Is my Solar quote decent?

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fastbike

448 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 323

#3319010 11-Dec-2024 06:56

cddt:

fastbike:

Anyway, yesterday was an epic solar day here in Christchurch. Total PV generation was 91.7kWh (from a 10kW inverter), and 78kWh was exported at 17 cents per unit. That's over $13 in credits.

Incredible!

Yesterday was a new record, 92kWh generated and 79 exported. And the inspector swung by and signed off the house installation :)

The installer has said he can finish the garage installation during the holiday period.

Otautahi Christchurch

RobDickinson

1526 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 513

#3319353 11-Dec-2024 20:08

man that 3 phase rocks for exports lol

fastbike

448 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 323

#3319425 11-Dec-2024 22:42

RobDickinson:

man that 3 phase rocks for exports lol

Yes, my father in law (much missed) told me to get a three phase connection when we built 20 years ago. I think it was little extra cost at the time. I was thinking it would be good for my wood shop. But in reality the value is that it allows me to export 15kW rather than 5kW !

Otautahi Christchurch

fastbike

448 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 323

#3326929 2-Jan-2025 08:48

So the installer is turning up tomorrow to commission the garage panels. That's another 5kW on top of the 10kW installed for te house.

In the meantime, for the month of December we generated 2021kWh (that's 2MWh !!), exported 1632, self consumed 389. We also imported 309 mainly on the night rate which is only slightly higher than our export rate so looking forward to a decent credit instead of the normal bill of around $200 at this time of the year.

Otautahi Christchurch

fastbike

448 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 323

#3326931 2-Jan-2025 08:57

... and in pictures. We find light cloud does not suppress generation too much, it is rainy days that push the numbers down and December has been unusually wet in Otautahi Christchurch.

Otautahi Christchurch

fastbike

448 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 323

#3327864 5-Jan-2025 17:04

RobDickinson:

man that 3 phase rocks for exports lol

Anyway, the full house and garage installation is now live. The installer came on a wet Friday morning and finished the garage and that part went live around 1pm. In summary we have:
- 27 x 440W panels on the house feeding a 10kW Solis 3 phase string inverter via 3 strings. Orientation about 346 degrees (so slight anti clockwise to true North) which seems to make absolutely no difference at this time of the year.
- 14 x 440W panels on the garage, each with a 380W Enphase inverter underneath, feeding in via a 3 phase cable. Orientation is around 260 degrees (so slightly anti clockwise to true West). As expected this is a little slower to get going in the morning.

Yesterday was a bit hit and miss here in Otautahi Christchurch. A bit slow to start and then quite a few cloudy periods.

Our best day for production and exports when we only had the house was 18 Dec: PV was 95.5kWh with 82kWh exported.

Yesterday we totaled PV of 115kWh (house 78, garage 37) with exports of 100kWh (house 63, garage 37). I'm expecting if we get a very clear day in January we could see PV approaching 140. Depending on what is self consumed much of that can be exported at our export tariff of 17 cents.

My modelling showed that we should be generating around 2.24 times the reference site I used in the modelling. Yesterday that site output 36kWh, our actual output was 3.19 the output of the reference site so my modelling appears to be quite conservative for this time of the year. Hopefully this will continue into the winter months (e.g. my adjustment factor is 1.56 for June) so it will be interesting to see what how the system performs over the year. Hopefully the payback will be quite a bit less than the 5 years in the model (adjusted to 5.5 years based on actual costs)

Otautahi Christchurch

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