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Solar panels

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  • Grease Monkey
    Grease Monkey
    1 year ago
    When we had a house full up here our quarterly bills were sometimes $1600 I shit you not so it's not one size fits all type thing, solar would still make plenty of sense if you have big bills for whatever reason, big arse battery would help as well, getting of the grid would be the ideal though, arseholes.
  • obisteve
    obisteve
    1 year ago
    Hadn't been on the grid since 2000 up until I sold and moved 18 months ago. Off grid is easily achieved in SE Qld if the house is appropriately designed and sited. The new house we built in 2015 coped well with only 1.4 kW of panels, 1300 Ahrs of lead acid batteries at 24V, solar hot water with booster element connected to backup generator, gas stove, wood heating, white colourbond roof with insulation, house sited so roof faced magnetic north, sited across slope in an area that generally had a 10° diurnal temperature difference and designed to catch the katabatic breeze that started sliding down the slope after sundown, high thermal mass floor, no carpet,  correct roof overhangs, correct aspect windows with low sill heights on east and north walls. 
    Just got 6.6kW solar installed 2 months ago in our new place, still learning how to juggle use to get best advantage from it. It generated 33 kWhrs today.
    House is a draughty 100+ years old 2 classroom country school, single skin weatherboard walls, lot of banks of glass louvres, 15 foot high ceilings, good colonial design for hot weather pre electricity, bloody cold when it's -5° outside. Wasn't supposed to be anyone there at night.
  • blueystar
    blueystar
    1 year ago
    had my solar for about 5 years only 4kw haven't paid a bill since all ways in credit 
    thumbnail_processed-b70060c4-b0b5-44d8-bab9-423acc7e06d2_eoAlmgHj.jpg
  • 408
    408
    1 year ago
    Quoting obisteve on 04 Jan 2023 02:05 PMedited: 04 Jan 2023 02:12 PM

    Hadn't been on the grid since 2000 up until I sold and moved 18 months ago. Off grid is easily achieved in SE Qld if the house is appropriately designed and sited. The new house we built in 2015 coped well with only 1.4 kW of panels, 1300 Ahrs of lead acid batteries at 24V, solar hot water with booster element connected to backup generator, gas stove, wood heating, white colourbond roof with insulation, house sited so roof faced magnetic north, sited across slope in an area that generally had a 10° diurnal temperature difference and designed to catch the katabatic breeze that started sliding down the slope after sundown, high thermal mass floor, no carpet,  correct roof overhangs, correct aspect windows with low sill heights on east and north walls. 

    Just got 6.6kW solar installed 2 months ago in our new place, still learning how to juggle use to get best advantage from it. It generated 33 kWhrs today.
    House is a draughty 100+ years old 2 classroom country school, single skin weatherboard walls, lot of banks of glass louvres, 15 foot high ceilings, good colonial design for hot weather pre electricity, bloody cold when it's -5° outside. Wasn't supposed to be anyone there at night.

    ' house sited so roof faced magnetic north'
    Interesting point this one. Most people (including architects) don't know the difference between true north, magnetic north and grid north.
    I don't have solar panels, but if I did, I would be looking at the direction of the sun for the summer solstice . and for the winter solstice, depending on whether I wanted to maximise the return in the summer or the winter, or somewhere in between.
  • paulybronco
    paulybronco
    1 year ago
    The bill is user dependent of course  but the majority of our 20kw usage per day comes from the 12hrs the pool pump runs. We average 34kw of generation per day with summer being the peak of course generating up to 81kw. The feed in tariff has gone from the original .25c now down to .05c and with the daily meter fees etc etc there's now a out of pocket.  
  • TJU
    TJU
    1 year ago
    Gidday one and all ... a curiosity question, if you already have normal electricity grid power connected and you want to go totally off grid with some of these new standalone battery's systems, don`t you still have to pay the power supply fee to the Greedy pricks because they say they went to the expense of installing power poles and lines.

    I believe it was approximately $ 170 per quarter here in Sth East Qld, might be more these days ... we live in an area just west of Ipswich and don`t want Sewerage or Mains water put in our area because the same Greedy fee applies to those bills as well ... you get charged regardless of whether you want it or not.   
  • paulybronco
    paulybronco
    1 year ago
    A true off grid system would only cost you the price of the components and then some ongoing maintenance/updating. As you will now no longer require grid supply at night there will no longer be any electrical supply charges.....there is plenty of money to be spent to get to totally off grid depending on how you live.
  • obisteve
    obisteve
    1 year ago
    PB, swap to a DC pump motor fed by its own solar array, run through a maximum power point tracker. Then it will start running automatically  around 7am and turn off maybe 6pm this time of year. It won't give you 20 hours of pumping, but it won't add to your power bill either. Any solar pumping mob will be able to talk to you about it. If 11 hours of filtration isn't enough, tell the kids or guests to stop pissing in the pool.
  • paulybronco
    paulybronco
    1 year ago
    Cheers Steve i have never thought about that.....guessing its not a cheap exercise though. Will have a look into it.
  • obisteve
    obisteve
    1 year ago
    I reckon that it would be about 3 grand. Panels are cheap these days, the biggest expense is probably the maximiser, but it takes your biggest load off grid, and let's your house system deal with the rest during daylight hours. There's no battery to wear out, so running costs are low, only maintenance. If it's a 24V motor, you can legally do that yourself, cleaning and checking tightness on the electrical connections, cleaning panels.
    The Pump House in Nambour should be able to help.
    The big part of using grid connect solar to save money is behavioural, pushing all big loads into daylight hours, preferably between 1000 and 1500.
    With present feed in tariffs, often 5 or 12 cents per kWhr now that early adopter subsidies are running out, you need a big system and probably a 3 phase power connection to be making money from it.
    Although my mate making classic MX frames has a 20 kW system on his shed roof, and it has both cut his power bill to zero, and makes enough to cover his council rates. 
  • paulybronco
    paulybronco
    1 year ago
    As previously mentioned Steve i have 2x 6.5 systems so 13kw on the roof and it still doesn't get me out for free. Just need to be sensible trying to eliminate the bill as i don't intend living in this place forever so don't want to have a system that owes me a fortune for the next owner to reap the benefit. But will look into it, thanks for the heads up. 
  • obisteve
    obisteve
    1 year ago
    Mate, on The Island, make sure that the house is sited to catch the trade winds off the beach, forget the pool and swim in the lagoon.  Maybe a wind turbine on the hill behind the house, also taking advantage of the trade winds.
  • paulybronco
    paulybronco
    1 year ago
    Some of those were the first considerations behind the BBQ Pitmaster champion signing and the beer sponsor.
  • Humbug
    Humbug
    1 year ago
    Quoting obisteve on 06 Jan 2023 02:13 AM

    Mate, on The Island, make sure that the house is sited to catch the trade winds off the beach, forget the pool and swim in the lagoon.  Maybe a wind turbine on the hill behind the house, also taking advantage of the trade winds.

    Nah go for wave power anyone ever see the waves stop?
  • Soapbox2627
    Soapbox2627
    1 year ago
    Quoting obisteve on 06 Jan 2023 02:13 AM

    Mate, on The Island, make sure that the house is sited to catch the trade winds off the beach, forget the pool and swim in the lagoon.  Maybe a wind turbine on the hill behind the house, also taking advantage of the trade winds.

    Quoting Humbug on 06 Jan 2023 07:13 AM

    Nah go for wave power anyone ever see the waves stop?

    like the wind, on a calm day, solar still works on cloudy days

  • obisteve
    obisteve
    1 year ago
    Fellas, if he can afford The Island, he can afford to install solar, backup wind turbine, backup wave power unit, although it will have to be outside the lagoon coz the waves stop when they hit the reef, and the backup diesel generator running on biodiesel from the coconuts.
  • Grease Monkey
    Grease Monkey
    1 year ago
    He can't afford shit Steve, fucker has been stringing us along for years, one broken promise a ft ter another....
  • GGUser260
    GGUser260
    1 year ago
    Quoting Grease Monkey on 07 Jan 2023 10:19 AM

    He can't afford shit Steve, fucker has been stringing us along for years, one broken promise a ft ter another....

    Mutiny on the way to the island!
  • Grease Monkey
    Grease Monkey
    1 year ago
    Quoting Grease Monkey on 07 Jan 2023 10:19 AM

    He can't afford shit Steve, fucker has been stringing us along for years, one broken promise a ft ter another....

    Quoting GGUser260 on 07 Jan 2023 10:49 AM

    Mutiny on the way to the island!

    Show me the island
  • GGUser260
    GGUser260
    1 year ago
    Quoting Grease Monkey on 07 Jan 2023 10:19 AM

    He can't afford shit Steve, fucker has been stringing us along for years, one broken promise a ft ter another....

    Quoting GGUser260 on 07 Jan 2023 10:49 AM

    Mutiny on the way to the island!

    Quoting Grease Monkey on 07 Jan 2023 01:34 PM

    Show me the island

    Close your eyes and you will see it
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