Solar options for home in 2022.

Forums › Home Workshop DIY › Solar options for home in 2022.

1 | ... | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | ... | 98

4705 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#3046872 7-Mar-2023 14:44

Ge0rge: I see that the Sunny Island is off-grid only as well, or am I reading that wrong?

Gutted about the Quattro II - our local solar guy and I were talking about it just this morning, and he's off to do some research for me about one to fit here. Guess that answers that question pretty quickly.

I discussed this with SMA Support last month as Sunny Island on AU website states that Sunny Island on grid version is coming very soon and currently only available for off-grid use. They confirmed that the compliance will be approved with the updated firmware sometime in March 2023 to make their inverter compliant but firmware has already been released on SMA AU website below for existing Sunny Island models and anyone can download it. There will be no new hardware released. The good news is that the approved inverter list already includes the Sunny Island 4.4M-13, 6.0H-13 and 8.0H-13 from past and the certification does not expire until October 2023. So, you can install it with the updated firmware and lines company will approve the install based on the current certification since it's the same model number. Saying that sometimes this month, the new firmware will also be approved anyway so the certificate expiry will be extended beyond October 2023 when that happens.

https://www.sma-australia.com.au/products/battery-inverters/sunny-island-44m-60h-80h

Do whatever you want to do man.

billgates

4705 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#3046875 7-Mar-2023 14:55

@Ge0rge one option you can try if you really want to go down the Victron Quattro route with grid tie setup and its best to ask your lines company via your PV installer if they would allow this as it's on a case-by-case basis. If you use a grid protect relay like Tele NA003 which was updated to be complaint with AS/NZS 4777-2020. If your lines company is convinced of this setup and approves you to install the Tele NA003 in front of Victron Quattro, then you will be in business. OfCourse, it just depends who you interact with in the lines company and how hard do they want to make it for you but strictly speaking, its what's on the approved inverters list.

Do whatever you want to do man.

joemate

58 posts

Master Geek

ID Verified

#3054213 24-Mar-2023 18:17

Our PV system was installed a little over 3 months ago in Invercargill. It consists of a Huawei SUN2000-5KTL-L1 inverter with 2 modules of 5kWh Luna2000 batteries and 17 410W LONGi Solar Hi-MO 5m panels with a total capacity of 6.97kW. We switched to Contact energy for our electricity needs and opted for their free nights plan, despite the relatively expensive electricity prices in Southland which are currently at 43 cents/kWh, 69 cents/day, and 8 cents/kWh export.

The free nights plan allows us to charge our 10kW battery between 9 PM and midnight, heat the hot water cylinder and warm up our home for the night, right now importing up to 17-19kWh of free power.

In February, for example, we generated 765kWh of energy, exported 335kWh, and imported 303kWh of free power along with 14kWh of non-free power.

neb

11294 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#3054228 24-Mar-2023 18:31

joemate:
Our PV system was installed a little over 3 months ago in Invercargill. It consists of [...]

If you don't mind revealing this, what was the cost? Any problems you ran into?

joemate

58 posts

Master Geek

ID Verified

#3054234 24-Mar-2023 19:08

The installation cost was around $33,000 and I haven’t had any issues with it so far.

In case of a power failure (had two already), the backup box will switch to battery and solar power (if the Sun is up) within 3 seconds.

Forgot to mention: I have 4 optimizers and the S-Dongle. Connecting via LAN and managing it using Home Assistant.

billgates

4705 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#3054565 25-Mar-2023 16:09

Here is the 3.5-month update since our Solar PV installation on 12th December 2022. I sent Genesis all the required paperwork like ROI, COC, approval from the lines company (Waipa networks) and Genesis's home generation application form on 24th December which is when our installer emailed us all this paperwork before we could have submitted to Genesis to start paying us 12c/kWh for solar buy back. The application still has not been processed and my email queries had no replies as no phone number exists for their home generation team to contact them on. Even Genesis 0800 contact phone number customer facing team could not get hold of anyone in the home generation team either via phone or email after multiple escalations. I signed up to the LinkedIn trial and messaged the COO of Genesis last Friday who has been extremely helpful, said not good enough response from home generation team and replied on Saturday morning to advise it will be taken care of on Monday when the office opens again. Sure enough, I got my first reply in weeks from the home generation team with an apology for no replies and said they will back credit me excess solar since 14th December 2022. Genesis has emailed the metering company to confirm the excess solar data from our import/export meter and once they hear back from Intellihub, they will process the excess solar credit and change the parameters on the meter remotely without any physical visits to our home.

Below are the last 3 months' bills which are not exactly 30 days as some are billed for 32 days or even 34 days. Hopefully in 3 or 4 years we can get rid of the gas califont and gas connection and install a hot water cylinder to maximise self-consumption from solar pv to get rid of the gas charges but batteries for solar pv will come first hopefully by end of this year.

Once we get our excess solar credit from Genesis, we should be in green for entire last 3.5 months with credit $ to spare in account. The SMA Energy app is telling me we have saved just over $1000 for these last 3 invoices and that includes excess solar sold to Genesis @ 12c/kWh and self-consumption from solar pv. The Jan 2022 to Feb 2022 invoice is little light on electricity and gas use as we were away from home for 10 days and used on average 3kWh per day for 10 days as I left the ventilation system running along with, multiple PoE devices, fridge, stand by lights on few appliances and electric water pump. The December 2022 to January 2023 period covers full Solar PV use since install as does Feb 2022 to March 2022.

We get 18% monthly discount on both electricity and gas which is what the $45.97cr is for. So, we paid $148.38 for electricity for this period. This period is also the highest we have ever paid for gas as it's usually invoiced around the $50 mark before the discount is applied. Previously, our electricity invoice would be around $320 to $340 on its own + gas use.

December 2022 to January 2023.

January 2023 to Febuary 2023. We were away for 10 days durngi this period and used on average 3kWh/day for each of those 10 days.

Febuary 2023 to March 2023

Do whatever you want to do man.

PolicyGuy

1726 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Lifetime subscriber

#3054591 25-Mar-2023 17:35

billgates:

Here is the 3.5-month update since our Solar PV installation on 12th December 2022. I sent Genesis all the required paperwork like ROI, COC, approval from the lines company (Waipa networks) and Genesis's home generation application form on 24th December which is when our installer emailed us all this paperwork before we could have submitted to Genesis to start paying us 12c/kWh for solar buy back. The application still has not been processed and my email queries had no replies as no phone number exists for their home generation team to contact them on. Even Genesis 0800 contact phone number customer facing team could not get hold of anyone in the home generation team either via phone or email after multiple escalations. I signed up to the LinkedIn trial and messaged the COO of Genesis last Friday who has been extremely helpful, said not good enough response from home generation team and replied on Saturday morning to advise it will be taken care of on Monday when the office opens again. Sure enough, I got my first reply in weeks from the home generation team with an apology for no replies and said they will back credit me excess solar since 14th December 2022. Genesis has emailed the metering company to confirm the excess solar data from our import/export meter and once they hear back from Intellihub, they will process the excess solar credit and change the parameters on the meter remotely without any physical visits to our home.

This is depressingly similar to my own story.

My PV system was installed on 4th November 2022, with all the required paperwork done and Genesis HomeGen fully informed every step of the way. They said they needed to have the meter changed, and in the meantime "couldn't process remote reads", so I got an 'Estimate account' for December, January & February, I had to load the readings for the import register through their portal to get a 'Read account'.
The Wells guys showed up to do the meter change on 24th February, and I noted that the export register was reading 1805kWh on removal. They couldn't understand why they were replacing one IntelliHub meter with another one, but that was what the order said.
Then my March bill arrived on Thursday, the meter change is recorded and consumption shown against the import register, but still no credit for any of the exported electricity, which is now worth about three months of summer billing. On Genesis Live Chat, I was told that "we are awaiting for the meter information to be completed on our side, as we haven't received the paper work for this yet", which does not mesh well with the fact that my bill does record the meter change, and indeed billed consumption on the new meter.
The best explanation available was that "this has been escalated to our metering team"

I've been a rusted-on Genesis customer ever since the company sprung out of Max Bradford's 'reforms', and even worked for them for a while, but once I've got this PV credit shambles sorted out I'll be seriously looking to move

HarmLessSolutions

969 posts

Ultimate Geek

Subscriber

#3054595 25-Mar-2023 18:43

Both of the preceding posts serve to highlight the importance of maximising your own consumption such as by diverting to a HWC, scheduled appliance use and charging batteries or EVs. In relying on your electricity supplier to buy back exported excess generation you are allowing them to maintain control of the economic viability of your investment. These suppliers are all too aware of the threat to their income stream that distributed generation, battery storage and V2G presents and they will be doing their utmost to protect that income by sabotaging your ROI.

The only way to maintain a decent level of return on your PV investment is to absolutely minimise your reliance on importing electricity into your property. As price reduces, and availability of storage systems and technologies that can maximise self consumption of our generation become more prevalent, the balance will move in our favour but in the meantime it's a matter of 'working smarter, not harder' in terms of investment in energy resilience.

https://www.harmlesssolutions.co.nz/

billgates

4705 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#3054596 25-Mar-2023 18:52

@PolicyGuy This week has been the best week for us with two email replies out of the home generation team. Unfortunately, we are in a contract with Genesis until 20th June with a $300 early disconnection charge for just one ICP so moving both gas and electricity early will cost us $600. Meridian is doing a sweet deal for 17ckWh buy back rate and $300 credit on a 2-year contract for customer's end but 5 years price lock on Meridian's end so customer can leave after 2 years if they wish but Meridian must honour the 17c buy rate and per unit rate for 5 years which is attractive.

Do whatever you want to do man.

PolicyGuy

1726 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Lifetime subscriber

#3054597 25-Mar-2023 18:59

Thanks, @billgates.
That's very interesting.

A feed-in tariff of seventeen cents a kWh would give me a hugely improved rate of return.

It might even get me my money back before I'm carted off to the the Shady Acres Home for the Elderly and Confused - or wherever my kids choose LOL

eonsim

398 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#3054883 26-Mar-2023 12:29

That's crap service, I would wonder if you could get rid of them with out paying the termination fee due to there failure to honor the deal they offered for the solar buy back rates in a reasonable time.

In general though I'd agree with harmless aiming to maximize self consumption of solar is the optimal route on a flat rate electricity fee structure. Some what less so on a time of use charge though, with Octopus during the day the solar export rate is worth more than the purchase rate in Hamilton.

HarmLessSolutions

969 posts

Ultimate Geek

Subscriber

#3054888 26-Mar-2023 13:31

eonsim:

....

In general though I'd agree with harmless aiming to maximize self consumption of solar is the optimal route on a flat rate electricity fee structure. Some what less so on a time of use charge though, with Octopus during the day the solar export rate is worth more than the purchase rate in Hamilton.

Customer's location would also be a factor based on the Octopus price quote claim. For our address their OctopusFixed

Low User (our annual import was ~7,000kWh incl. charging 2 EVs) their quoted rates are

Daily charge $0.00/day

Solar Buy-back $0.17/kWh

Peak $0.39/kWh

Off peak $0.33/kWh

Night $0.19/kWh

Octopus's Off peak rate is slightly higher than our current Ecotricity peak rate (with same daily timing schedule), and their night rate is slightly lower than our Ecotricity off-peak (which for Ecotricity runs all weekend - 9:00pm Friday until 7:00am Monday, whereas Octopus charges their much higher off peak from 7:00am to 11:00pm Saturday and Sunday). Ecotricity's export rate is $0.105/kWh which applies to approx. 300kWh/month currently.

We still have to plan our usage to best advantage from our PV generation but as it stands we could reduce our import by >60% (and offset our peak use completely) with the addition of a relatively modest battery storage setup, or implementing a V2G system though this is not currently viable and is far from straightforward in a regulatory basis.

https://www.harmlesssolutions.co.nz/

eonsim

398 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#3055571 27-Mar-2023 22:00

On a standard user in Hamilton for Octopus, it actually makes more sense to export than self consume for most of the day.

Incl GST

Daily charge $2.3575 /day
Peak $0.221835 /kWh
Off-peak $0.14421 /kWh
Night $0.110975 /kWh
Solar buy-back -$0.17 /kWh

itxtme

2102 posts

Uber Geek

#3055687 28-Mar-2023 09:17

billgates:

@PolicyGuy This week has been the best week for us with two email replies out of the home generation team. Unfortunately, we are in a contract with Genesis until 20th June with a $300 early disconnection charge for just one ICP so moving both gas and electricity early will cost us $600. Meridian is doing a sweet deal for 17ckWh buy back rate and $300 credit on a 2-year contract for customer's end but 5 years price lock on Meridian's end so customer can leave after 2 years if they wish but Meridian must honour the 17c buy rate and per unit rate for 5 years which is attractive.

How long has it been ongoing? Might be time

https://www.genesisenergy.co.nz/help/our-resolution-process

We’ll do our best to resolve any issues directly with you, however, you can ask for your complaint to be considered by Utilities Disputes.

Utilities Disputes provides a free and independent dispute resolution service for electricity and gas. You may take your complaint to Utilities Disputes as a deadlocked complaint if:

we haven’t resolved your complaint within 20 working days and haven’t written to you explaining why we need more time to reach a resolution; or
we’ve taken longer than 40 working days to resolve your complaint; or
you aren’t happy with our proposed resolution; or
if during our resolution process, the Commissioner of Utilities Disputes considers that you’d suffer unreasonable harm waiting any longer; or
it would otherwise be unjust to wait any longer.

PolicyGuy

1726 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Lifetime subscriber

#3057332 31-Mar-2023 20:33

The story so far ...

PolicyGuy:
My PV system was installed on 4th November 2022, with all the required paperwork done and Genesis HomeGen fully informed every step of the way.
...
Then my March bill arrived on Thursday (23rd March), the meter change is recorded and consumption shown against the import register, but still no credit for any of the exported electricity, which is now worth about three months of summer billing. On Genesis Live Chat, I was told that "we are awaiting for the meter information to be completed on our side, as we haven't received the paper work for this yet", which does not mesh well with the fact that my bill does record the meter change, and indeed billed consumption on the new meter.
The best explanation available was that "this has been escalated to our metering team"

I got a second, replacement, bill on 28th March.
This included the exported electricity since the meter change to the new billing date, but the 1805kWh exported on the old meter was not included.

And I got a third, replacement of the replacement, bill today.
Hooray, all the electricity exported on the old (removed) meter was also credited to my account.
My account is now in credit 🥳🥳🥳

By the way, when Genesis Energy say they'll pay 12c/kWh for your generation exported to the grid, they actually mean 12c+GST, i.e. 13.8c/kWh - this makes a significant difference to the ROI.
Why a bid retail market trader quotes prices without GST to a residential customer, and never mentions this, is a bit of a mystery to me.

Well done Genesis Energy, it took you twenty-one weeks - that's one hundred and forty seven days - to sort out a simple PV billing credit.
😡😡😡

1 | ... | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | ... | 98