing he received more than he could chew through….
SYSTEM: had an aneurysm and left the game
We are looking at the system below.
20 x Seraphim Eclipse 320W all Black panel (6.4KW)
SolarEdge inverter and optimizers
Would this be "battery ready"?
What does of price would you expect?
what type of panels work best on cloudy days without direct sun light? Also are there any panels that still charges when the panel is partially covered?
Hi @DisabledUser267967
The previous owner of my house installed solar panels around 2010 or 2011, I think. I bought my house in 2015. How often would you recommend to have my solar panels and inverter inspected? Just thinking whether i should get a technician inspect it to see if everything is ok. Thanks in advance.
Hi @DisabledUser267967
lol he is gone
so my jfy suntwin 4000tl inverter has a eeprom failure message. tried turning it off and on and still get the error message so it probably needs replacing
what are the best brands inverters in the current market and how much do they usually cost?
Can you comment on the quality / value of the deal below assuming Vic rebate successful.
https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/402003
is it possible for it to run the the elec HWS as standard.
AC OR DC coupled Inverter?
Got Solaris system installed, however, it never shows on the box (or app) how much im feeding back into the grid. Any ideas?