Depends on what your average consumption is Trevor. We have a 1.5kw system installed in Sept 2010 and so far we have not paid a cent in electricity and current in credit by $250. This boils down to several factors:
1. Our household of 2 adults and 2 kids are not home during the day.
2. The Vic premium feed in tarrif is 66c a kwh, compared with "importing" price of 23c a kwh for peak (mon-fri 7am-11pm) and 16c per kwh for off peak (all other times and weekends). So we use mostly off peak electricity.
3. We did other green measures such as powering off at the wall, solar hot water (gas boosted), insulation etc, which reduced our demand for air cond and other demands.
Pricewise the system is cheap. But you may find that if you spend most of your time at home, then the savings may be minimal.
A word of advice, upgrade to a better inverter, it is the heart of any solar PV system. Sunny Boy and other German branded (made in China) have good reputation. My inverter is a Latronics brand (Aust made). As for panels, 90% of them are from China, the other 10% are from Japan and Germany and command a 30% premium, but not too much difference in quality and performance IMHO.
Bo
AGL buy the power generated by my system @52 cents/ kw.
I buy it back from them @19 cents/ kw.
My latest electricity bill was $146.00 in CREDIT..... ( I used to have to pay them between $285.00 to $300.00 every quarter ) ... now they owe me ....... Yay... !!!!
IMHO .... it is well worth it.... I paid cash at the time of installation ... fully installed $2645.00.... after rebates.
It put a on my face when I watched the power Meter " turn backwards ".... later on ... the power company came over and replaced it with a " Digital " Meter.
Have recently purchased a " Solar Hot Water " system also ... even with all the raining weather .... 5 days or more ... I still have HOT water ... and I mean HOT .... have to mix in cold to keep it at a bearable temp ... haven't had to use the " booster " switch.
Flash
Last edited by FlashDrive; 09-02-2012 at 10:12 AM.
Reason: correction
Holy cow you guys in the Eastern states get cheap electricity, it cost me 28c for the 1st 1200kw and around 30c for the next 1000kw. And that is the winter rate, it rises a couple of cents per Kwh for the summer tarif. Typical here in SA getting ripped off. I have a 4.5kw system, and got a cheque back for over $600 last quarter of billing.
would have been a lot more if we didnt have to pay so much for what we actually import from the grid.
The solar companies here are offering systems for under half the price they were 8 months ago, makes me wonder how much they had their prices marked up. Once the feedin tarif was dropped by the SA Govt the companies managed to offer systems at crazy prices compared to 8 months ago.
Holy cow you guys in the Eastern states get cheap electricity, it cost me 28c for the 1st 1200kw and around 30c for the next 1000kw. And that is the winter rate, it rises a couple of cents per Kwh for the summer tarif. Typical here in SA getting ripped off. I have a 4.5kw system, and got a cheque back for over $600 last quarter of billing.
would have been a lot more if we didnt have to pay so much for what we actually import from the grid.
The solar companies here are offering systems for under half the price they were 8 months ago, makes me wonder how much they had their prices marked up. Once the feedin tarif was dropped by the SA Govt the companies managed to offer systems at crazy prices compared to 8 months ago.
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Maybe I should move to the east Nahhh.......too cloudy
And most other states are phasing them out as well (Vic dropped the feed in tariff from 66c to 33c as of last year for new systems).
Re price reductions, some of this relates to the high A$. The chinese yuan is pegged against the US$, so our importers have a better deal at the moment.
The other factor is the decrease in govt rebates and feed in tariffs, this has forced many solar installers to cut their profit margins and streamline their business in order to survive and compete.
Bo
I have had my 2KW solar panel system now for exactly a year. Purchased when the refund was 60c. per KW
Electricity price from my supplier is 21.41c/Kw for the first 1750 Kwh/quarter and 23.7c./Kw for excess of 1750 KWh
During the year I never exceeded 1750KWh/quarter. My total usage was 6800 KWh (average 16.8 Kwh/day) and as a pensioner I get 54.79c./day rebate. and Access to the grid is 50.96 c./day. Total cost of power for 12 months $1441.88
Power generated 2385 KWh (average 6.55KWh/day) at 60c/KWh $1431 giving me a net cost for power for the year of $10
I am quite happy with that for an investment of $4400
What is really crapping me off is the excessive charges we get applied to our useage in SA compared to the eastern states, fair dinkum I reckon they are trying to rip everyone here a new butt. It is getting that way it hurts to sit down.
Trev, given there is no feed in tariff in WA I would suggest getting a larger system. We have a 3kw system at home and a 2kw system at our country residence.
The home system has to accommodate me being home and it does this really well. I am home all the time, except for visiting building sites during the week. The feed in tariff makes it cost neutral during winter and in credit during summer. Overall I am expecting it will be just in credit over the entire year. The country residence was in credit after 3 days from turn on and will most likely provide good credit over the entire year. Each property has a different owner (home is my wifes and country is mine) in case anyone is wondering how we got this through. All legal and proper.
If you have no feed in tariff and spend a lot of time at home consider getting a 4kw system. It will impact your bill and most likely give you some sort of credit. It seems odd that there is no feed in tariff at all. Especially considering you are generating power for the power company???
Aside from this though I think it is worth the investment if you plan on living at that house for the next 10 years or more.
As I understand it Paul, the feed-in tariff was a 'per unit' fee that was paid to the first few lucky installations, the idea being to encourage people to embark on this scheme, and it was supposed to help the thing pay for itself reasonably quickly. The paltry budget that they set was very quickly filled to capacity, and the Feed In Tariff then stopped.
However, there is still a Renewable Energy BuyBack Rate still applicable, though it is beyond miserly at just 7c per kWh....
That is pretty miserable. What I think it more equitable is that if you use 1700 kw in a quarter and you generate 1700kw in the same quarter you don't pay any bill. If you generate more then it goes towards winter. If there is any credit left over from an entire year you get nothing. That way the system is affordable and the power companies are not ripping people off by getting power for cheap and then selling it back to you at a higher rate.
At least it looks like there is something available for feed in even if that is only 7c per KWH.
Mind you it looks much more favourable if you are a commercial operation. ???
You are no orphan Steve, My bill has sky rocketed. I actually work for a large electricity company, get a 25% discount and still pay a huge increase in my bill.
You will find the committment to buy and manage the home solar scheme has cost most companies dearly and the increases we all recieve are partly to pay for the management of such schemes.
I very much doubt we will ever see reasonable feed in tarrifs again. The whole process is now set to faulter and stall. The current feed in tarrifs show no incetive to install a system and even break square let alone show even a small profit anyone prepared to make the outlay equired to install a solar system.
Solar hot water is the greatest investment you can make on your house these days and will pay for itself in just a few years instead of the 20+ years most will need to recoup the cost of a solar generation system.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kinetic
Pete.
here is my assessment of myself, in Adelaide , a typical family on a single income, with two kids:
We are both very frugal as parents in this house with power etc.
Our typical quarterly bill (2 adults-2 kids) is usually $350/q
We were aghast to recently get a $450 bill ($100 more /q)
We hadn't done ANYTHING out of the usual usage pattern...if fact had
used less power for things like air con etc in that quarter.
So it remained a mystery why a quarterly bill is higher...by the tune of $100
Then we looked into it...the service charge had risen, the summer tariff had risen and the winter tariff had risen.
For roughly the same KW/h usage as a typical quarter.
Bottom line is...they expect us to wear that as a normal thing???...for an essential
service to increase by an amount way over CPI etc. ????
When they were asked to explain to the Regulator reasons for an increase over CPI:
'To replace ageing infrastructure and increased supply/ market costs'
Well, we all know that is happening with every essential service lately.
But we wear it as typical , apathetic Aussies that we are.
Water bill: same excuse but added to that is a 'Save the Murray' levy.
We all know how successful the use of that fund collection measure has
been in the 10 years it has been collected.
On top of that is a levy to pay for the de-sal plant.
A plant that a Spanish private consortium built.
Completion was late, there were damage clauses for late completion.
Somehow, the state govt caved in when they pressed it in the courts.
Council rates: same excuse. Most upkeep/ maintenance council services are outsourced, and something as basic as mowing
a reserve adjacent your property is done by a contractor that tenders for council work.
We have to ring the council to get the reserve mowed when the grass reaches 2 ft high in a fire season.
They only mow it when people ring and complain.
They recently re-categorised our reserve as low in the upkeep/ mtce list.
That means it gets dealt with when people complain. <facepalm>
So, apart from emptying our bins and mowing our lawns when we complain, they increase our rates by way over the CPI each year.
Our rates have quadrupled in 10 years....
Back to solar:
A 1.5kw system...in reach for a typical family like me will only change my
power bill by roughly $100/quarter...about what the latest bill went up by.
I'd have to do the solar install on terms...IE, add it to the home loan (not cash).
This would make it probably take 10 years or so to break even.
In that time supply charges/increases will absorb that.
The panels might fail in 10 years.
You are no orphan Steve, My bill has sky rocketed. I actually work for a large electricity company, get a 25% discount and still pay a huge increase in my bill.
You will find the committment to buy and manage the home solar scheme has cost most companies dearly and the increases we all recieve are partly to pay for the management of such schemes.
I'm struggling to reconcile how the feed in tariff for solar can possibly account for such a significant increase... PV's contribute only 1% of the total grid capacity. How can they possibly leverage a 20 or 30% increase in the cost of electricity? If the power companies are making this claim, it sounds highly dubious to me.
The current feed in tarrifs show no incetive to install a system and even break square let alone show even a small profit anyone prepared to make the outlay equired to install a solar system.
Not sure I agree with this.
Let's say a 1.5kW system is installed in Adelaide which has a solar insolation rate of 4.2kWh/m^2 per day and it costs you $2K. This will knock somewhere between $400 and $600 off your power bill per year depending on your usage patterns. The payback period is around 5 years. If you tack the cost on to your home loan, your mortgage goes up $150 dollars a year and your power bill goes down $500... do the maths.
More importantly though, by putting a 1.5kW system on your roof, you are cutting your green house gas emissions by more than 2 tonnes every year. Solar PV's are still a good deal, just not as good as they once were.
Quote:
Solar hot water is the greatest investment you can make on your house these days and will pay for itself in just a few years instead of the 20+ years most will need to recoup the cost of a solar generation system.
Solar hot water systems are a great idea, but there are other ways to spend your money which offer an even better financial return. Top of the list would be to solicit the services of an energy auditor to give your house (and lifestyle) the once over. Speaking as someone who did this for a living, I can assure you that this offers the best return on investment you can make by a country mile.
The thing that really gets up my nose is the disparity between states of the cost of electricity in C/kwh. I am pretty sure we here in SA pay at least 8-10c/kwh more than people in Victoria, cant comment on NSW or Qld. I know our govt here keeps saying it is for cost of infrastructure, but surely other states have these costs as well. It really all turned pear shaped when everything here was privatised, that was the greatest croc sold to the ratepayers I have ever seen. We were told that everything would be cheaper when privatised, not bloody likely, the cost of Electricity has well and truly doubled since that happened, likewise, water and gas. Being a cynic, I put it down to plain and simple greed on the part of the big corporations that now control these things.
I have just looked at my power bill for the same period 2 yrs ago and for the first 300kwh I was charged 17.93c/kwh then 18.26/kwh for the next 700kwh, then 21.4c/kwh after that. Now 2 yrs later the cost for the 1st 1200kwh is 28.6c/kwh and 31.2c/kwh for the next 2800kwh. This is roughly a 40% increase in 2 years far above the CPI, it is no wonder people are getting miffed. My average quarterly useage was around 1800kw so my bill would have been around $530 plus the supply fee and GST would add another 10%. Now I have my system exporting around 1600kw-1800kw and I am only using around 800kw, so it is definitely paying for itself. They have to send me a cheque for around $600/quarter. Obviously this will drop as the cost of imported power continues to rise.
The costs have gone up signifcantly IMO to pay for all the subsidies being paid to those who installed solar under the original buy back schemes but who could then afford solar under these schemes as you where paying a premium even for a 1.5kw system.
As with most Govt subsidy schemes it's been badly thought out and managed.
on my face when I watched the power Meter " turn backwards ".... later on ... the power company came over and replaced it with a " Digital " Meter.
Nahhh.......too cloudy 
