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Solar panels

11/11
  • obisteve
    obisteve
    1 year ago
    Yeah, it is complicated. The electricity retaiIers make their plans as difficult to directly compare to their opposition as the people trying to sell you a phone plan.
    I learned a lot in my training in 2001, but I learned more during my 20 years of living off grid, 15 years of that with small solar systems.
    When your backup power comes from a generator you learn to fly your PV system to maximum efficiency.
  • paulybronco
    paulybronco
    1 year ago
    Well it's going to be interesting to do a comparison this month as everything other than the pool pump and fridge are still powered up while I am away from just over a month. All tv sets switched off at the wall, bar fridges switched off including hot water tank.... let's see what the bill comes in at. Your 100% correct about how complex they make their plans..... borderline deceptive.
  • Grease Monkey
    Grease Monkey
    1 year ago
    When we was kids shooting Roo's in the scrub at night you knew which way was what by the sound of the farm generators if you couldn't see the sky, was pretty neat.
  • paulybronco
    paulybronco
    1 year ago
    Yes hilly a further recreational sport that's slowly being made more difficult with either Greenies from the city who have no idea of the destruction of farm land by feral animals or police ministers telling the population how the government shouldn't trust registered firearm owners. 
  • obisteve
    obisteve
    1 year ago
    Quoting Grease Monkey on 22 Jul 2023 01:12 PM

    When we was kids shooting Roo's in the scrub at night you knew which way was what by the sound of the farm generators if you couldn't see the sky, was pretty neat.

    Love those old Southern Cross or Dunlite one lung lighting plant motors. Either kerosene or diesel ones. Also seen them turning the shafts in shearing sheds, or with the belt hooked up to a vacuum pump for milking machines. All torque, no revs. Turn on the fuel tap, put in the crank handle, open up the valve lifter, crank those big flywheels and drop the lifter, chug      chug     chug   chug  chug chug chug
    A hippie friend living in the forest at Mapleton ran one for 15 years. Didn't want to drop trees to open up the canopy to make solar possible. She was a whizz at cranking it, but after 15 years she got out the chainsaw.....
  • keith
    keith
    1 year ago
    Quoting Grease Monkey on 22 Jul 2023 01:12 PM

    When we was kids shooting Roo's in the scrub at night you knew which way was what by the sound of the farm generators if you couldn't see the sky, was pretty neat.

    Quoting obisteve on 23 Jul 2023 11:16 AMedited: 23 Jul 2023 11:28 AM

    Love those old Southern Cross or Dunlite one lung lighting plant motors. Either kerosene or diesel ones. Also seen them turning the shafts in shearing sheds, or with the belt hooked up to a vacuum pump for milking machines. All torque, no revs. Turn on the fuel tap, put in the crank handle, open up the valve lifter, crank those big flywheels and drop the lifter, chug      chug     chug   chug  chug chug chug

    A hippie friend living in the forest at Mapleton ran one for 15 years. Didn't want to drop trees to open up the canopy to make solar possible. She was a whizz at cranking it, but after 15 years she got out the chainsaw.....

    Still, plenty of those old engines restored and seen at the country shows and fairs.
    We had a Lister at home in my young days which ran a 32v 'V' belt system to supply all our needs, and flat belt for the dairy and chaff cutter. 240v passed by was connected at our expense. Kero fridge decommissioned, and B/W TV arrived not long after. As you said a bit of an art to cranking them.
  • keith
    keith
    1 year ago
    Bit of a different take on things in the West, Gov has a surplus and have passed on to with a $400 credit to all homes, over 6 months. This account 1.94 per day, over past 60 days. No solar at my place.
    Screenshot 2023-07-26 151811.png
  • paulybronco
    paulybronco
    2 days ago
     Gee people in good old Victoria are going to love this winter special....The proposed minimum flat feed-in tariff is 0.04 cents per kWh starting 1 July 2025, down from the current 3.3 cents per kWh in 2024–25
  • Hilly
    Hilly
    2 days ago
    There is talk of charging homeowners for the power they pump into the grid in some places! What a turn around from...put solar on, we will give you 44 cents feed in! Buggas ate that away pretty quickly. Batteries are still rather expensive and of late there has been a lot of recalls as well so reliability is questionable.
    I don't have solar here, a reliable battery system would be good though, solar and wind powered.
    As an aside, there is a new wind turbine making the news, scaled down for home use it's about a metre in diameter, quiet as well, looks a bit like a turbo turbine, turns in a slight breeze, I'm in a good spot for a breeze!
    However if you can't store your excess the cost effectiveness probably wouldn't add up if you have to pay a power company for giving them your excess power, thats if it ends up going that way, rambling, out.

  • paulybronco
    paulybronco
    2 days ago
    The whole things a rort about how solar is managed. Last month i generated 1630kwh of power and used 783kwh of power.....pool pump 12hrs a day....ducted ac for a few hrs a night and have a bill for $238.77 for the month. Gee wonder where my $275 election promise went.
  • obisteve
    obisteve
    2 days ago
    Well that's supply and demand and free-market force for you.
    With the massive expansion of solar farms and roof top solar the flood of power into the grid 10am to 2pm, the power isn't worth as much. The high feed in tariffs were a subsidy up till now, the govt made power companies buy solar power, the higher tariff was the only way for them to get it.
    And the subsidy has worked astonishingly well in encouraging rooftop solar.
    Now this only makes sense if you think a free market is the best way to supply an essential service like electricity supply.
    I've got my doubts about that, and Dutton must agree with me on that if he thinks the Oz government should build and run nuclear power plants.
    I'd better stop here, or I'll be on to spraying about the fkn nimbys objecting to new transmission lines. Bet all of them have power connected, so they've been happy for other people to have to put up with power lines. Ones with big farm sheds quite likely have a big solar array on them.
    The 275 kVA Brisbane to Woolooga lines crossed my place at Obi, where I lived off grid. Had a tower on my place, there was no system of compensation for that in place, wasn't allowed to expand my banana plantation onto the easement, and worse, no bastard ever came round and thanked me for putting up with the lines so they could have electricity.
    The lines were pretty entertaining at times. Had a few flash downs into smoke clouds from grass fires passing under them, reckon the lights would have blinked in Brisbane then. The purple brush discharges along the top 2 earth wires after lightning strikes on them was spectacular, and so were the ones up the insulator stacks when we got light rain after dry dusty times; watching blokes sitting on work platforms on helicopter skids repairing lightning damage on cables, wonderful to see superbly skilled piloting like that. And the UFO nutters wanting to camp under the cables with big camera arrays. 
    Wandered off track here, need another cup of tea.
  • Hilly
    Hilly
    2 days ago
    Fuck me Obi you got lots running around up there, you seem to be able to remember just about everything you have absorbed 👍
  • paulybronco
    paulybronco
    yesterday
    Well here we go on the inflation step ladder....electricity price rise on July1....we could break into the top ten most expensive in the world....winning, how good.
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11/11