Fancy schmancy compared to my 2000 Daewoo Matiz! (Favourite car I've ever owned.)
Want to install Solar - where do I start?
- Thread starter littletee
- Start date
Hi All,
This is the first quote I've got-
"1 x 5kw Sungrow Inverter with 20 x 250watt Jinko Panels installed on a double storey roof for $5900 inc GST."
Is the above setup any good and is that cheap, reasonable or expensive in your opinion?
Also, according to my last couple quarterly bills our household used 9-10KW (around 6 peak and 4 off peak) per day. However, the Townhouse we are moving in to will much bigger than the one we have now and the new one will also be running refrigerated cooling vs Evap at the moment so I would expect our overall average usage to go up a fair bit commence sense says.
Thanks all.
This is the first quote I've got-
"1 x 5kw Sungrow Inverter with 20 x 250watt Jinko Panels installed on a double storey roof for $5900 inc GST."
Is the above setup any good and is that cheap, reasonable or expensive in your opinion?
Also, according to my last couple quarterly bills our household used 9-10KW (around 6 peak and 4 off peak) per day. However, the Townhouse we are moving in to will much bigger than the one we have now and the new one will also be running refrigerated cooling vs Evap at the moment so I would expect our overall average usage to go up a fair bit commence sense says.
Thanks all.
The double storey usually adds to the cost basis therefore your at the $1/W end of the scale which indicates a cheaper system and as stated above this comes with risks in relation to quality but you will find people that say who cares its cheap so it a personal choice.
As your future usage is unknown I would wait till you know more about your daytime before get a system sized or installed. On your current usage I wouldn't even consider a system so your usage when the sun shines would need to significantly increase to justify the initial outlay.
Fair call womble, thanks. In your opinion at what daily average usage do you believe it becomes more viable to invest the $5k?
The first thing is it's not the $5K you invest that determines the viability but rather matching your expected consumption with your expected generation capacity (system sizing) which means you may outlay as little as a few thousands or it could see you needing to outlay much more.
From my reading on WP (http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum/143?g=371) for a small domestic system to be viable you need to offset around a minimum of 10-15kw of daytime consumption per day before a solar PV start to equate to a breakeven ROI. Anything less than this and then timeframe for the return of your initial outlay is too great and you start to get close to the life expectancy of some of the key components therefore needing to invest more in repair/maintenance.
Long gone are the days of the premium FIT where you put as much as you can on the roof and retailers would pay you 44/60/66c per KW you exported. Nowadays you consume what you produce (in most situations e.g. NET vs GROSS) and get a measly 8c/kw for any excess your export to the grid.
I understand and makes sense, thanks Womble. In my case then I'll definately wait I think because we don't consume a lot of electricity as it stands but I'm not sure if this will still be the case when we move to a much larger place at the end of the year that will have refrigerated cooling. I guess time will tell but I'll definately wait to see I think. Thansk
i have solar and cut my bill from $1600 to $360 first the first year. BUT thats with the generous 24c (16c government 8c retailer) FIT.
things you have to watch.
can you get the same deal with your power company with or without solar?
-i tried to change to agl 10% off plan and was told its not solar compatible and would have to go on the standard plan if i had solar...
meaning i would have to pay 10% more than those not on solar. after saying i would switch to origin they miraculously told me that it infact did allow solar but that plan was getting discontinued so thats why it didnt show up...
to sum it up you might have to pay more for power just because you're on solar..
Poor FIT.
when do you use most of your power?
if you use it after 5pm then it makes it hard to get any benefits out of it. if your a stay at home mum things might be different
- i suggest buyng a flukso or current cost meter and have it setup to upload to pvoutput.org
see how much your using and when and compare that with other systems on there in your area to see what you would generate.
http://pvoutput.org/map.jsp?state=VIC
if you're not using most of the power you generate its probably not worth it.
and it has been noted that at the current cost of batteries its better to get a bigger system than batteries and get the FIT to cover your night usage than the cost of batteries to cover your night time usage. (note most batteries need to be kept above 50% so you need twice as big a battery system than you think to maintain the life of your batteries and cover your usage..
things you have to watch.
can you get the same deal with your power company with or without solar?
-i tried to change to agl 10% off plan and was told its not solar compatible and would have to go on the standard plan if i had solar...
meaning i would have to pay 10% more than those not on solar. after saying i would switch to origin they miraculously told me that it infact did allow solar but that plan was getting discontinued so thats why it didnt show up...
to sum it up you might have to pay more for power just because you're on solar..
Poor FIT.
when do you use most of your power?
if you use it after 5pm then it makes it hard to get any benefits out of it. if your a stay at home mum things might be different
- i suggest buyng a flukso or current cost meter and have it setup to upload to pvoutput.org
see how much your using and when and compare that with other systems on there in your area to see what you would generate.
http://pvoutput.org/map.jsp?state=VIC
if you're not using most of the power you generate its probably not worth it.
and it has been noted that at the current cost of batteries its better to get a bigger system than batteries and get the FIT to cover your night usage than the cost of batteries to cover your night time usage. (note most batteries need to be kept above 50% so you need twice as big a battery system than you think to maintain the life of your batteries and cover your usage..
Hi Bman,
Thanks for your post.
According to my last couple quarterly bills we use around 10KW on average per day and that's split roughly by 6KW during peak time and 4KW during off peak.
However, we are moving to a much larger house at the end of the year which will have Refrigerated Cooling which apparantly is expensive to run so I was looking at potentially getting a solar system to offset the higher running costs.
Thanks
kWh, not kW. They're two very different beasts.
Apologies you are correct.
Hiequity
Is infinite energy your business? Last I recall you were semi retired and travelling ?
I ask as we are considering solar
Finished travelling and joined the team at Infinite on my return. My focus is large commercial systems but I can point you to the right person for a resi install.
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