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Nerdishness and Solar power

oztimmay

oztimmay

Geoff Shaw (53)
Staff member
must be making bak with that solar panel of yours...

solar panel reflector.png
 
Pfitzy

Pfitzy

George Gregan (70)
It varies a lot from installer to installer - I've even had some guys say they put east facing panels for a family who said they were in the house a lot during the morning and had an unobstructed aspect.

Housing design is obviously a big factor in this. I'm not really in the school of thought that you should make panels pay for themselves by simply getting as many as you can fit and live it up on the export. As the quoted article says: that has a limited lifespan.

Even modest storage on a lot of solar systems could be valuable for grid smoothing and arbitrage. My system (4.5 years now) has been slowly degrading in storage capacity per the warranty, so in a few years I'll be looking to top that up.

Worth noting that COVID, along with a cold winter, has utterly screwed with the ability to calculate current capacity due to the offpeak loading up of electrons.
 
Braveheart81

Braveheart81

Will Genia (78)
Staff member
We are finally getting solar installed in a few weeks time.

It's a 4.68kW system which will be installed horizontally on a section of the roof that has a small angle as that is the best option we have. It's not in the ideal direction (it's on the East-south-east side of the roof which is the only section that isn't slate).

Anyway, should still make a substantial difference and pay itself off after a few years. We will look to add a battery in a couple of years.
 
Pfitzy

Pfitzy

George Gregan (70)
Ha funny - I've been sent about a dozen of those with "NSWRebate.Solar" as the headline.

They're scammers. Report the fuck out of them - for using my image without permission if nothing else.
 
Pfitzy

Pfitzy

George Gregan (70)
Been around for years in one form or another and there's a reason it hasn't taken off: bastard to manage, not very efficient per square metre. And a lot more plug work than a standard panel array = more points of failure.

I would hate to need to find the failed unit in an array of a few hundred on a two storey roof when a single 15W panel fails. Also wondering how they do optimisation when partial shade operates.

If he's saying 15W each, and 10 tiles to the square metre, that is 150W/sqm.

Current "standard" panel for solar is about 320W for 1.6sqm = 200W/sqm.

Aesthetics is important to some people I guess.
 
Pfitzy

Pfitzy

George Gregan (70)
boyo said:
Flattening bill shock with solar smarts


https://www.smh.com.au/environment/...-shock-with-solar-smarts-20210128-p56xi2.html
Click to expand...


Sponsored by sonnen ;)

The sonnen plan setup was very interesting - and I think their options in battery sizes offer good flexibility.

Provided you don't breach your limit, it is a no-brainer. He's paying roughly what I did for the last 12 months (me $670, him $720 @ $60/month) but has a bit more capacity up his sleeve if he needs it. Of course you have to pay for the hardware yourself, which is a slightly higher outlay than mine was.

https://sonnen.com.au/sonnenflat/

As to being "halfway" to recouping costs - that might be true if the calculation was against his increased usage at a non-discounted rate, I guess. From memory, Steve got this setup about 18 months after mine landed, when Natural Solar switched gears. Tho he was spending up to $4K per annum, which is more about a bad electricity deal than anything. FIVE TVs? Jeez...

Whatever works for you I guess. Knowing the bill is $180 a quarter is nice if you've previously been paying $1K.

My Powerwall is now 5 years old and suffered mild degradation, so I'm not getting quite the oomph out of it I did at the start. It is on the smaller side these days tho, so I'm thinking an upgrade might be in order.
 
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