How long until you will break even?

Did you work out the costs benefits of paying off your mortgage faster? It's seems like such a massive initial outlay. I spend about $120 bi monthly but have no air con...it's Perth who needs air con really? it's not Port hedland. Maybe 3 nights this year I thought air con would be nice but I survived.

My first bill was a credit of $115, 2kw system, over 3 months over xmas with at least one visitor for 2 of the months.
Initial outlay $6g. Will pay for itself in less than 5.
No more bills for power, ambulance cover inc in QLD power bills.
I like the idea of not having ongoing bills.

No worries mate,

Put it on the mortgage so no real impact over 25 years, with the cost of electricity going up our calculations came in at about 4 to 4.5 years, our bill is anywhere from $180 to $260 depending.

We live far from the coast and the sea breeze works when its on but otherwise a/c is on, we only put the a/c on when it gets to 29c in summer and that setting is at 26c.

Im not sure how people are killing it as you say, Im happy to just break even or pay a little and am very happy so far.I see your point though re paying off the mortgage but I have a mate who works at Synergy and the predictions for increase in cost of power are scary.

I will be honest, it is also a nice feeling knowing that we have reduced our carbon footprint a bit and I am hoping when my son gets older and when the environmental studies at school start he will appreciate what we are doing by example.

We dont run a/c at night only fans and we have a bloody big house with only 1 ac, we have gone old school and installed ceiling fans as they are cheaper and do a good enough job, no need for an ac in every roon of a house.

Cheers GT

Mobydisc said...

I live in a unit and we are looking at getting a solar electric system set up for the strata. That way it will be fair for both owner occupiers and landlords. The system will be set up on the house power and will be credited as the house power powers a few lights a few minutes a day.

One real issue is the crappy feed in tariff now on offer in NSW. Its only 20 cents a KW. The other issue is the rising value of the Aussie dollar plus what should be the reduced cost of solar panels and equipment due to economies of scale plus competition. On the other hand from what I've read the RECs are going down in value soon so it probably all evens out in the end.

What is really fantastic though is having a little power station on the roof. I think its great. If I was living back on the farm I'd do this plus make/collect my own oil and run my diesel van on it. Self sufficiency is the way to go.

My parents have a 1.5 KW system with the 60 cent/KW feed in tariff and they get a credit with their power. My sister is getting a 2.5 KW system and will be worse off with the 20 cent/KW feed in tariff.

Yet, the entire Liberal voting mass call it a 'bungled Solar' scheme. (Well at least the press seem to).

Everything is 'bungled' if you don't agree with it, it seems. In order to not 'bungle' it, was the government supposed to assign feed in tariffs to it that made it unattractive?

I think its a great idea, and even if it costs a little more initially it will surely reduce the cost of electricity generation over time, as well as reducing the cost of electricity distribution.

lotofwind said...

How long do the panels last??
I heard that if you get 8 years out of them, you have done well.

www.google.com.au/search?q=life+time+of+photovoltaic+cells&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&gws_rd=ssl

Who told you that? Shell?

I wonder if you really will get 40 years out of them. If you do, and have little maintenance costs, that's probably 30 to 35 years of bonus electricity.

While Googling this stuff I was surprised to see that Germany has a high feed in tariff, and according to the article I read they have 200 times the generating capacity, and a lot less usable sunlight.

Those Germans must have bungled it bad!

We got 1.1kw system installed few years back, cost us $2400 after rebates. Only get power bills in winter now,,, pretty cool. Will be selling soon and moving interstate so will go for a bigger system on east coast (panels should be cheaper once the rebates drop).

I havn't seen a brand of panel that isn't guarateed for 25yrs.
There will always be knockers, but who cares. I'm the one that doesn't have to pay a power bill again, even if I have to replace the whole system in 10yrs I will be miles ahead.

I might have to look into getting some panels. Don't know what the missus was doing last quater but my power bill went from $220 to $540

Captain Bob said...

I might have to look into getting some panels. Don't know what the missus was doing last quater but my power bill went from $220 to $540

Same for me! we used a fair amount of aircon I guess and you have to remember that our marvellous WA "no idea lib" gov is increasing the electricity price charging us the stupid tax payers like wounder bulls.!

felixdcat said...

Captain Bob said...

I might have to look into getting some panels. Don't know what the missus was doing last quater but my power bill went from $220 to $540

Same for me! we used a fair amount of aircon I guess and you have to remember that our marvellous WA "no idea lib" gov is increasing the electricity price charging us the stupid tax payers like wounder bulls.!

Same - our last two bills were up around $525 - $540. Interestingly, we put in 3 split systems before summer, and with the hottest March on record and no seabreezes to speak of, they got some use - and my wife immediately deducted that they were the cause of the massive power bill increase... however, the daily unit consumption was the same year on year... (ie compared to when we didn't have them) so it seems the new inverter type split AC's appear to be quite 'economical'... will have to see what the next power bill is like...

We have had a 1kw system installed for almost 2 years now at a cost of almost $2000 after the rebate etc.
For the same period in 2009 with NO solar panels (cooler summer I think) our average daily consumption was the same as this year - 16 units. The cost then was 12.67c per unit and is now 18.9319c - 50% increase. Our aircon fan did a lot of work this year due to not much in the way of cooling coastal breezes at night.
Our rebate this bill was almost $25 (about 12% rebated) which isn't a huge saving but then that isn't allowing for the offset during daylight when we are using solar.
In our case it is marginal but when the government puts up most of the cost of the system it makes it worthwhile.

Moral of the story is do your research and go bigger if you can - although our house is quite big it is 2 story and the north facing roof area is quite small and somewhat shaded a lot of the time so we could only put a 1kw system in.

Latest news in NSW is the price of electricity is going up around 13% or so from July of this year and will go up another 11% next year.

So the electricity companies will be making money out those installations that are not on the 60 cent feed in tariff. Bit of a laugh. You will be selling electricity for about 20 cents a KWH but buying it for more.

The more that knock and don't do it the better, they can keep paying the 24c difference in my solar credit for longer..
I did see that qld have garranteed 44c solar credit for the next 25yrs or so.
Mine makes more power than we use (2kw system) so we should be in credit for a lot of years to come.

doggie said...

Captain Bob said...

I might have to look into getting some panels. Don't know what the missus was doing last quater but my power bill went from $220 to $540

Get her one with batteries

I think this would cost me more

I bought a business 2 years ago that was spending $3200 per month in electricity.

Now it's spending 6g per month.

These installation's are being subsidized by the network charges on your bill. The electricity price is not the real increase, it the network charges. Much of this is to achieve our international green CO2 targets...