Solar options for home in 2022.

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969 posts

Ultimate Geek

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#3209822 23-Mar-2024 11:13

Our installer set us up with https://my.solaranalytics.com/au/dashboard/

Great for monitoring daily/monthly usage and it also has a battery calculator function which you can use to investigate the viability of a battery based on your usage. For us we're able to use a high proportion of our PV generation by way of a Paladin HWC diverter and EV charging using an Evnex E2 which is set to only use PV sourced electricity so with our consumption model we would never recoup the cost of a battery. We're also watching the progress of V2G with future intentions of using a Leaf in that capacity which will essentially serve as a home battery.

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

Jase2985

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#3209902 23-Mar-2024 16:28

Getting some solar quotes in at the moment. Have got Quotes from Harrisons, Avid and Trilect in Auckland.

Looking at an 8kw inverter and over spec'ing by about 20% with the panels. I do understand I'm limited to about 5kwh of export in Auckland on Vector. We are all electric, have a heated swimming poll and soon to have an EV.

3 current quotes are below.

Is there any tangible benefit in upgrading from the base JA Solar 420W All Black, to something more expensive like a Q Cells Q.TRON 425 - 430W Pure Black or a REC420AA Alpha Pure-R Series 420W. What I can see is the panel degradation, at .55%/Year, .33%/Y and .25%/Y for the REC over 25 years. The Q-Cells are $4000 more than the JA Solar Panels. The Longi and Jinko are both .4%/Year.

eonsim

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#3209937 23-Mar-2024 18:59

prob:

Anyway struggling to get the battery option to work for me.

For example, if load up the battery at night for free, then even at the higher Z Energy daily tariff the (say) 8 kWh is worth only $2, or $60 a month, $720 a year. This 'saving' is a long way from justifying the $10,000 or so increase in costs....

The battery currently offers two things, limited grid independence in the event of powercuts and a hedge against future power costs. It may allow you to move to either a spot price power plan like ecotricity offer (and flick used to), by allowing you to ride out peak times, crazy price spikes in grid emergencies or potentially allow you to export during grid emergencies. It would certainly allow you to move to a time of use plan where there are different peak, off-peak and night rates which maybe cheaper than your current plan by covering peak periods.

If those features are worth it to you, you might as well get one. If they're not then just get as many solar panels as you can reasonably fit on the roof (>6kW) and wait till battery prices eventually drop before getting one.

I know a number of people who have gone battery and they really like them, but it is an expensive decision.

eonsim

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#3209944 23-Mar-2024 19:13

Jase2985:

Is there any tangible benefit in upgrading from the base JA Solar 420W All Black, to something more expensive like a Q Cells Q.TRON 425 - 430W Pure Black or a REC420AA Alpha Pure-R Series 420W. What I can see is the panel degradation, at .55%/Year, .33%/Y and .25%/Y for the REC over 25 years. The Q-Cells are $4000 more than the JA Solar Panels. The Longi and Jinko are both .4%/Year.

I'd think the only real advantage is likely a longer lifetime for the panels if you go with the more expensive options. They should be producing more energy at the end of there official lifetime than the others, and assuming the panels were kept for another 5-10 years on top of the official 25 year lifetime it may start to add up (assuming you didn't replace them). Also depends on what every prices are like in the future if the cost of electricity skyrockets the extra generation over the years may be worth it.

neb

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#3209968 23-Mar-2024 20:46

eonsim:
I'd think the only real advantage is likely a longer lifetime for the panels if you go with the more expensive options.

The evidence we have at the moment is that decent-quality current solar panels will easily outlive their supposed service life, so I'm not sure if this is a major factor any more. For me a bigger one was that the power output is given under ideal conditions which you're not going to have for a good chunk of the year, so going for better/more efficient panels gives you more headroom on cloudy/overcast/rainy/whatever days. For the Casa de Cowboy's panels some power can get wasted in mid-summer due to overprovisioning, but then on low-sun days there's not enough to cover usage without at least some grid import. It's really a balancing act of how self-sufficient you want to be all year round, not just on perfectly sunny days.

HarmLessSolutions

969 posts

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#3209974 23-Mar-2024 21:21

Jase2985:

Getting some solar quotes in at the moment. Have got Quotes from Harrisons, Avid and Trilect in Auckland.

Looking at an 8kw inverter and over spec'ing by about 20% with the panels. I do understand I'm limited to about 5kwh of export in Auckland on Vector. We are all electric, have a heated swimming poll and soon to have an EV.

3 current quotes are below.

Is there any tangible benefit in upgrading from the base JA Solar 420W All Black, to something more expensive like a Q Cells Q.TRON 425 - 430W Pure Black or a REC420AA Alpha Pure-R Series 420W. What I can see is the panel degradation, at .55%/Year, .33%/Y and .25%/Y for the REC over 25 years. The Q-Cells are $4000 more than the JA Solar Panels. The Longi and Jinko are both .4%/Year.

I note that none of the quotes have bifacial panels which is worth considering in they are mounted angled beyond the roof slope (in our case we went with Sunpower Performance 6 535-550Ws). Also without searching up spec's on the panels the interconnectedness of the individual cells is worth knowing as the better this is the less effect partial shading will have if that is a thing you have at your location.

Also we upgraded and went from a 5kW SMA to an 8.2kW Fronius and the communication Fronius offers is outstanding in terms of knowing how your system is performing. IIRC the GEN24 also gives you some degree of direct power supply in the case of an outage which may give it an advantage in grid outage situations so long as the sun is shining.

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

angski

59 posts

Master Geek

#3209986 23-Mar-2024 23:33

Here is one of my quote for comparsion
23 × 440W Jinko Solar Tiger Neo

1 × Sungrow SH10RT (AS4777-2 2020) · 10000W (three phase)

almost 22K

Jase2985

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#3210001 24-Mar-2024 07:45

HarmLessSolutions:

Jase2985:

Getting some solar quotes in at the moment. Have got Quotes from Harrisons, Avid and Trilect in Auckland.

Looking at an 8kw inverter and over spec'ing by about 20% with the panels. I do understand I'm limited to about 5kwh of export in Auckland on Vector. We are all electric, have a heated swimming poll and soon to have an EV.

3 current quotes are below.

Is there any tangible benefit in upgrading from the base JA Solar 420W All Black, to something more expensive like a Q Cells Q.TRON 425 - 430W Pure Black or a REC420AA Alpha Pure-R Series 420W. What I can see is the panel degradation, at .55%/Year, .33%/Y and .25%/Y for the REC over 25 years. The Q-Cells are $4000 more than the JA Solar Panels. The Longi and Jinko are both .4%/Year.

I note that none of the quotes have bifacial panels which is worth considering in they are mounted angled beyond the roof slope (in our case we went with Sunpower Performance 6 535-550Ws). Also without searching up spec's on the panels the interconnectedness of the individual cells is worth knowing as the better this is the less effect partial shading will have if that is a thing you have at your location.

Also we upgraded and went from a 5kW SMA to an 8.2kW Fronius and the communication Fronius offers is outstanding in terms of knowing how your system is performing. IIRC the GEN24 also gives you some degree of direct power supply in the case of an outage which may give it an advantage in grid outage situations so long as the sun is shining.

Roof pitch is 30 degrees, so I guess that's why they haven't bothered with that. The main roof the 16 panels are going on will be WNW (300deg) and a further 8 panels on the other side of the roof facing ESE (120Deg) this would get morning sun through to the early afternoon.

Yes with the PV Point add-on you can use 3kw of power when the grid is down from a Socket by the inverter.

HarmLessSolutions

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Ultimate Geek

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#3210065 24-Mar-2024 09:50

Jase2985:

HarmLessSolutions:

I note that none of the quotes have bifacial panels which is worth considering in they are mounted angled beyond the roof slope (in our case we went with Sunpower Performance 6 535-550Ws). Also without searching up spec's on the panels the interconnectedness of the individual cells is worth knowing as the better this is the less effect partial shading will have if that is a thing you have at your location.

Also we upgraded and went from a 5kW SMA to an 8.2kW Fronius and the communication Fronius offers is outstanding in terms of knowing how your system is performing. IIRC the GEN24 also gives you some degree of direct power supply in the case of an outage which may give it an advantage in grid outage situations so long as the sun is shining.

Roof pitch is 30 degrees, so I guess that's why they haven't bothered with that. The main roof the 16 panels are going on will be WNW (300deg) and a further 8 panels on the other side of the roof facing ESE (120Deg) this would get morning sun through to the early afternoon.

Yes with the PV Point add-on you can use 3kw of power when the grid is down from a Socket by the inverter.

An addition I was putting together last night when our internet went down for the night.

To comply with your 5kW export cap I guess you'll be installing a CT clamp on your mains with a comm's cable to the inverter so it can be throttled back as required. Depending on how your usage is configured this may be a rare occurrence considering that you can 'dump' excess generation to your pool though some sort of diverter may be helpful in this case to avoid manual transferal at peak generation times.

In this vein it is also worth installing extra CT clamps and comm's cables when the export cap one goes in (wall penetration?) for the likes of HWC diverter (Paladin, Eddi?) and a solar matched EVSE such as an Evnex or Zappi. We have 3 CT clamps on our setup (export cap, Evnex & Paladin) and can't recommend highly enough fitting mains monitoring components to gain best use from your generation. The alternative is a set demand from a HWC (3kW) or EVSE (7kW) drawing those sorts of currents irrespective of fluctuating generation on partly cloudy days.

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

Ge0rge

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#3210068 24-Mar-2024 10:10

Another +1 for Paladin. As you're a full electric household @Jase2985, I can't recommend it enough.

I have a 5kW inverter being fed by 6.6kW of panels. We've had 85mm of rain this month so far, so you can imagine the type of days we've been getting - even so, I have still yet to pay a cent for hot water since the Paladin went in - nor had a cold shower.

Ken (@Terciops) visits here occasionally and will be able to provide much more detail than I, however I believe the latest iteration has DRED control as well, so once your hot water is done, your car is charged, the Paladin will turn on the pool pump and heater for you automagically.

eonsim

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Ultimate Geek

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#3210070 24-Mar-2024 10:23

The diverters are useful if you have enough demand for hot water. We've got a Catch-power Green diverter set to solar only (kinda similar to the Paladin) with a 300L tank, which has meant the hotwater for the last 2.5 years has been purely solar powered and never run out of hot water in that time.

HarmLessSolutions

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#3210072 24-Mar-2024 10:36

eonsim:

The diverters are useful if you have enough demand for hot water. We've got a Catch-power Green diverter set to solar only (kinda similar to the Paladin) with a 300L tank, which has meant the hotwater for the last 2.5 years has been purely solar powered and never run out of hot water in that time.

Our typical day is that the Paladin will divert to our 250L HWC until about 10 or 11am when the 73 degree max temp is reached. From there on it's up to the Evnex and other usage to consume enough for our export not to be clipped by the 5kW cap. The screenshot below is our best day to date (9.5kW of panels through a 8.2kW Fronius) and shows the Paladin supplying our HWC until about 10, then the Evnex feeding into our Polestar from 12 - 4pm (once I arrived home to plug in). The 'shoulders' either side of the car charging are the inverter throttling back as it reaches the 5kW export limit.

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

neb

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#3210344 24-Mar-2024 19:45

HarmLessSolutions:
To comply with your 5kW export cap ...

Not endorsing this practice but just pointing out how it works, the two things about solar installs that seem to be almost universally ignored are the requirement to get sign-off from the power company before running it, and the export cap....

HarmLessSolutions

969 posts

Ultimate Geek

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#3210354 24-Mar-2024 20:21

neb:
HarmLessSolutions:

To comply with your 5kW export cap ...

Not endorsing this practice but just pointing out how it works, the two things about solar installs that seem to be almost universally ignored are the requirement to get sign-off from the power company before running it, and the export cap....

I've been through 3 PV installations in the past 12 years on a previous property (5kW) and our current one (5kw, then 8.2kW upgrade). In all cases an inspector's sign off was required by PowerCo before we could link to their network. In the case of the upgrade, which exceeded the 5kW/phase cap, both the original installer on this property and the very experienced one we used to install the upgrade informed us that we needed to configure the system to comply with the 5kW cap, which involved onsite complications in order to run a comm's link between the inverter and our meter board.

Other regions may well have looser compliance control measures but in those regions with Powerco as the lines company I don't see how avoidance of sign off and phase cap compliance would be possible other than doing an installation completely outside the system which then presents significant property insurance implications. Also the lines companies have monitoring systems on their network so 'stray' inputs would soon become apparent surely.

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

neb

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#3210355 24-Mar-2024 20:31

HarmLessSolutions:
Also the lines companies have monitoring systems on their network so 'stray' inputs would soon become apparent surely.

In our case it took them something like a month to notice. This wasn't deliberate, they'd lost the paperwork we'd filed on the day of the install. When they found out they apologised and asked us to re-file the paperwork, nothing about "you shouldn't have done that" but just a "no problem, we'll mark it as urgent and get it sorted for you".

For other installs I've heard of the installers telling the home owners how to temporarily disconnect the system if necessary for the day of the inspection, but they never needed to do so. For both the installers and the people signing off on it it those two requirements seem to be more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules.

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