Solar Quotes Advice Needed - VIC

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  geekcohen on 24/11/2022 - 05:59

  +1

  I think the first thing is, what way does your house face? Then that would assist with how the panel should be laid out.

  For example, I have a south-facing property. I have solar panels on the eastern and northern parts of my roof.

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  GuniGuGu on 24/11/2022 - 08:05

  The house faces east, so those panels are on the roof are north facing

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  spal on 24/11/2022 - 08:46

  +1

  It is costing more because of number of individual strings in the design. The question I would ask myself, how much capacity would I need to install. There needs to be cost v benefits analysis. After a certain point the incentives don't do much to subsidise the installation costs. You will see that dropping the capacity marginally will bring out out of pocket costs substantially. Just some thoughts. You will need optimisers if there is shading issues.

  • 

    GuniGuGu on 24/11/2022 - 08:54

    Yeah, I get all that, just looking for some practical advice… From a shading perspective, there's only a little bit on the most northern roofs.

    At the moment we're consuming about 32kW/h per day.. i suspect that will only go up as we head into warmer seasons and add an EV and more people into the house.

    I'm not sure if any of the other panels would collect any shade. From a systems perspective, is the solaredge overkill? Am i trying to put too many panels on the roof? Is the fronius designed system just a bit more sensible?

    • 

      spal on 24/11/2022 - 16:56

      Instead of solar edge, you could install optimizers. If I remember correctly for solar edge the inverter technology is attached to each panel. So, as there is no inverter, you will need to install this for every panel. On the other hand with optimisers, you will have an inverter, and will attach an optimiser only to the panels which are affected by shading.
      Also, the way I understood this that any shading will pretty much close of a channel within a panel, which then reduces output of a string to the lowest producing panel within a string. An optimiser bypasses any channel not producing due to shading and maintains the generation from the remaining channels within a panel. I am not 100% and would recommend that you do your own research. But this is how I understood it from someone who was explaining me the concept.
      Also, prices have gone up in last few months due to logistical uncertainities, and the Australian dollar values falling against USD.

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  cafeman on 24/11/2022 - 10:58

  +1

  Pricing looks reasonable, I had a 16kwh system with a 13kwh inverter installed for around $15k after rebates. We had slightly cheaper quotes but went with the one we chose because they committed to ensuring there were no visible mounting screws in areas where we had exposed roofing. We have a Sungrow inverter and it seems to be working well. Had some warranty issues on install (faulty unit) but they resolved it within just over a week. Our installer was surprised as it's the first one he'd seen fail.

  We use a lot of power (around 5.5kwh during daylight hours if the central air is on with peaks of up to 10kw depending on what's running) and also had a 9.6kwh battery installed as a backup for off-grid operation in the event of a power outage. At peak we're generating around 85kwh / day over the last month. That's enough for good overhead, to recharge the battery, to cover sudden peaks during the day, and to provide a reasonable amount of feed-in to offset our consumption overnight. Excluding high-draw items, general use is around 1.4kwh and base load is 0.8kwh.

  We lose decent sun coverage from around 4pm due to a large gumtree but otherwise have largely uninterrupted solar energy from dawn. During a cloudy day we're generating around 50kwh so make of all the above what you will in terms of your realistic energy output in summer and whether you need a 10kw or 8.2kw system. More is usually better, especially if you're looking at having in EV at some point in the future.

  If the roofing on the left and right-hand side of your building is level, you could potentially look at angling the panels to slightly increase efficiency. No idea what level of impact that would have though.