Rooftop solar - recent experiences in Canberra?

Southmouth said :

Maya123 said :

BlackIce said :

If you’re interested in going off-grid, ActewAGL have an article on their website about a battery storage trial which is supposed to happen later this year. http://www.actewagl.com.au/Product-and-services/Battery-storage.aspx

Thank you, interesting, but I don’t think this is being developed for people to go off-grid, but rather as a source of extra power for ACTEW, (“for those few days when everyone turns on their air-conditioner”) with some benefit to people who buy into this, such as security if the grid goes down. Please correct my understanding if I am wrong. It does sounds interesting, as security is very attractive.

Yes. It will allow grid companies to turn off your grid supply when wholesale prices go from the $30 per MWh norm to the $12500 per MWh on extreme peak demand times. There is a conspiracy theory that the grid companies may access your stored energy to service other customers but no feasible models for this exist yet. The largest benefit for consumers is that you suddenly get access to all your own solar generation regardless of time of day, well up to the point of a fully charged battery anyway

Jeez, tram travel is going to be expensive when the sun ain’t shining and the wind ain’t blowin’.
Yee hah!

Maya123 said :

BlackIce said :

If you’re interested in going off-grid, ActewAGL have an article on their website about a battery storage trial which is supposed to happen later this year. http://www.actewagl.com.au/Product-and-services/Battery-storage.aspx

Thank you, interesting, but I don’t think this is being developed for people to go off-grid, but rather as a source of extra power for ACTEW, (“for those few days when everyone turns on their air-conditioner”) with some benefit to people who buy into this, such as security if the grid goes down. Please correct my understanding if I am wrong. It does sounds interesting, as security is very attractive.

Yes. It will allow grid companies to turn off your grid supply when wholesale prices go from the $30 per MWh norm to the $12500 per MWh on extreme peak demand times. There is a conspiracy theory that the grid companies may access your stored energy to service other customers but no feasible models for this exist yet. The largest benefit for consumers is that you suddenly get access to all your own solar generation regardless of time of day, well up to the point of a fully charged battery anyway

BlackIce said :

If you’re interested in going off-grid, ActewAGL have an article on their website about a battery storage trial which is supposed to happen later this year. http://www.actewagl.com.au/Product-and-services/Battery-storage.aspx

Thank you, interesting, but I don’t think this is being developed for people to go off-grid, but rather as a source of extra power for ACTEW, (“for those few days when everyone turns on their air-conditioner”) with some benefit to people who buy into this, such as security if the grid goes down. Please correct my understanding if I am wrong. It does sounds interesting, as security is very attractive.

Holden Caulfield said :

arescarti42 said :

Where it might be cost effective is if you can shift a large proportion of your electricity consumption to the hours when your panels will be producing the most electricity.

How so? It’s two independent scenarios.

When I had panels connected at a former house all the power generated went straight into the grid, regardless of whether the household was using power or not?

That is, with ACTEW, the panels do not supply power directly to the house at all.

The householder gets paid by ACTEW for the power their panels produce and this income is offset against their electricity bill, hopefully with a surplus.

Unless things have changed over the last year or three???

My understanding was those with solar panels could chose between net and gross metering, whereby with net metering, you only sell excess electricity to the grid, and with gross metering, you sell all electricity produced back to the grid.

(see http://www.resourcesandenergy.nsw.gov.au/energy-consumers/solar/solar-faq#1 for an example)

The old feed in tariff i believe is about 60c a kw/h, which is way higher than the retail cost of electricity, so under that regime it makes financial sense to sell everything back to the grid and just buy it back cheaper.

The current feed in tariff is i think 7c a kw/h, which is lower than even the off peak retail electricity rate, so it makes financial sense to try use the electricity you produce, rather than sell it back to the grid.

BlackIce said :

If you’re interested in going off-grid, ActewAGL have an article on their website about a battery storage trial which is supposed to happen later this year. http://www.actewagl.com.au/Product-and-services/Battery-storage.aspx

Nope. This is grid connected battery storage solar. This is much better than off grid.

If you’re interested in going off-grid, ActewAGL have an article on their website about a battery storage trial which is supposed to happen later this year. http://www.actewagl.com.au/Product-and-services/Battery-storage.aspx

bryansworld said :

Maya123 said :

Paul Costigan said :

Double glazing in Canberra should be mandatory on new and renovated houses.

I agree, but there needs to be standards introduced with double glazing, for instance, I have seen figures showing that many aluminium double glazed windows are no better than single glazed wooden framed windows. Double glazed aluminium windows need thermal breaks in the frames to stop the heat flowing through them, and all double glazed windows need enough gap between the glass. When I was shopping for windows I rejected many windows, because they didn’t have enough gap. I looked at windows in Europe recently, and I didn’t see any narrow gaps in the double glazing there, such as I have seen here. We need improved standards for them.

Remember that bigger is not necessarily better with the double-glazing gap. If it is too wide, then there is more convection in the gap, which results in more heat transfer. I think the recommended gap is something like a centimetre?

12mm is what I believe is the best gap, but many windows I looked at only had about 6mm.

Maya123 said :

Paul Costigan said :

Double glazing in Canberra should be mandatory on new and renovated houses.

I agree, but there needs to be standards introduced with double glazing, for instance, I have seen figures showing that many aluminium double glazed windows are no better than single glazed wooden framed windows. Double glazed aluminium windows need thermal breaks in the frames to stop the heat flowing through them, and all double glazed windows need enough gap between the glass. When I was shopping for windows I rejected many windows, because they didn’t have enough gap. I looked at windows in Europe recently, and I didn’t see any narrow gaps in the double glazing there, such as I have seen here. We need improved standards for them.

Remember that bigger is not necessarily better with the double-glazing gap. If it is too wide, then there is more convection in the gap, which results in more heat transfer. I think the recommended gap is something like a centimetre?

Holden Caulfield said :

arescarti42 said :

Where it might be cost effective is if you can shift a large proportion of your electricity consumption to the hours when your panels will be producing the most electricity.

How so? It’s two independent scenarios.

When I had panels connected at a former house all the power generated went straight into the grid, regardless of whether the household was using power or not?

That is, with ACTEW, the panels do not supply power directly to the house at all.

The householder gets paid by ACTEW for the power their panels produce and this income is offset against their electricity bill, hopefully with a surplus.

Unless things have changed over the last year or three???

Nope, still the same way my panels are working, they’re metered separately.

Paul Costigan said :

Double glazing in Canberra should be mandatory on new and renovated houses.

I agree, but there needs to be standards introduced with double glazing, for instance, I have seen figures showing that many aluminium double glazed windows are no better than single glazed wooden framed windows. Double glazed aluminium windows need thermal breaks in the frames to stop the heat flowing through them, and all double glazed windows need enough gap between the glass. When I was shopping for windows I rejected many windows, because they didn’t have enough gap. I looked at windows in Europe recently, and I didn’t see any narrow gaps in the double glazing there, such as I have seen here. We need improved standards for them.

Holden Caulfield said :

arescarti42 said :

Where it might be cost effective is if you can shift a large proportion of your electricity consumption to the hours when your panels will be producing the most electricity.

How so? It’s two independent scenarios.

When I had panels connected at a former house all the power generated went straight into the grid, regardless of whether the household was using power or not?

That is, with ACTEW, the panels do not supply power directly to the house at all.

The householder gets paid by ACTEW for the power their panels produce and this income is offset against their electricity bill, hopefully with a surplus.

Unless things have changed over the last year or three???

That is my understanding too, and how my solar panels work. I have 2.5Kw and I produce a surplus of electricity. My power is fed into the grid and I separately take power back from the grid at three rates; peak, mid and off-peak charges. So I attempt to run things such as dish washes and turn on the hot water booster (only if needed) in off-peak times. Easy to organise this.

About the article above by Deadly Schnauzer – I don’t subscribe to the Wall Street Journal so cannot use the link – but have noticed articles debunking the arguments put in the journal – for instance:

http://www.ilsr.org/the-hole-in-brian-potts-wsj-critique-of-the-solar-panel-craze/

To correct the another comment above – the solar panels now feed into ACTEW who then provide a credit on your power bill.

A couple of years ago, we were about to buy panels but hesitated for several reasons – including being too busy on other things.

Instead we installed more double glazing – which has been a fantastic and has resulted in the use of much less heating during the last couple of winters – plus being able to have the curtains open far more often. Double glazing in Canberra should be mandatory on new and renovated houses.

I read a lot of this topic (solar and alternative energies) and have to say that it is very difficult to see where this is all heading. And there’s heaps of spin out there!

For those who got in early, they did well as the subsidies were far more generous then. But the question now is what is around the corner? There’s no doubt the whole paradigm is about to change and the days are numbered for Big Coal and Big Power models such as ACTEW (or whatever they are today).

If you plan to stay in your present house for ten years plus – the advice is that it is probably – maybe still worth putting solar on your roof – depending on the deal you get. There are some shonky deals out there.

I look forward to hearing from others about the valuable deals and good suppliers – as our decision to go solar or not is still out there. Meanwhile we love our double glazing.

I was recently quoted $8300 for a 5.2kw system, that was after $4200 in subsidy.

Have decide against it, because at that price, based on what their own power savings estiamte would be, it would take 11 years to break even. Of course that is based on todays prices, so clearly won’t be that long in reality, but no where near as cost saving as one would think.

Now if I could get the feed in tarif that was offered a few years back, then wouldn’t blink an eyelid at all.

Battery backed grid connected solar is on the cusp of being available from most grid companies. Best of both worlds, you get to use your solar power day and night but don’t need a weeks worth of battery capacity as with off grid systems. Numbers i’m hearing are about an additional 10k initially but expected to fall quickly.

arescarti42 said :

Where it might be cost effective is if you can shift a large proportion of your electricity consumption to the hours when your panels will be producing the most electricity.

How so? It’s two independent scenarios.

When I had panels connected at a former house all the power generated went straight into the grid, regardless of whether the household was using power or not?

That is, with ACTEW, the panels do not supply power directly to the house at all.

The householder gets paid by ACTEW for the power their panels produce and this income is offset against their electricity bill, hopefully with a surplus.

Unless things have changed over the last year or three???

DeadlySchnauzer said :

First point. You will not escape the clutches of ACTEW…. you will still be required to maintain a connection to them for base load power (at night, cloudy days etc). Best case you will save a little but of money each year. Worst case when upfront and maintenance costs are amortized over the lifetime of your house and/or the panels, you will probably lose money overall.

Second point. If you want to save the environment, rooftop solar is the least efficient way to do it. The whole system is built around layers of subsidies that when factored in to get a true cost of abatement make it a completely nonsensical way to try and reduce CO2 emissions. Here is (one of many) good summaries

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-hole-in-the-rooftop-solar-panel-craze-1431899563

Short story, get Greenchoice energy instead. Or better yet, vote for a political party that wants to introduce a market based carbon pricing mechanism.

The only thing factually accurate is that you cannot completely escape the clutches of ACTEW unless you go completely off grid. And that will cost a lot more than $5500.

the people I know with solar panels are very happy with them. Some of them are on the original very high rebates though.

the actual cost of the panels is much cheaper these days, so if your household uses daytime electricity, I think it is worth going ahead. also if you plan to be in your house for he next few years, to get the benefits.

We are still considering it also.

Can anyone recommend a good supplier?

Deadly Schnauzer makes some good points.

Depending on your goal (i.e. are you looking to reduce your CO2 emissions, or are you looking to reduce your energy costs?) there are probably more cost effective ways to achieve them than by sticking panels on your roof.

Where it might be cost effective is if you can shift a large proportion of your electricity consumption to the hours when your panels will be producing the most electricity.

First point. You will not escape the clutches of ACTEW…. you will still be required to maintain a connection to them for base load power (at night, cloudy days etc). Best case you will save a little but of money each year. Worst case when upfront and maintenance costs are amortized over the lifetime of your house and/or the panels, you will probably lose money overall.

Second point. If you want to save the environment, rooftop solar is the least efficient way to do it. The whole system is built around layers of subsidies that when factored in to get a true cost of abatement make it a completely nonsensical way to try and reduce CO2 emissions. Here is (one of many) good summaries

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-hole-in-the-rooftop-solar-panel-craze-1431899563

Short story, get Greenchoice energy instead. Or better yet, vote for a political party that wants to introduce a market based carbon pricing mechanism.