Want to install Solar - where do I start?

Hi All,

I'm building a new townhouse here in Melbourne and I'm thinking it's a good time to install Solar for a couple reasons-

1./ Want to be more environmentally concious
2./ Thinking seriously of adding Reverse Ducted Heating & Cooling so would like as much as possible to offset potentially large electricity bills

The issue I have is apart from a very little research I have no idea where to start or what to do.

I've spoken to one company briefly and they said they use Jinko Solar who apparantly are one of the best globally and he roughly quoted me a 5KW system fully installed for around $5500. I have no idea of the following-

1./ How many panels 5KW will give me? I've been told to get at least 10 for any effectiveness but no idea.
2./ Whether Jinko are infact good solar panels.
3./ Whether $5500 fully installed for the above system is a good price or expensive.

He told me to steer clear of the TrueValue and Euro Solar at all costs as they use rubbish chinese solar panels, again I have no idea if this is true or not either so keen to hear your opinions.

Where do I start folks and can anyone recommend any good companies you've used who I can talk to and start researching for my needs and budgets etc?

Thank you in advance.
 
Most panels are Chinese, so even if you pay top dollar, you'll likely get Chinese panels.

Lots of people think differently, but I'd always go for a larger cheaper setup than a smaller premium priced one.
While the expensive ones might get a tiny bit more kWh per kW installed, I think that you should look at the $/kWh instead and the cheaper ones win hands down in that.

I wouldn't pay more than $1.10/W fully installed. Brands shouldn't really matter that much. I've got Amerisolar panels and a Meikai inverter and I'm happy with them.
 
I've been down this road recently and based on my research:

1) Agree with spludgey that panels don't vary that much in quality (but do vary in price); inverters are where there's variability in quality and price.

2) Even with inverters, if there is a difference in quality (generally people think European inverters are good, Chinese inverters are bad), I don't think it can possibly be enough to justify the differential in price. (Which is orders of magnitude, from under $1K for a Chinese to multiple $K for a European.) We're going for a Chinese inverter, a JFY, which gets a decent review. If it fails, we can afford to replace it and still be better off than having used a European one in the first place.

3) Your quote is quite price-competitive. We got a 6 kW system for $5,500, but that was by far the cheapest quote of four quotes. (Two were $7-8K, and one was $11K.)

4) Batteries are apparently coming down in price at a rate of knots, so make sure your inverter is battery-ready (though I think nearly everybody sells battery-ready inverters now). The advantage is that when batteries become economical, you can use your excess from the day, at night, instead of having to buy back from the energy company. At the moment, you earn about 8c per kWh for your excess in the day, but have to buy back what you need at night for around 30c per kWh. If you have batteries, you're effectively saving 22c per kWh on your energy use at night.
 
What's the before and after amounts of the electricity bills each quarter? We'd like to get some eventually as we have everything on electricity (no gas connection) but would want to know what the actual cost saving would be first.
 
What's the before and after amounts of the electricity bills each quarter? We'd like to get some eventually as we have everything on electricity (no gas connection) but would want to know what the actual cost saving would be first.
We haven't had any bills yet - it's very new! - but we predict paying it off in under 2 years. Based on our past usage pattern, we estimate our bills are going to go from about $1300 to $450 per quarter.

(Yes, we use a horrendous amount of electricity.)
 
Hi All,

I'm building a new townhouse here in Melbourne and I'm thinking it's a good time to install Solar for a couple reasons-

1./ Want to be more environmentally concious
2./ Thinking seriously of adding Reverse Ducted Heating & Cooling so would like as much as possible to offset potentially large electricity bills

The issue I have is apart from a very little research I have no idea where to start or what to do.

I've spoken to one company briefly and they said they use Jinko Solar who apparantly are one of the best globally and he roughly quoted me a 5KW system fully installed for around $5500. I have no idea of the following-

1./ How many panels 5KW will give me? I've been told to get at least 10 for any effectiveness but no idea.
2./ Whether Jinko are infact good solar panels.
3./ Whether $5500 fully installed for the above system is a good price or expensive.

He told me to steer clear of the TrueValue and Euro Solar at all costs as they use rubbish chinese solar panels, again I have no idea if this is true or not either so keen to hear your opinions.

Where do I start folks and can anyone recommend any good companies you've used who I can talk to and start researching for my needs and budgets etc?

Thank you in advance.

go here and ask the same question .knowledge overload about the subject
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum/143
 
What's the before and after amounts of the electricity bills each quarter? We'd like to get some eventually as we have everything on electricity (no gas connection) but would want to know what the actual cost saving would be first.

I too have only recently had solar installed, so no quantified cost savings on bills for me yet either. I do have a monitoring program that I wrote and that shows roughly $2 per day savings on average we are making or approx $700 per year off our electricity bill.
 
go here and ask the same question .knowledge overload about the subject
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum/143

+1

But you probably won't find many recommendation for Jinko Panels but they are OK but considered a cheap Chinese panel and not "the best globally" and you definitely will not get any good ones for a JFY inverter (sorry Perp).

Some say (including me) to get the best inverter (SMA, Fronius etc) and then get the best panels you can within the budget you have set for your total outlay. As an idea of cost the cheap system are ~$1/W with the top systems costing >$2/W and like most things you get what you pay for in relation to quality of product, install and post sale support. I would recommend you avoid the lower end of the scale and I found that @ ~$1.50/W most systems seem to be of a reasonable standard in these areas

Jinko panels maybe 250W each so for 5kw you will end up with 20 panels but the newer and better brand panels are now getting closer to 300W or above so you may get away with 18 panels or even less but that come with extra cost.

Also if you want solar to go "green" then these make interesting reading on Jinko:
http://www.renewablesinternational.net/chinas-jinko-solar-pollutes-environment/150/510/32016/
http://www.bspq.com.au/2014/11/jinko-solar-panels-review/

Finally solar is only good to offset daytime consumption so any plans to cover your AC usage at night when the sun doesn't shine is not a viable option.

As stated above head over to the Solar Forum on WP to validate your findings.
 
I'm doing an electrical course at the moment and my tafe teacher did solar installations. He swore by "sunny boy inverters". Obviously do the research but that might be worth looking into.

Cheers,
Fresh.
 
We've had solar for a couple of years now, 5kw system, avoided the Chinese brands due to being told to go for better quality. I don't know if that is right or not, but that is what we did.

We are getting a rebate between $450 and $800 per quarter. We have ducted air plus three splits in bedrooms. Don't flog the air-con but don't hold off using it on a hot day. We have a pool which I now run overnight, but other than that, we don't change our lifestyles. Heard last week hubby's sister waits until after 10pm to do her washing and take advantage of the cheap tariff. That's madness (but typical of this person. I reckon she would re-use her cling wrap too if she could :) ).

I wash at night often, but certainly don't watch the clock to save a couple of cents.

We paid $12K after the rebate, so wasn't cheap, but it will have paid for itself well within six years I think.
 
Some say (including me) to get the best inverter (SMA, Fronius etc) and then get the best panels you can within the budget you have set for your total outlay. As an idea of cost the cheap system are ~$1/W with the top systems costing >$2/W and like most things you get what you pay for in relation to quality of product, install and post sale support. I would recommend you avoid the lower end of the scale and I found that @ ~$1.50/W most systems seem to be of a reasonable standard in these areas

Jinko panels maybe 250W each so for 5kw you will end up with 20 panels but the newer and better brand panels are now getting closer to 300W or above so you may get away with 18 panels or even less but that come with extra cost.

Also if you want solar to go "green" then these make interesting reading on Jinko:
http://www.renewablesinternational.net/chinas-jinko-solar-pollutes-environment/150/510/32016/
http://www.bspq.com.au/2014/11/jinko-solar-panels-review/

Finally solar is only good to offset daytime consumption so any plans to cover your AC usage at night when the sun doesn't shine is not a viable option.

As stated above head over to the Solar Forum on WP to validate your findings.

Agree, since we work fulltime and the c**p feed in tariffs, we decided to include batteries for our night use. It added $10K to the price but allowed us to capture the sun's power while we weren't there. The cost of batteries is coming down. The WP forum is great for getting your thoughts together.
 
I'm doing an electrical course at the moment and my tafe teacher did solar installations. He swore by "sunny boy inverters". Obviously do the research but that might be worth looking into.

Cheers,
Fresh.

I'm working on nine solar installations for my work and we've used SMA inverters (sunny boy is SMA) for the first installation and might do so for the remaining eight as well.

But if I was paying for it, there's no way I'd pay five times as much for a German inverter than a Chinese one. Even if the Chinese one was to break down every 5 years, you'd still be better off buying that and replacing it.

The other downside of SMA inverters is that while they have bluetooth, they don't have wifi (that I know of), so comms can only be transmitted quite a short distance.
 
Hi All,

I'm building a new townhouse here in Melbourne and I'm thinking it's a good time to install Solar for a couple reasons-

1./ Want to be more environmentally concious
2./ Thinking seriously of adding Reverse Ducted Heating & Cooling so would like as much as possible to offset potentially large electricity bills

The issue I have is apart from a very little research I have no idea where to start or what to do.

I've spoken to one company briefly and they said they use Jinko Solar who apparantly are one of the best globally and he roughly quoted me a 5KW system fully installed for around $5500. I have no idea of the following-

1./ How many panels 5KW will give me? I've been told to get at least 10 for any effectiveness but no idea.
2./ Whether Jinko are infact good solar panels.
3./ Whether $5500 fully installed for the above system is a good price or expensive.

He told me to steer clear of the TrueValue and Euro Solar at all costs as they use rubbish chinese solar panels, again I have no idea if this is true or not either so keen to hear your opinions.

Where do I start folks and can anyone recommend any good companies you've used who I can talk to and start researching for my needs and budgets etc?

Thank you in advance.

Are you thinking of going through origin energy???
 
Perp,



You only need to look inside them.........:eek:
I don't care about the aesthetics of the inside of my inverter. :D

Seriously, do they not do the job? Remedy > Australian Consumer Law, 5 year warranty.

Do they not last as long? As highlighted by spludgey, you can replace the inverter a few times and still be in front with a Chinese one.

Are they inefficient? (I don't even know if efficiency is a quality of an inverter, but whatever - trying to get to the root of this issue.)

What *specifically* about a JFY inverter is "not as good"?
 
That's pretty much how much our bills are (depending on the season) so we wouldn't get any bill at all? Sounds like a great deal :p

That is right. Bill before last one was a credit for about $250. We've never asked for a cheque when this has happened, but just leave it there to put towards the next account.

Some bills are close to zero, others a hundred or two, depending on season.
 
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