Not overly helpful, but my mum and dad (over on the yorke penensula) have a 10 panel set up and a solar hot water system on their house and shed. They run their climate control 24/7 when they're home. Dad got the $9000? govt grant, and paid about 13,000 himself and swears that it was worth it. He showed me some numbers on the control box to prove it, but i had to take his word for it.
What surprised me most was that the panels peak at a certain output and it could be achieved in quite overcast conditions. So, if there is adequate light the panels could be put any where.... the other thing is that if they get hot they don't work as well, so (and this is what stunned me most) the north side of the roof may not be the best aspect for many homes.
I don't think they are collecting cheques yet, like one seebreeze poster was (do a search, they did a post when they got their first cheque) but my parents power bill has dropped by 70-80% from memory.
He wants to put in 4 more panels to become neutral.

Hmm.. have been thinking about this for a while now but haven't had the time/energy/$$ to devote to it.

The only roof space I have is WNW facing and i'd thought I'd be needing 'prop-up' frames to face them Nth. Good news if I can simplify things and flat mount them in the WNW location.

Anybody know what the deal with rebates is at the mo?

In case of a change of govt. is there still time to take advantage of the rebate?

I caught some rays the other day - does this make me a solar farmer?

we have a 3 kwsystem that is 30degress west of north. peak production is from 11.00am to 4.30 pm , even in winter. I would estimate that the angle off north makes it as effective a 2.7kw system facing due north.
A neighbour down the street had a 2.5 kw system installed that is 60degrees east of north. I went to look at his Inverter readout at the end of the day , and quite frankly , the installer should have avdised him that his roof angle was not suitable for solar.
It really annoys me when I see installations like that. There are so many companies now on the bandwagon that they will slap them up anywhere. ( I can smell an Inquiry)
IMHO A south facing unit would be next to worthless.
personally I wouldnt recommend any more than 45 degrees off north.
I have been told that if a frame other than flat to the roof is used you have to go through building permits, whereas a flat mount doesnt need a permit.
you can have up to 5 kw on a private residence.
yes you can start getting cheques for your power, but you need to really careful about leaving things running. we went from an av of 16kwperday usage down to 6, and that has enabled us to get the cheques. we did just get a bill, because with the new 47c system the energy company/state govt couldnt manage to get the paperwork into the mail in time for the rollout, I will be checking the next bill to see if they backdate it.
With the solar , this is the first time Ive ever taken an interest in bill, and stuff, and actually enjoy ringing up suppliers and argueing a point

i just read my inverter then rode around to the neighbour whos orientation was 60degrees East of north.
I produced 14.9kw for the day from a 3kw system , at 30degrees west of north, he produced 7.9kw from a 2kw system.
His system had stopped producing enough power 3/4 hr before mine.

I reckon thats not too bad, so maybe disregard some of my previous post.
His panel angles are all consistent whereas some of mine are probably a bit flat.

In January the kids and I counted 9 solar setups in 2 days of driving through perth, last month we counted 58, of which 21 were rather bad set ups, 3 were overhanging the edge of the roof
in Innaloo, we saw a huge strata title complex where each unit had at keast 1.5 kw each very carefully placed we counted 15 setups there
Bazl is the man for all the links

We have a 1Kw system and provided we have a fortnight holiday each year we make as much as we use. But we are low electricity users.
It's a solar hot water system, and the house is also passive solar.
our panels face due N, but are a bit flat, they could do with being 10deg more upright.

I think a few degrees off due North won't make a huge difference, But due west will only get afternoon sun and due East will only get morning sun.

Putting them on different slopes, could also be a problem depending how they're connected up.

Different inverters have different input voltages. Those with high input voltages, need the panels to be wired in series. Lower input voltage inverters can be series/parallel.
For panels wired in series, the current through them is limited to that of lowest panel. Whereas in parallel they run at their own rates.
So it's not so bad if the panels facing one way are in series, (as long as none of them are shaded), and are in parallel with panels facing a different direction.

Taxable income?
Well in western australia the goverment is telling everyone to get one of these so they dont have so much of a burden to build another power station.
The fact is if you purchase these there is no sort of benafit apart from saving a few $ on your power bill.
Apart from that all your doing is subsadising the powerstation and the saving isnt past on . i dont like it just another goverment scam.
Im building a new house on five acres and did the reasearch.
Even placing a wind setup in would not benafit. The price of the power sold back to the grid must be equal to what you pay.
If the energy companies were loosing money on this they would not promote it.
I could not justify placing a system in at this stage.

Just stick it on your 6 percent housing loan With the 80 percent loss of power sent back to the grid after maintainence and placing specialized electricians to maintain it at 260 dollars and hour call out if you have a rcd fault its dosent look like its going to be viable for me.
i have a hundred square metres facing north if i place solar power on this i would not recieve any benafit for this selling power back to the grid for 20-25 years This dosent include any maintainence on the unit or any sort of replacemnet of equiptment that supports it.
I believe that its a falacy to think that you can sell "limited" power to a grid at 11 cents and purchase it back at over double after laying and maintaing infrastructure
If people keep on doing it they will continue to drop the price of power you sell and continue to restrict the amount in off peak (supply demand) dont fool yourselves. its a scam
In my situation this solar power is not viable and cost effective.

busterwa said...

Just stick it on your 6 percent housing loan With the 80 percent loss of power sent back to the grid after maintainence and placing specialized electricians to maintain it at 260 dollars and hour call out if you have a rcd fault its dosent look like its going to be viable for me.
i have a hundred square metres facing north if i place solar power on this i would not recieve any benafit for this selling power back to the grid for 20-25 years This dosent include any maintainence on the unit or any sort of replacemnet of equiptment that supports it.
I believe that its a falacy to think that you can sell "limited" power to a grid at 11 cents and purchase it back at over double after laying and maintaing infrastructure
If people keep on doing it they will continue to drop the price of power you sell and continue to restrict the amount in off peak (supply demand) dont fool yourselves. its a scam
In my situation this solar power is not viable and cost effective.

Surely the overriding fact here is that any reduced load on the main grid means less coal burnt and is better for the environment.

If I owned my own place I would be doing it for my kids future, and wouldnt be looking at it just to see if its a cheaper option.

Kalgoorlie WA prices.
peak buying price is now between 13 and 36c(up from 28c in a single jump)
half of output to grid is at the offpeak times.
and our new selling rate is 47c.
at the old system where our sell rate was only a few cents higher than the buy rate, we only made $150 for 12 months.
that should change substantially with the new scheme.
the 47c scheme will run for 10 years on each particular set up, assuming the WA govt doesnt get replaced by one that is easily swayed by by a big power producer lobby to put their energy into promoting coal,gas or nuclear power again
the set up we have cost $36,000 18months ago, and we struggled to find an installer, the same size set up in Kal now is around $21,000,and we are swamped with installers, they even do maildrops in your box.
I have heard of a 5 kw system about to go up for $25,000, but I believe there are some mates rates involved

For these sorts of investments (I know you get a rebate but anyway) I cant work out why they dont add some batteries, and an appropriate inverter and take you off the grid completely??

Is it too big a leap to go to that extent?

grumplestiltskin said...

For these sorts of investments (I know you get a rebate but anyway) I cant work out why they dont add some batteries, and an appropriate inverter and take you off the grid completely??

Is it too big a leap to go to that extent?

I guess the two main reasons off the top of my head why you want to stay on the grid beside the price difference between buying and selling is firstly there may be a time when for whatever reason your solar panels are not generating as much electricity as you are consuming and there may be other times when your production is much greater than your consumption.

If you are already on the grid then there is little reason to go off it is there?

kato said...

I,ve just ordered our system (2 Kw) so it will be interesting to see how it performs. The house faces due north and the panels will be at 5 deg.

5deg is awfully flat. we are considering lifting up 1 row of our panels that are on 5 deg and doing some comparative readings .
we dont feel that they are performing as well as could be, they are also always the dirtiest panels. the superpit is doing a surface cutback about 2.5km from the house and the overnight dust is worse than usual