Quote:
Originally Posted by casstony
I think a moderate size solar system (~4 KW) is already worth having financially, particularly if you can shift use of appliances to times when the sun is out. We have our panels facing NW to get greater benefit in Summer when the aircon is run all afternoon.
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I'd agree with that, at least in most situations. And so would the solar industry and a great many satisfied owners. I think that it's the full off grid option that's still much less less clear cut .
Our system is just under 4kw. The original plan was for more but, due to panel connection issues, they had to be installed in 'portrait' mode instead of 'landscape' and that meant one row less. But, as i suggested above, it does a great job of knocking the bills down. It's especially good in summer when we can run several aircons during the hottest part of the day and be using solely our own power. And, hey, it's a sunny winter's day and I'm using it right now to type this. And I could easily be running a heater too.
We have had problems, but they were not the fault of solar as such. However, they are not untypical of an emerging industry. In our case we have trees that shade the panels for part of the day, during the summer and more during the winter. So we have mini inverters. 14 panels 14 small inverters. So each panel that's in the sun will still generate at full power even though others are shaded and barely ticking over. This was not the case with the single inverter systems of the day which could only operate at the power of the worst performing panel in the chain. Not a problem in open sunny locations of course.
So, on the recommendation of a respected installer, we went for mini inverters that had a 25 year guarantee on them. After two years the company went bankrupt and five inverters had failed. The installer has stood by us and replaced them all, but he can't do that indefinitely. Fingers crossed... A friend has a single inverter system and had a problem with it. When he contacted the makers he was told to deal with the installing company, who - you guessed it - have since vanished from the scene!
The generous incentive schemes, especially the early ones, lured a lot of cowboys into the industry and it's still dealing with the fallout from that.
In our case, with hindsight, it probably would have been more cost effective to put up the cheapest Chinese made system on the market and be prepared to write it off every few years. But that wouldn't have felt right for other reasons.
I'm a firm believer in solar power, but I think there's still a lot more potential refinements to come. Bring it on...