awesome!

i get up with window cleaning gear, it makes a difference of 200w? when they are squeeky clean. did you manage to get onto the ' Household Renewable Energy Scheme" that the WA govt has going?

your too late it was (will be ) a nice tidy sum.
have a look at www.energy.wa.gov.au as there may be future rebates

This is good feed back for me.

I just finished the approval process, to install Solar over here in NSW.

Damn! Looks like the gov. is on to you guys
They are planning to introduce a tariff on feeding power to the grid
http://www.clean.energy.wa.gov.au/pages/re_feed-in_tariff.asp

No wonder people go postal!

Or buy more Air-cons/Fridges/Toasters/Things that go bing.....or anything else that'll soak up that excess!

latedropeddy said...

awesome!

awesome. nice work guys. wish i could own a house and put solar panels on it and mow the lawn when i feel like it not just to keep the real estate happy good to read such positive comments (mostly haha mintoxGT..)

Its OK , i had to read it twice

Kn tops work LY!

I'm with Mr Cruise. Wassa startup costs like?

Would love to do this but the smallest area of our roof is that which faces Nth. Solahart has pride of place there too.

We paid about $2,700 for our 1kw system, plus $300 or something for a new power metre.
Signed the govt $8,000 rebate and the carbon credit sale rights over to the supply company.

But I heard that the price has dropped a bit since, one company was offering a $0 cost to the customer, as long as they had their govt aproval of course.

Noice work. Ta for the info.. would like to go down this road in the future too.

japie said...

You guys who have broached the wall may not recoup your investments but you are beating a path toward sustainability.

I hate to burst your bubble but,..
Solar power on the roof with the current technology does nothing more than make the householder feel good. "We're saving the planet!"
It's a bit like washing out the cat food tins for recycling. A total waste of time, effort and water but hey, what the heck! "In this house, We RECYCLE!".
Recycling is good, right?

The only thing that makes solar power viable today is that a huge proportion of the cost is covered by someone else. i.e anyone who doesn't have it, via the government subsidies.
This does NOT make it an efficient solution to the environmental problem.
It is more like a pyramid selling scheme. They are intrinsically unsound and eventually collapse under their own weight.

Let's look at solar power.
The real cost of even a small 1kw system is around $10,000 to $12,000, maybe more, although they are coming down.

Under ideal conditions a 1kw system will generate about 4 kilowatt hours of electricity per day, iff you are lucky. That's when it is new and the panels are clean and in good condition.

4 Kwhrs can be generated at a conventional power station for about 2 cents per unit.
Nuclear power comes in slightly higher. Let's be pessimistic and say 4 cents per Kwhr.
They can generate it and sell it to you via the grid for about 15 cents per kwhr.

AT 15 cents per kwhr you will need to generate 10,000 / .15 =66,666 kwhrs of power before the system breaks even.
At 4 kwhrs per day this will take 66,666 / 4 =16,666 days = 45 years! just to break even.
The panels don't last that long.
The electronics will not last that long.

The whole thing is a "feel good" exercise conducted by the government to make people believe that they have everything under control.
It is no more than standing on the roof and pithing on you and telling you that it's raining.
Why?
Because in the final wash, it is YOU who pay for it.

The government might give it to you for free but while they give it to you with one hand they will take it from you with the other.
They have to.
They don't produce anything to sell themselves. They just take the money they need off you.

The only viable near and long term solution is nuclear power.
Unfortunately, in the near term this will have to be from nuclear fission,
but in the long term it will be from nuclear fusion, a very clean and hugely abundant and efficient form of power.

Every day, month and year that we fart around with wind power, (pun intended)
burn a hole in our pockets with solar power,
or wash ourselves down the drain with wave power,
it is another day and dollar wasted that could have been spent on taking us down the right path.
Solar power is NOT the right path.

Sailing ships and windmills were not abandoned because the wind stopped blowing.
It just became obvious that it was hugely unreliable.
Same with solar power.
Same with wave power.

Gestalt said...
looking at your figures i beleive there are some flaws.

Yes I know. These are ball park facts and figures to illustrate the point.
I have previously done more accurate analysis and it comes up the same.

you haven't quoted the cost of electricity that we pay at the wall, there is no allowance for tarrifs etc.

That's right. Because these tarrifs might make it a better deal for YOU, but they don't make the overall system financially viable for everyone.
It just means you are taking the money off someone else to make YOUR system pay.

i also don't think you have taken into account selling the power back to the grid.

Yes I did. That's one of the points I was trying to make.
YOUR system is only viable IFF you can sell it back to the grid at a price very much higher than the electicity companies can produce the power themselves.
They will only do this while being forced to by the government.
The government recognises this and they realise it can very quickly become top heavy and run them broke.
That is why they have 'grandfather clauses' on the return to grid deals. They automatically expire in a few years.
That's not really suitable when it is clear that it will take 20 to 40 years for you to break even.

also, 1kw system is not really recommended. it used to be 1.5-2kw and now houses are starting to use 4kw and some 8kw.

That's true. The bigger systems do become slightly more cost efficient, but only slightly.
The reason is that a bigger system costs a lot more. They can run up to $30,000 total cost for a large system.
The government will subsides you more for this but the point I am making is that basing your assessment on a post subsidy price is false logic.
It's a pretend result overall. SOmebody will have to pay for it in the end.
There is "NO SUCH THING AS A FREE LUNCH".

you also haven't taken into account the increase in cost of power over the time that the solar array is functioning.

it's a complex issue

It is. That's why it is so easy for the real situation to be made obscur. And that's what is happening

then when that is all done,

take the cost of the array and stick it in the bank and see how much interest you get over the period.

Yes. But take the REAL cost of the system and put that in the bank and see how much you have in 30 years.
OR
Better still, take the REAL cost of the system and invest it either nuclear power or at least in research in nuclear power and see how much it is worth in 30 years.

The sad reality is that since all the negative pulicity around nuclear power over the last 30 years, research into cleaner and safer nuclear power has all but ceased.
This has put us 30 years behind where we should be today.

Even with the small amount spent on it, we now have reliable technology for 4th generation nuclear reactors which are 10 times more efficient and cleaner and intrinsically safer than the 2nd and 3rd gen nuclear reactors.

The whole point is,.. we need a reliable and guarranteed continuous supply of energy to remain a first world country.
Solar, wind and wave power does NOT give us this.
Today is 37 degrees, overcast and no wind.
Everyone has their air cons on, their computers running. etc etc.
What are you going to do?
Tell them that due to prevailing conditions you will have to turn everything off until conditions improve?
I don't think so.

To cater for this situation, the power companies still have to build their generators EXACTLY the same size and capacity that they would if there was NO solar, NO wind and NO wave power.
It saves them NOTHING.

Back to the Future.
A "flux Capacitor" maybe?
I will just look up my catalogue and see what they cost today.
Hmmm,,, strange. Thery don't seem to be listed.
Maybe they just sold out.