Solar
 

Just after people's experiences really.

What we're looking at at the moment is a $770 quarterly bill, and with lots of people going solar that's going to continue going up.

What we've been looking at so-far, 18 panel 5 Kw system without batteries that will allegedly exceed our daytime usage and leave us with a quarterly bill of 170. All this for 8 grand including the connection to the dis board.

Now I don't profess to know much about it all, but is there anyone with any advice they can bestow upon me?

Cheers in advance

Steve

Re: Solar
 

$8k seems a bit steep, but I have a 5kW system that covers most of our needs and we have a pool pump running. Average bills are around $130 to $180 a quarter although we do have gas water and hob.

Re: Solar
 

Yeah I thought the 8 grand was a bit steep, but they're offering 25 year warranty on the panels and 10 year on workmanship and inverter. I'm going to keep looking but I've got a real fear of having my pants pulled down by cowboys. Plus I'm worried about being conned by dodgy dealers haha

Re: Solar
 

Do you have AGL your way - I know they had an offer on that included a Tesla battery. More expensive but might be worth investigating

Re: Solar
 

Will do cheers for that, AGL are the bastards charging us $770 so I definitely will

Re: Solar
 

Panels are going to last 25 years anyway, provided they don't get ripped off the roof by a cyclone. It's the inverter you have to watch out for, they do blow and they aren't cheap to replace. Get quality here. Indeed microinverter systems have some big benefits, and I've seen warranties for these out to 25 years (though I think they screw aussies).

Even if you aren't ready to go batteries, plan for it since you are going to want it sooner rather than later. With the stupid low feed in tariff and ever increasing kWh price, shifting some of that solar power to the evening really helps. One of the advantages of microinverters is you can have a few panels pointing east and west to bolster the power in the important morning/evening periods when the sun is off the main panels.

Oh, and birds getting under the panels is a major nuisance. See if you can get them to put mesh, etc. up with the panels to prevent birds getting under.

Re: Solar
 

Here you go Steve, O.D. on info

Green tech - Whirlpool Forums

Re: Solar
 

Cheers for the reply geeze, yeah I've opted for the battery ready one (min 5Kw as the bloke explained it). I might get the roof renewed prior just for peace of mind as it's fairly old and I can get mate's rates. He quoted us for a microinverter so all good on that front :thumbup:

Re: Solar
 

If my calcs are correct, you will break even in 3.5 years. After that, every quarter you are saving.

Re: Solar
 

My bill is around 770 per quarter over the full year (more like 680 I'd say), the thing is I use over 32 kWh per day and I don't think a 5Kwh system is big enough to cover the full demand. AFAIK you have to calculate at 5 hours sunlight per day which is 25Kwh. That could be Melbourne sunlight figures and it may be different up there. I'm definitely not buying anything smaller than my current usage. I'm totally ignoring the feed-in tariff as well and just want full supply v demand. I'd pay 8K for a 7kwh system with battery.

Re: Solar
 

I'm in Queensland, South of Brisbane. We used Hawking. Paid $5000 for the same size system. Fronius converter which is a good make. We save about $300 a quarter.

Re: Solar
 

Nice one thanks for that, reckon I might play afew off against eachother :thumbup: