Been looking into the solar panels for the house - not solar hot water.

Have talked to lots of sellers that keep chanting the same old mantras one after another about how good it is and all. And that I'll be that much closer to god when I dip my toe into the light of a solar panel and washed clean of all my greenhouse gas sins...

What i really want to know is what's bad about it. So if you have some insight, experience... with solar that you weren't expecting, keeps you up at night, make you regret the whole thing... I'd like to hear about it.

I could be wrong, but isn't the government removing the subsidy in order to pay for the QLD floods?

Had a real indepth chat with the local Council about this, and they advised to spend the money on Insulation above all else. Especially Walls and Windows, then buy energy efficient appliances, ones with inbuilt timers that will utilise the Smart Meter off peak system that is being rolled out. Reason being Solar Electric systems are so comparatively expensive.

I had my mind set on Solar Electric panels before our chat. They also told me that Inverter reverse Cycle air cont systems are as cheap to run on a rough estimate as Gas... as 1kwh produces 3Kwh of power on an inverter system because of the heat exchanger. Which surprised the hell out of me. Still can't believe that one ??? They tried to steer me away from that system because of Carbon emissions.

Nope. They were originally looking at scaling back the Solar Hot Water previous scheme (not PV), which would have meant capping the overdue claims. Either way it wouldn't have affected anyone buying now. This has since been dropped at the request of the Greens so is no longer part of the Flood Levy savings

The only bad thing I can think of is the initial outlay, ours cost 12 grand, but we got our first cheque today for $325.00, which is not bad considering all the overcast/rainy weather of late.

4kW system?

Best price seems to be about $1,500 for a 1.5kW system after rebates. This is based on a $7,500 base price.

Other bad things may include:

1. any 'tariff' rebate cheques that you receive may be classed as income by Centrelink, but not by the ATO.
2. Inverters may need replacing between every 5 to 10 years.

If you buy a $1500 system that will likely be the case, yes. If, like everything you pay for what you get then you can expect the inverter to last a lot longer than that

The 1.5kW systems quoting $3,000 were using exactly the same model inverter.

Both suppliers gave the same 5 year warranty.

...which was which brand?


Some companies, will offer 10 year warranties for that price

The one I have gone with is the Quantum X01, they offer to increase the warranty from 5 years to 10 years for an extra $550.

The odds are that it will last 10 years anyway, so I have costed on maybe having to replace after about 10 years. Current cost is about $2,500 for that part.

That appears to be the name of the company you have gone with. What is the brand of the inverter?

3.6K

Check your household insurance policy as technically the PV system "can be "
part of the house under some policy's -so money is better used in installing a good inverter rather than a cheaper Chinese /Taiwan with no long term quality info.

On a side note, Is it possible for a Solar hot water system to produce too much hot water ? If so does it expel the water once it's reached the temperature set on the thermostat ?