I notice in my travels around Sydney that folk are still having Solar Power installed on their roofs. I was under the impression that since the various subsidies had been dropped that it really was not worth getting. Am I missing something?
Metro....
Feed-in tariff is still available to new installations. It is less than the generous 60c/kWHr previously offered, but still above the average kWHr cost.
There may also be some 'social' reasons some people install them (maybe a bit of a status symbol for some).
Most people don't have a clue how to go about comparing the cost of grid supplied electricity with the cost of power from a solar panel.
Sylvia.
Well I don't think that it is worth it. Considering initial outlay, the exposure averages, 00.20c perKwh rebate etc. Plus how long will the government keep the existing rebate? Maybe ok if you live in the red centre.
Metro....
I agree. It's most of the people who are installing it who don't know how to compare.
Sylvia.
Two parts;
10 the Federal RECS, or whatever they are called now, subsidy for installation only dropped 20% with the finacial year and will continue to drop 20% for each finacial year until ?. So you can still get the subsidy on installation.The Gross (vary)generous Feed in Tarrifs may have stopped/changed in your state. The NSw 60c one has closed, zip, no more.
AIUI some electricty suppliers are still offering Gross FIT of around
20C. You may have to sign up to them for installation as well, you may not.Some suppliers will only go net, i.e. we will take all you can generate and take that off your bill, then you pay us for any extra you use. generate too much and thank you very much, we just take it.
Some people are seeing it as worth their while to install a system that will cover their electricty bills considering some of the projected rises to cover long overdue infrastructure upgrades and overdue power stations.
YMMV
In WA the feed in tarif of 47c/kWH (Supposedly fixed for 10 years) is still available for installations completed by 30th September. I doubt that there is much chance for anyone still to sign up for this as an application has to go through Western Power, which can take some time.
I have just got a system installed and expect a payback period of between 6 & 8 years, depending on who you believe as to the future supply charges.
I would just like some clever person to figure out how I can export ALL the solar and only use power off the grid, for which I pay around
20c/kWH :-)Dave
just connect the feed in input directly to the mains. Of course, you are now committing outright fraud. If you don't mind the risk of having "Humpy" and "Slugger" as your new "best friends" in the slammer then that could work out OK.
wer
ous
If you have a shed etc on the same property - get an extra feed and meter for it. Feed the solar into that feed, have no other load on it and take your home power from the existing feed
If you wanted to be extremely bad, you could connect to the neighbours power, feed it via an isolation transformer and bridge rectifier into the inverter, and split the difference with them :), though this and other similar methods are very likely to lead to trouble and arent recommended.
.
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us
There are a lot in South East QLD also. I have seen about 10 places on my travels where roofs are covered with them. One has over 60 panels
I'm on 3 phase, so do they just feed-in on a single phase?
Or would I be up for a no-doubt-more-expensive 3ph converter?
Chris.
No, you pick just one phase. Pick the one that's got the least use in daytime:)
Tony
Move as much as possible off that phase :)
Yes. Feed in tarrif still applies.
What a lousy $00.20 per Kwh?
Well, it is a competitive market and that is better than what the competition delivers it to your door for (generation plus network cost).
Hmm...
Perhaps I should have specified a legal way to do it.
That aside, even if what you suggest was possible, I don't see the benefit of "just connect the feed in input directly to the mains"
Presumably you mean bypass the meter - that would mean that I wouldn't receive anything for the power fed to the grid - it has to go through the meter for Western Power to pay me!
Yes, a separate connection would work technically, unfortunately it would also incur a standard recurring Supply Charge even though you may never actually draw power from it.
This + the capital cost of setting up a new connection would certainly outway any benefit.
If you did try to push back power from some source other than solar, I imagine Western Power would soon be aware of it, as the maximum size solar installation is 4kW and I imagine they would have a fair idea as to what the maximum feed in would be, so if they found they were paying for substantially more, you could expect a knock on the door....
Where did you get the 4kw from , if true it would make our installation physically impossible .
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The forms that I had to fill in to apply for the feed in and permission to install, stated 4kW as a maximum - now that you have raised a doubt in my mind, it may have been 5kW but I don't think so.
I know that there are bigger installations around but I think they are under a different feed in tariff.
Are you also in WA?
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