A.R.S.E.

richo wrote:Could any of you fine gents recommend someone for sales and installation of solar ? The cockheads I have called have never showed .

Only DO NOT use Energy Matters.

I'm no expert, but my tecky mate at work has gone with ShineHub (Sydney area) and he loves their complete system approach. It seems that they approach the solar solution as a coordinated group rather than an individual setting up their own system.

I used Australia Wide Solar Pty Ltd.

So, feed-in tariffs are reducing. Best i can get from Origin is 12c/kWh and AGL offer 17c for the first 9 kWh fed in (in summer we would contribute up to 40+ kWr per day), with a much lower rate for the rest. Is it time to think about a battery?

With the pandemic, it is likely we will be home-working much more for a long period of time, so our daytime and nighttime energy use is expected to increase (since we've been working from home our usage has more than doubled). We are thinking a battery may now give us a lot of protection from tariff changes and maybe future brown-outs.

Still a rich mans game Smiss from my POV.

If I had more roof space and 3 phase I would look at more panels.

I will have to check my latest bill because I thought I was getting above 12c from origin.

About to get a system installed on the house - anyone had any experience with Solaredge? The installer recommended them but had other options like Fronius or Enphase. The panels could be anything from Longi, QCell up to LG. Thinking I'll go with the Solaredge setup.

I liked the ability of panel monitoring but not sure if this is totally necessary.

Monitoring is a very handy thing to have. At least you know then that everything is working as expected. Or not, like my case

norbs wrote:Monitoring is a very handy thing to have. At least you know then that everything is working as expected. Or not, like my case

Yep, I'm sure I'll be looking at it all day

Brett_S wrote:

norbs wrote:Monitoring is a very handy thing to have. At least you know then that everything is working as expected. Or not, like my case

Yep, I'm sure I'll be looking at it all day

it is more the longer term view. To see that your panels are performing as expected.

For example, on my 2nd system, I had 1 string fail, and i would have never picked it up without monitoring.

I can also tell that I am being punished by the local supplier not keeping grid voltages under control here. I have a 5KW (capped due to regulations) system that rarely gets above 3.5KW due to grid voltages that have hit 258V during the day.

Is the system cap for your area? None of the people I'm getting quotes for has mentioned it - I'm looking at an 8kW system

You can only export 5kw per phase.

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norbs wrote:You can only export 5kw per phase.

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Ah right - all good then

Mine is Solaredge as well, I stopped constantly checking mine on the phone long ago but I recently had an inverter go and only picked up on it because I saw that panel was producing nothing. It was a pretty quick fix to swap the inverter and all back to normal.

Sarsippius wrote:Mine is Solaredge as well, I stopped constantly checking mine on the phone long ago but I recently had an inverter go and only picked up on it because I saw that panel was producing nothing. It was a pretty quick fix to swap the inverter and all back to normal.

Did you get the extended warranty? I think it's 12 years and you can upgrade to 25 within 2 years on installation.

Brett_S wrote:

Sarsippius wrote:Mine is Solaredge as well, I stopped constantly checking mine on the phone long ago but I recently had an inverter go and only picked up on it because I saw that panel was producing nothing. It was a pretty quick fix to swap the inverter and all back to normal.

Did you get the extended warranty? I think it's 12 years and you can upgrade to 25 within 2 years on installation.

Hmm, I actually don't remember but I'm thinking probably not.

Installed for about a week and a bit now - averaging 40kWh per day. Waiting on AGL to program the meter so we can get on the Solar plan.

Brett_S wrote:Installed for about a week and a bit now - averaging 40kWh per day. Waiting on AGL to program the meter so we can get on the Solar plan.

Not bad, I would have expected more if you are on 3 phase. Im getting about 33 on a good day and that is with me hitting grid voltage limits all day.

norbs wrote:Not bad, I would have expected more if you are on 3 phase. Im getting about 33 on a good day and that is with me hitting grid voltage limits all day.

Best day so far has been 58.78kWh - have had a few cloudy days

10kW system but on a flat roof, the installer advised not to go with the angled panels

Brett_S wrote:

norbs wrote:Not bad, I would have expected more if you are on 3 phase. Im getting about 33 on a good day and that is with me hitting grid voltage limits all day.

Best day so far has been 58.78kWh - have had a few cloudy days

10kW system but on a flat roof, the installer advised not to go with the angled panels

Ah ok. 10k is a big system.

i dont understand why they have them flat, but I expect they have a reason. Even if it is just to help get some air under them on hot days. From what I ave read, flat roofs get hotter for some reason.

Do you get full sun all day?

Yep, no shade - they said the angles would limit the amount of panels

Brett_S wrote:Yep, no shade - they said the angles would limit the amount of panels

Fair enough. They are crammed in I take it. Must be a fair roof to get 10kW on it.

Anyways, dont see this as a criticism, I think it is awesome you have a system.

norbs wrote:Fair enough. They are crammed in I take it. Must be a fair roof to get 10kW on it.

Anyways, dont see this as a criticism, I think it is awesome you have a system.

Pretty much, they used all the available space - there might be a small amount of shade with 3 panels near the end of the day but that's about it.

Will have to see how summer goes.

It is pretty good to not use any power during the day. Looking forward to getting something back (albeit a fraction of what you pay) from the system.

I'm hating on the clouds now

Just be aware, October is historically my best month. Once we hit December, they get too hot and lose efficiency.

Has anyone recently bought panels for a boat or caravan? I'm after tips on a ~200w system.

I have a 300w system on my campervan, they work really well. You need to be very wary of eBay sellers, as most of them vastly overrate the performance of their panels.

Despite the low quality of the site, lowenergydevelopments.com.au are fantastic and pretty honest dealers from my experience