Solar options for home in 2022.

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20141 posts

Uber Geek

#3222513 24-Apr-2024 19:35

HarmLessSolutions:

This is an interesting concept; the prevalence of roof top solar in Australian states threatening the viability of large scale solar farms and even wind turbine projects. https://www.pv-magazine-australia.com/2024/02/08/rooftop-solars-success-results-in-struggling-large-scale-segment/

The cynic in me can see these big companies lobbying government over more regulation with household installs. Maybe even calling for levies on them

Jase2985

13457 posts

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#3225542 2-May-2024 15:41

Finally got my solar installed yesterday, after the inverted ended up in Tauranga leading to a week delay. Weather has been overcast and raining a bit, so hard to get a gauge of what the system is doing at the moment

Fronius Primo 8.0 GEN24 Single Phase Hybrid Inverter + 24x REC Solar's Alpha REC420AA Pure Black solar panel (10.08kW) and a Fronius Wattpilot EVSE

Has a few issues trying to get the inverter and the Wattpilot talking to each other, and for some reason they won't on my home network, but they will on my neighbour's one, so I need to follow up that a bit more in the future when I have some time.

16 Panels facing 250

8 Panels facing 070

Coming back to @EgorNZ issue, my inverter output voltage and my main incoming voltage at the Smart Meter have been within 1.5V of each other the entire time, but the voltage has fluctuated from as high as 245.3V to as low as 233V on the supply with the inverter being within .3-.5 95% of the time.
There is approximately 30m of 10mm2 2 core cable between the 2 locations.

I haven't hit the peak power for either east or west array, but both arrays are ~400V when there is right down in the 0.xxkWh being produced, and they stay this way the whole time, the current/power is what fluctuates with the sunlight.

Screenshot from today

harmonist

31 posts

Geek

#3226809 6-May-2024 08:54

Also had my solar installed last week, the whole thing was completed and running in 1 day, used Avid solar, highly recommended. I've got 7.92kw of Jinko tiger neo blackout panels and a 6kw fronius gen24 inverter, the fronius was a tad finicky to setup, I had to reboot it a couple of times to get the solar API to stick but it didn't take long before all data was flowing through nicely to home assistant, its been rock solid since, anyone have any recommended home assistant automations? also does anyone know how long I may have to wait for final inspection? pretty keen to get the import/export meter setup for buyback but I guess good things take time.

Super impressed with generation so far, no regrets at all.

HarmLessSolutions

969 posts

Ultimate Geek

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#3226871 6-May-2024 09:10

@harmonist, In our case the installation and commissioning of the export meter was reliant on Wells who in Taranaki at least seem to have a monopoly on their services in this sector and the lack of competition results in them providing some pretty dismal levels of communication and timeliness. For us the delay from PV install to export meter connection back in August 2021 (i.e. tail end of COVID) was around 5 weeks. Hopefully your experience is better than ours was.

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

SumnerBoy

2074 posts

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#3226876 6-May-2024 09:23

harmonist:

anyone have any recommended home assistant automations?

I recently setup the Energy Dashboard on Home Assistant and have been very impressed. I have 7.8kW of solar + Fronius Primo 6kW + Tesla Powerwall and they all feed nicely into the HA Energy Dashboard to give a great picture of how the system is performing. Worth a look IMO.

Here is a random day recently with some good solar gain. It also can be easily setup to show a forecast of expected solar production for your location/panel/inverter sizes etc - this is only shown for today/tomorrow views.

harmonist

31 posts

Geek

#3226878 6-May-2024 09:24

HarmLessSolutions:

@harmonist, In our case the installation and commissioning of the export meter was reliant on Wells who in Taranaki at least seem to have a monopoly on their services in this sector and the lack of competition results in them providing some pretty dismal levels of communication and timeliness. For us the delay from PV install to export meter connection back in August 2021 (i.e. tail end of COVID) was around 5 weeks. Hopefully your experience is better than ours was.

Oh wow that's a long time!! hopefully things are a bit quicker now but good to know not to get my hopes up!

EgorNZ

50 posts

Geek

#3226906 6-May-2024 10:44

I imagine this varies a lot with your location and lines company, but in my case (with Vector) the export meter was installed and ready a few weeks before the solar system installation.

After the panels and batteries were installed, there was a wait of just a few days for an inspector to come and sign off on it.

Jase2985

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#3228015 8-May-2024 17:39

@EgorNZ any luck with your setup? its was a lovely day today in Auckland, so you should have some good data from today

HarmLessSolutions

969 posts

Ultimate Geek

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#3230430 14-May-2024 16:37

This video presentation from Bernard Hickey's 'The Kaka' nails the situation in NZ in regard to the way our electricity supply fails in providing consumers and those of us who have distributed generation a decent deal. Hopefully the Octopus COO is right in assuming our government is clever enough to realise the opportunities available for us as a country if our electricity prices weren't some of the most expensive in the world.

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

Shindig

1585 posts

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#3230741 15-May-2024 12:43

Great pictures of the new setups and thank you for posting the video.

Are we seeing the prices fall with an influx of Chinese products? Is solar becoming more affordable now in NZ, and are the Chinese products actually any good.

The little things make the biggest difference.

dantheperson

174 posts

Master Geek

#3232805 20-May-2024 21:31

harmonist:

does anyone know how long I may have to wait for final inspection? pretty keen to get the import/export meter setup for buyback but I guess good things take time.

Super impressed with generation so far, no regrets at all.

I thought you needed to wait for final inspection and export meter instalation before turning on generation?

neb

11294 posts

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#3232806 20-May-2024 21:35

dantheperson: I thought you needed to wait for final inspection and export meter instalation before turning on generation?

Yes, you do, and (virtually) nobody does. This was discussed in one of the other solar threads.

harmonist

31 posts

Geek

#3232807 20-May-2024 21:40

We had our final inspection a week ago and the meter is being upgraded tomorrow morning, so will all be completed within 3 weeks which is pretty good I think

Jase2985

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#3232852 21-May-2024 05:26

harmonist: We had our final inspection a week ago and the meter is being upgraded tomorrow morning, so will all be completed within 3 weeks which is pretty good I think

nice, ours was all done in 2 weeks, would have been quicker if the inverter didnt go for a walk to Tauranga, and the inspector, an older dude, actually read and replied to his emails and text messages.

Ive been averaging about 23kWh produced per day for May, but yesterday was horribly cloudy/overcast and only managed to generate 12kWh.

HarmLessSolutions

969 posts

Ultimate Geek

Subscriber

#3232883 21-May-2024 08:59

Jase2985:

Ive been averaging about 23kWh produced per day for May, but yesterday was horribly cloudy/overcast and only managed to generate 12kWh.

That's pretty respectable production for an 8kW inverter with EW split arrays.

Our monthly generation totals have been 1,309 for Jan, 1,276 Feb, 1161 Mar, 908 Apr & 553 May so far, for this 9.5kW configuration through an 8.2kW Fronius. We have a bit of shading from the trees in the morning and a little on the back array from the front one early and later in the day, both during the months when the sun is lower.

Daily generation this month has been between 44.6kWh on the 8th and 7.6kWh on the 15th primarily limited by cloud cover. Summer months also benefit from some added gain from the rear array being bifacials.

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

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