Want to install Solar - where do I start?

[arms]

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

up here in qld the labor party mandated to give a feed in tariff til 2028 of 44 cents per kw and origin gave an extra 6 cents making 50 cents per kw feed in .that's what swayed me ,the legislated feed in tariff ,mine is a 4.56kw system with a top range aurora invertor .While the land was only vacant with the shed on it I was getting over $500 credits quarterly .now the house is finished (yes ,I do finish my own projects) with the machinery in the back shed I am getting bills of $75 owing to the power companies .
my system cost $13,000 after tariffs but I went with a small contractor from whirlpool and couldn't be more pleased with my choices .
nowadays with very little feed in tariff making the reasoning of making money from your system unlikely you need to calculate your usage and get a system to cover your usage with an extra allowance of 20 percent to cover unknowns .
prices of the back up batteries are dropping fast and sooner or later most people will be capable of going off grid .
the power companies will still charge you for poles and wires outside your home and the last thing they and the government want is for people to not be reliant on power to live so expect some resistance from the government in regards to this .
me ,I may buy a bush block and build a self sustainable home .
stuff em !!!

 

[HomePage]

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

Unlikely, because if you use less you will save less and you still have to pay the daily supply fee. Our bills were only $400 before solar and are likely to only be around half that after solar's contribution.

 

[womble66]

I don't care about the aesthetics of the inside of my inverter.

This is one thing that I found from my research and it not about the "aesthetics" more about the quality of the build and components that go to the longevity of the product. From the installers and inspectors over on WP solar Forum there are no good reviews so that was enough for me to steer clear.

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

Yes when they are working they do the job but when they fail its what happens next that cannot be guaranteed even waving the ACCC/ACL about if the OEM doesn't support them too well in-country and your fly-by-night installer has vanished.

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.

But if your not an electrician and it costs you $200-300 + a new unit then the cost saving would be quickly eroded and as I am not a DIY type for these things I just want one I can rely on and hopefully it will last 10-20 years without any issues (so I went a SMA)

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.)

They are as efficient in laymen's term as the next Chinese inverter but it's the "quality & reliability" of the product that is at question.

What *specifically* about a JFY inverter is "not as good"?

As above.

So basically if it working then there is no issues but due to build and component quality (as provided by first hand accounts by the experts on WP) they are just "not as good" as others but like a lot of things we but as a consumer it comes down to a risk vs benefit decision.

In my case I was just happy to minimise a known risk for a major outlay that I just didn't know much about other than the research I done for myself.

I only commented on the JFY in the OPs case as his installer quoted "global best" for the Jinkos and from my understanding they are far from this and therefore brings into questions anything his installer is saying about any product he is flogging especially if the inverter is a JFY like yours..

As they say ... WARNING WILL ROBINSON ..... WARNING WILL ROBINSON.

 

[littletee]

Are you thinking of going through origin energy???

No why? Origin Energy is very expensive I believe.

 

[spludgey]

But if your not an electrician and it costs you $200-300 + a new unit then the cost saving would be quickly eroded and as I am not a DIY type for these things I just want one I can rely on and hopefully it will last 10-20 years without any issues (so I went a SMA)

Each to their own, but I'm convinced that over a period of 10 or 20 years, the cheaper systems will on average outperform the more expensive ones in terms of energy generated per dollar spent.

For me the other disincentive for spending a lot of money on an inverter was that I would probably want to upgrade to something that's compatible with battery storage in the next five years. So shelling out a few grand on a SMA inverter just didn't make sense.

 

[Perp]

Yes when they are working they do the job but when they fail its what happens next that cannot be guaranteed even waving the ACCC/ACL about if the OEM doesn't support them too well in-country and your fly-by-night installer has vanished.

Fair enough. My supplier has been installing SMA, Aurora, and JFY inverters for about 4 years, and reckons that SMA and JFY have similarly low failure rates, but that they were considering dropping Aurora due to too-high failure rates.

For several $K price difference, I'm happy taking the gamble. I could change the JFY inverter several times over, even without taking advantage of any warranty, and still be better off.

 

[Norwester]

Perp,

I don't care about the aesthetics of the inside of my inverter.

And that's fair enough as you wouldn't know what you were looking at or for.....

As for the JFY, I wont say anything on it, or any other inverter for that matter other than reliability. And that is reliability by proven performance, which can only realistically be measured by time in the market place........regardless of the sales pitch.

Even then it is difficult to know as not many companies will give you stats on "in service" failure rates.

Warranty.....yeah great, particularly when the installer has moved on or the product cannot be backed is absolutely useless.

And yeah fair enough on the I can replace it twice point, but the question should still be why do I need to do that? To get a decent ROI you need it working for a lot of years - not be replaced every couple. And what was happening before it failed.....maybe only operating intermittently or well below spec for months maybe....

In years to come when people do start moving off high density grids, reliability will be the key driver.......oh darn the powers out.....oh sh@t I'm responsible....

It may well be that in years to come that JFY (or brand XYZ) proves to be the most reliable inverter in the world......but until then, it's your risk.

And as to looking inside any piece of gear......(seriously) it's about a whole range of issues from component selection to manufacturing and QA standards which are easily seen on disassembly.




ciao

Nor

 

[Norwester]

Perp,

I'ld also seriously be asking about the reliability of the roof mounted isolation switches.......that many have been recalled its not funny. Worst thing about it though is that generally they catch fire.......

ciao

Nor

 

[Perp]

Perp,

I'ld also seriously be asking about the reliability of the roof mounted isolation switches.......that many have been recalled its not funny. Worst thing about it though is that generally they catch fire.......

Will investigate that, thanks.

 

[womble66]

For several $K price difference, I'm happy taking the gamble. I could change the JFY inverter several times over, even without taking advantage of any warranty, and still be better off.

While there is nothing wrong with your position as clearly you done your research and made a decision based on that (some don't) my final point would be to state that last time I looked it was only about $1k difference between them as an example a 5kw JFY Suntwin (~$1100) vs a 5kw SMA Sunnyboy (~$2100) so its only one change and you're square or even behind if you choose a better one next time.

 

[HiEquity]

Being in this industry I have to be careful what I say about particular brands. But I can probably make the following points:

- The cheaper end of the market has its place. I have clients who have five year leases (commercial lessees) and just want the cheap stuff because it's a two year payback and they don't care if it doesn't last anymore than five years. Doubling their capital in five years is fine by them. That's fair enough but they still want the cheap stuff from a reputable long term retailer and distributor so they have someone to chase for the warranty issues. This strategy makes sense for them - they can take comfort in the warranties from the distributor and the retailer at least. That can work for some panels but getting real long term support on cheap inverters is less certain.
- Apart from that particular situation, I would never advise a client to go to that end of the market. This industry has been around for a long time now and there is regular churn of suppliers (distributors and retailers) going broke in that space. The long term successful solar companies (with one or two notable exceptions who are currently facing big challenges in any case) are the ones selling the quality gear.

I continue to be amazed that people who wouldn't dream of buying a Great Wall or Chery will go for the equivalent in the solar market, with roughly the same price differential in play.

If you want technical reasons, silicon ain't silicon - it comes down to:
- Obvious efficiency and degradation differences
- Hand laid panels and frames with poor adhesives / epoxies made in poor conditions vs automated assembly lines with quality materials in clean room semiconductor conditions. The difference is obvious upon close inspection and comparison.
- There is a world of difference in just the panel connectors and their safety. There is a PV World article you can download here on it: http://www.multi-contact.com/products/original.php
Plenty of others around the traps too - quick google and you will see them. Same applies to rooftop DC isolators.
- This video is also worth a look on inverters: http://www.energymatters.com.au/renewable-news/em3152/
- Many inverters are able to pass current testing requirements but still not actually be compliant with the underlying technical rules - the new AS4777 will hopefully help weed this out in future but currently it's a big problem and has long been an issue with network companies being "unhelpful" in solar connections because they can't differentiate by brand but in truth they are much more comfortable with the algorithms used at the top end of the market rather than elsewhere...

This issue has been a terrible one for this industry - we just haven't done a good job (as an industry) of educating the public on what constitutes good quality panels and inverters and why they are worth paying for. If someone really wants to know they have to spend hours and hours trawling Whirlpool threads for the info. The car industry is a good model for us about how to do it properly. Very few people will want the Porsche level ($2/W) but I reckon a lot more people would go for the Toyota ($1.5/W) if they knew the real differences over the Chery ($1/W). Unfortunately the people selling the Chery will deny their being any differences. While this is somewhat debatable on panels, it really isn't on inverters. At the end of the day, this is just the same as any other semiconductor device in the market except when you buy a bottom of the range TV you don't expect it to last twenty years operating outside for 8 hours a day, 7 days per week!

Keep in mind also that this isn't a China thing despite the brands I've used above for comparison - some great stuff comes out of China in solar. But the reality is that, for equivalent quality, China no longer enjoys any real price advantage. It's just that a lot more Chinese manufacturers are prepared to bring to market poor quality panels and inverters than is the case in other countries. You pay for that in lower energy production (which only a tiny % of the market ever properly checks) and much higher failure rates, particularly on inverters. And discoloured panels aren't a good look, regardless of whether they're still producing. You pay for what you get, just like everywhere else.

In my personal view, if this is a >5 year investment, the marginal cost of stumping up for the Toyota level is well worthwhile.

 

[HiEquity]

For whoever mentioned it, SMA have a plug-in module (at extra cost) that does Wi-Fi for monitoring etc. Other good quality options like Fronius come with Wi-Fi already. It's a similar story with load control (eg for electric hot water heating when the sun is out).

On the battery front, the debate here and on Whirlpool misses a very important point. Batteries compete with the power network to provide the same service but with one very important difference - the network has already been built.

If you are the owner of that network, are you going to sit back and watch batteries take away all your revenue, or are you going to drop your price to get some revenue out of your sunk asset, rather than none? As batteries become competitive, network charges will just drop and they can go nearly all the way to zero as the capital has already been spent. It's all good (if it happens) for consumers (cheaper electricity) and bad for network owners (stranded assets) but it's hard to see a situation develop where batteries come in to take a large slice of the cake as a result, even if they do drop in price like solar has (yet to be proven!). You still have to pay for the new battery whereas the network has already been built!

The only place where this changes is in rural areas where overhead power lines are falling down of old age and the cost of replacement is horrendous. On today's battery numbers, it is already no longer viable to build new power lines if customers are anymore than around 500m apart and have solar access.

 

[charlieandkath]

Poor man pays twice or now thrice in my opinion. Stick to SMA and a Tier One panel out of China eg Trina, Suntech, Canadian.

Pay circa $1.40 to $1.60 per watt after rebate. eg 5kW $7000 to $8000 including GST.

Take note of Hi Equity above. Sounds like he has some good experience in the game.

 

[ChrisA1]

Great comments HiEquity.

You talk about batteries vs the grid. I agree that the grid has been built (and both need regular maintenance) but there are no shareholders for batteries. I'm not sure the shareholders will be pleased to see reducing electricity prices for their returns (I agree with the comment about needing to keep electricity competitively priced).

As you said, there are a number of rural holdings going off the grid due to the reliability of the system in rural areas.

WE chose to go off-grid because while the initial set up is a substantial cost (~7 years payback - at today's rates), as HiEquity says the price of batteries should continue to reduce as technology and efficiency improves. We understand that the batteries and inverter need to be changed each 8 or so years (based on a 50% drawdown). There will always be pros and cons, it just depends on which way you slice it.

 

[spludgey]

Poor man pays twice or now thrice in my opinion. Stick to SMA and a Tier One panel out of China eg Trina, Suntech, Canadian.

Pay circa $1.40 to $1.60 per watt after rebate. eg 5kW $7000 to $8000 including GST.

Take note of Hi Equity above. Sounds like he has some good experience in the game.

I'm guessing you buy new properties and aren't too concerned about yield?
I buy run down houses that give me a high yield. Similarly, if I was to spend $8000 on solar, I'd get 10kW not 5kW.

 

[HiEquity]

Great comments HiEquity.

You talk about batteries vs the grid. I agree that the grid has been built (and both need regular maintenance) but there are no shareholders for batteries. I'm not sure the shareholders will be pleased to see reducing electricity prices for their returns (I agree with the comment about needing to keep electricity competitively priced).

As you said, there are a number of rural holdings going off the grid due to the reliability of the system in rural areas.

WE chose to go off-grid because while the initial set up is a substantial cost (~7 years payback - at today's rates), as HiEquity says the price of batteries should continue to reduce as technology and efficiency improves. We understand that the batteries and inverter need to be changed each 8 or so years (based on a 50% drawdown). There will always be pros and cons, it just depends on which way you slice it.

Thanks Chris

The shareholders of the network would rather see some revenue than no revenue - dropping prices is the economically rational thing to do for a profit seeking network company to do in the face of technological risk like this.

Where it gets more interesting is situations (such as your own) where either the existing network needs to be replaced or built new. Any subdivision developer will wax lyrical about headworks charges for power connections these days. The reality is that in many cases the cost of stand alone power systems is already competitive with the cost of new power lines. In addition the former has a much lower labour component than the latter so that differential will grow by itself even if batteries never get any cheaper.

In the conventional situation, for the money the developer pays the network company to get a connection to each block the end customer gets the right to pay power bills for the next twenty years. This isn't the case for the stand alone option.

 

[HiEquity]

I'm guessing you buy new properties and aren't too concerned about yield?
I buy run down houses that give me a high yield. Similarly, if I was to spend $8000 on solar, I'd get 10kW not 5kW.

Another way of looking at the difference between the two options is one gives you a payback of three years for twenty years ($1.50 / W), while the other gives you a payback of two years for an average of around 7-8 years ($1/W) but with significant downside (and safety) risk.

Pick your poison!

I believe others have previously explained how investing in solar is nothing like investing in property.

 

[littletee]

For whoever mentioned it, SMA have a plug-in module (at extra cost) that does Wi-Fi for monitoring etc. Other good quality options like Fronius come with Wi-Fi already. It's a similar story with load control (eg for electric hot water heating when the sun is out).

On the battery front, the debate here and on Whirlpool misses a very important point. Batteries compete with the power network to provide the same service but with one very important difference - the network has already been built.

If you are the owner of that network, are you going to sit back and watch batteries take away all your revenue, or are you going to drop your price to get some revenue out of your sunk asset, rather than none? As batteries become competitive, network charges will just drop and they can go nearly all the way to zero as the capital has already been spent. It's all good (if it happens) for consumers (cheaper electricity) and bad for network owners (stranded assets) but it's hard to see a situation develop where batteries come in to take a large slice of the cake as a result, even if they do drop in price like solar has (yet to be proven!). You still have to pay for the new battery whereas the network has already been built!

The only place where this changes is in rural areas where overhead power lines are falling down of old age and the cost of replacement is horrendous. On today's battery numbers, it is already no longer viable to build new power lines if customers are anymore than around 500m apart and have solar access.

Thanks for your input hiequity, you clearly know your stuff.

Cheers

 

[womble66]

I'm guessing you buy new properties and aren't too concerned about yield? I buy run down houses that give me a high yield. Similarly, if I was to spend $8000 on solar, I'd get 10kW not 5kW.

Just for interest sake, as stated above, what type of car do you drive? I am sure you do not use the same philosophy for all the decision when it comes to how much you have to outlay.

For me yield or return on investment or capital loss/gain or cost of ownership, its all the same.

 

[spludgey]

Just for interest sake, as stated above, what type of car do you drive? I am sure you do not use the same philosophy for all the decision when it comes to how much you have to outlay.

For me yield or return on investment or capital loss/gain or cost of ownership, its all the same.

2002 Honda Jazz that's quite beaten up. Has a lot of space for a small car, yet uses little fuel and is easy to park anywhere.