Jewelry has always been expensive 
Tax on exported solar energy being considered.
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It appears that the Australian Energy Market Commission does not work on evidence based decision making, but rather lobbyist based policy development.
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I think the only evidence they are working on is from the electricity companies, the collapsing of their business model, and the need to maintain massive profits! The evidence for climate change and the benefits to all from solar power doesn’t appear to be relevant to them.
Solar Citizens have a campaign against the solar tax here:
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Signed the petition.
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Hi Baycreek
As pointed out in other posts, the meter is only there to measure power, whether it is power consumed from the mains or exported from the PV cell generation. The inverter is there to convert the DC power generated by the PV cells into AC power for use in the house and any extra exported. The inverter will detect when a mains power failure happens and will automatically shut down, so no AC power output.
This is NOT some electricity company conspiracy to gouge money or any other weird interpretation. It is there for the safety of the electricity workers! Imagine if there was a power failure and the PV cell power remained connected to the mains (known as “islanding”), what would happen if a worker touched the live mains? Even though this is extreme, it is potentially possible for that worker to receive an electric shock, which would vary depending on many factors, but it could be fatal!
Now, how would you feel if your solar panel generated power resulted in a death??
That being said, there is no technical reason or regulation why you cannot have a switch to isolate your house from the mains in the event of a power failure. It is not generally done because to have it work automatically you need a sensor detect the power failure to operate the switch which would isolate the mains, but maintain the PV cell supply to the house. Failure of this control could result in feeding into the mains, so it needs to be fail safe. An alternative would be to have a manual transfer switch which would do the same thing as the automatic switch, but you would need to go to the meter box to operate the switch yourself.
These are a few things needed for this to work:
- You will need to have an inverter which has an oscillator NOT dependant on the mains for the correct frequency.
- Is you mains supply single or multi-phase power. Most solar generation is single phase, so in a multiphase house the solar power would only provide power to the circuits on the phase it is connected to. The others phases would not have power (there are ways around this but it needs a really good electrician)
- The power generated by the solar panels is dependant on how sunny it is and the angle of the sun. So the power generated will not necessarily be the rating of the PV cells, it will be less. So, you cannot work on the rating of your system to work out how much you an connect, if you try to connect too much load the inverter may shut down, losing all that benefit. What this means is that you will need to monitor your generation and your consumption so the system is not overladed. Things of particular concern would be anything with a motor they they will overlap and burn out (especially refrigerators) and freezers!
A battery system is a whole new situation, but there are 3-phase systems available capable of operating “off grid” i.e. not connected to the mains. This introduces problems of size (which determines how long the batteries will operate), which in turn introduces ‘cost’ - how much is it really worth paying for being able to maintain power during a blackout? When was your last blackout and how long did it last??
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Appreciate the information, thanks.
Pam
Thought you might like to watch this Youtube video about Temperature changes:
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Similar in concept to the temperature spiral video I’ve seen, there is no doubt it is getting hotter!
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A fluff piece that might be relevant to some. The one bit missing from this topical analysis is the lost cost of opportunity of the $8,000 installation. eg it could be alternatively invested in shares, reducing a mortgage, or an online account, so would provide some theoretical offset if it was not used for solar. Reality is what are the odds, but it should be considered in the equation.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/money/finance-news/2018/02/17/rooftop-solar-power-costs-savings/
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At the time I did mine there was another scheme that saw the total cost at 4500$ for 5 kW - my break-even point is smidgen over 2 years (I think less though) - get @vax2000 to measure out that smidgen for you if you’re not sure how big it is (then tell me, because I’m not sure either - but see if a month will go into the measurement device - we digress) - and for various other reasons it was a no-brainer …
I can see if install was an 8-10k matter, and if the power company didn’t buy and sell at equal rates, and if those rates were very disparate - ie payback 5 or 10 years, it might b a very different story …
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An interesting report on one relative newcomer.
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Sounds like an advert. I note that others are selling the product too.
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Good luck, I was silly enough to put solar panels on my property, only to learn that unless you go completely off the grid in the NT - the limit is 18 panels = 6Kw - now there’s a joke for you, also the consumer pays 24c pkwh, the solar reimbursement is 6cpkwh…
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You will find that the power station owners get around this amount also for each kW it generates. In recent years the average pool price has been increasing due to higher generation costs. In some eastern states the FIT has increased slightly in the past year or so to reflect the higher average electricity pool price.
The 24c includes retail margins, network (powerline) costs, RETs etc.
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As I understand it, in the NT there is no limit to the ‘number of panels’ as such, but for domestic use the inverter is limited to 5 kVA for single phase and 7 kVA for three phase. On a flat rate tariff the consumer pays 25.67 cents per kWh and there is a ‘Switch To Six’ tariff where peak is 0600 to 1800 weekdays only at 30.28 cents per kWh, 23.09 cents per kWh for the rest. Fixed daily charge is the same on all tariffs at 50.6 cents per day. The solar buy-back rate is 25.67 per kWh.
My house has minimal occupancy during the ‘peak’ hours so the peak/off-peak tariff is noticeably better for me.
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An interesting article regarding the rapidly increasing uptake in solar power in Australia.
(I would have posted this item under renewable energy but the topic is locked.)
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Comparing us to the US can take you down a garden path. When it comes to larger systems unless you are off-grid the economics can be distilled in a simple manner by a few questions.
- How much electricity do you consume and when (FiT and time of day tariffs)
- If you have batteries can they provide all your needs for days or just time shift supplying your consumption for dark hours or cloudy days?
- Add up 1 and 2 and any more solar capacity is funded by what in Vic is often an 11.3c FiT. Assume your entire 10kw system is 100% available to export. Most utilities only allow a 5KW feed-in so you will be maxing it out. Compare 5KW at 11.3c per annum against the system cost.
Conclusion is if you have enough PV and battery capacity to cover 1+2, any more is questionable and anything more than an export capacity of 5KW is not on for grid connection in most places.
Re the 10 KW system, Interesting? Absolutely. Practical? Maybe. Economically sound? Probably not here. Off-grid is a different set of equations where function is dominant.
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An article predicting that renewable energy will overtake fossil fuel generation in Britian by 2020.
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A scathing article by Ross Greenwood on Australia’s electricity industry.
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