I can't believe I only just saw this thread again. Bend over fuckers, the Truthmobile has a new highway to plough!
Nah I've got all my shit over on my website which you should all know off by heart and read religiously.
It is interesting to read about some new green initiatives, but I need to take issue with this:
I'm not against off-grid. I think there are cirumstances where it is more than warranted e.g. rural places where you've picked a beaut location, but the power company needs to run infrastructure, for example
http://www.afr.com/personal-finance/how-to-cut-energy-costs-by-going-off-the-grid-20160229-gn6clg
If you can't see that one behind a paywall or something, basically:
General practitioner Andrea Ray was not particularly green before she built her dream home in a semi-rural location outside Adelaide, and she certainly wasn't a hippy.
But when SA Power quoted upwards of $100,000 to bring power to the block of land, in a picturesque range 10 minutes from South Australia's McLaren Vale, she and her husband, Alistair, were immediately attracted to the idea of living off the grid.
"When they added in the substation and trenching, they were talking $150,000 to $200,000 and that's when we considered other options," says Ray. "We met several companies including Zen Energy and, with a few small changes to the original plans, we were able to be nearly entirely energy self-sufficient."
They opted for the Zen Freedom PowerBank energy storage system, which cost $120,000, saving them at least $50,000 in set-up costs.
Pretty easy financial decision. Especially if the land you buy is going to be cheap as chips and you're building your Forever Home on it.
But this is an extreme case - 90% of us live in an urbanised area, where grid setups are in place, and spending $120K just for the sake of not buying power is utterly ridiculous when it is relatively cheap to have it as a backup.
Further, if you're going to spend the money on getting the battery, then step up again for green credentials and get a provider who can deliver green power.
Up until the last couple of years, most systems were 2kW of panels or less. I think we'll now start to see the 4kW+ systems being the norm, with around 5kW being the average.
A lot of the inverter market caters for around the 5kW mark, because they understand that in terms of roof space this is about the maximum most people can hold, or will be prepared to spend on.
The battery systems people will then want to install depend on a few things, but you'd consider systems like the Powerwall the absolute bottom of the market as far as storage capacity goes.
For 6.4kWh it gets me through most nights, but its not going to get me off-grid. If its about 80% or more at sundown, on an average night where the house burns ~0.5kWh from sundown to 10PM then ~200 through to dawn, it will go through with capacity left.
The good news is a lot of competitors are entering the market and that will set up some competition once the early adopter phase settles down, and numbers start to come to the fore. Some manufacturers are offering stackable units, with a base of ~6kWh and additional slots of 1.2ish kWh to add on as budget and space permits.
I'd be watching Victoria and South Australia as touchstone markets, because the former has massive price issues with its consumer base, and the latter is somewhat isolated on the end of the South Eastern grid, and looking to make itself a renewables hub:
http://reneweconomy.com.au/2016/sa-...o-fast-track-adelaide-zero-carbon-plans-50716
They want to grow an industry at the very least.
The ACT is going gangbusters with this stuff.
Putting up wind farms and massive solar arrays almost with abandon, and putting batteries into domestic application with subsidies:
http://www.energymatters.com.au/renewable-news/canberra-battery-subsidy-em5260/
If you ever do the drive to Cooma via the ACT, you'll have seen the Royalla farm:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-03/royalla-solar-farm-opens-south-of-canberra/5716500
