Solar options for home in 2022.

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#2974266 28-Sep-2022 15:26

Jase2985:

it will be down to how the battery are arranged in the modules

Both the producer in US and distributor in NZ got back to me to confirm that their specs for 25.2kWh rack pack were incorrect for amps. 100amps is for 1 x 5.2kWH unit. The amps rating for the rack pack is over well over 400amps.

Do whatever you want to do man.

MightyApe

You will find anything you want at MightyApe (affiliate link).

billgates

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#2975007 29-Sep-2022 21:06

One of the PV installers came today to do a scope and will provide a quote by next week. He did confirm that it is a 2phase cable that has been run to the house so unfortunately no 3 phase connection is possible. The good news is that Waipa networks also confirmed today that on a 2-phase connection, I can go up to 2 x 10kW size inverters without filling out any approval paperwork and will be able to export 10kW in total back to grid. There is a limit of max 10kW size inverter on a single-phase connection. Installer recommends 38 x 400W panels all black panels. Looking at Trina panels as I can get them at a good price, and they have a 25-year warranty for both hardware and performance. Waipa networks said if I had a 3-phase connection, they have no limit on export back to grid, but you do need to agree on an export kW number beforehand which they are happy to be as high as 50 or 60kW if the cabling to house and transformer size are acceptable.

PV installer also confirmed that Octopus Energy should be going live with Waipa networks any day now so that's another good bit of news.

Do whatever you want to do man.

Shindig

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#2975174 30-Sep-2022 07:49

Can I just say this is the best thread on GZ this week! I look forward to every reply as it will help me with my quest for solar, even the region Bill is from matches!!

Thank you to all...

The little things make the biggest difference.

billgates

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#2977837 5-Oct-2022 18:29

We received our first 3 quotes today from the 1st installer. We are still waiting for the other 2 installers to provide their quote who have already been home to do their scope visit. Harrisons will come in on 12th Oct for their scope visit. I was hoping with the battery included, the cost would be under $50k for either SMA or Fronius/Victron option. I am hoping one of the other installers' quotes comes under $50k. At worse, we will proceed ahead with the 15kW panels and SMA Sunny Boy or Fronius Primo PV inverter for now and add the battery charger inverter (SMA Sunny Island or Victron MultiPlus II or Quattro) and battery within couple of years to provide storage and off grid capability in a black out situation. Not keen on the GoodWe inverter or any other Chinese inverter option for now. They are getting better but not there yet compared to their European counterparts. Chinese panels though are just as good so happy to go to Trina or Jinko Solar over REC or Q-Cell as its premium not justified.

Do whatever you want to do man.

itey

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#2977982 5-Oct-2022 21:29

I'm trying to understand why you need 14kw of panels?

Jase2985

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#2977987 5-Oct-2022 21:40

what are you trying to achieve out of this?

billgates

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#2977995 5-Oct-2022 22:34

itey:

I'm trying to understand why you need 14kw of panels?

14.8kW sized to begin with and room to add further 4.3kW more panels facing North West in future if we get same size 390W size panels again or we can get even bigger wattage panels and get more kW added later. There is plenty of NW roof.

I will be going with battery storage that will grow over time by adding more battery packs as required. I am targeting 50kWh of battery storage as end goal for now reaching that within 2 to 3 years starting off with 25.2kWh battery storage to begin with. This covers evening/night and grid blackout for additional half day even if it’s cloudy.

The excess panels now will cover cloudy days so required daily home consumption does not suffers without pulling power back from grid. If we size the panels to exactly what our usage is now, you will be pulling remaining power from grid on cloudy days. The next car is going to be a plug-in hybrid which have between 17kWh to 20kWh battery. The gas califont we have now which is only used for hot water, will eventually be replaced with a 400L hot water cylinder. When summer hits, we won’t have to worry about shutting our slider doors from open living to our decking area when we are going forth inside and outside with air con running cooling to save power that we currently do because we are currently paying for power. All the excess generation will be used here. Any excess generation left gets sold back to the grid.

I looked at heat waves around the world and how many lakes dried up affecting a lot of hydropower in these countries in 2022 alone. Then I look at what % of NZ power generation source is hydro then I look at “yeah earth is getting hotter” and NZ is not special that it will be excluded from this climate change and decided to ask for a 14.8kW PV system.

There is also the point that people look at ROI purely based on current prices. I am going to say like most people’s opinion that power prices will be going up in next 10 years. Inflation, pay rises is a thing..

Do whatever you want to do man.

Klathman

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#2982203 13-Oct-2022 10:54

We used Harrisons Solar in the Waikato and were really happy with everything for about 5 months when we had a failure on the inverter.

It's installed outside and they decided to install it under the edge of a walkway roof. I queried them at the time as all gutters have the potential to overflow but was told that the inverter was rated for outdoor use and was watertight.

Well 5 months later and they're now saying that the gutters must have overflowed and damaged the unit and therefore we need to claim insurance to replace it. In the interim, it's been disabled with no solar for us.

I've gone back and told them that I expect that they replace it under the Consumer Guarantees Act as either the unit was defective to let water in, or the installation was not of an adequate standard when it was installed in a location that could result in water damage.

A month later and we're still offline with no likely resolution. Now it looks like we will need to take them to small claims to get a resolution.

I can no longer recommend them to anyone.

billgates

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#2982312 13-Oct-2022 14:14

Thanks @Klathman for posting about your experience with Harrisons Waikato. The last installer for a quotation which is Harrisons is coming tomorrow and their name is (Greg). What was the inverter brand, panel brand and sizing solution you were sold and if you don't mind sharing the cost? How was your experience with Greg?

Our house has no eaves so the inverter will have to be installed inside the garage anyway which is my preference anyway from weather damage + theft point of view.

Do whatever you want to do man.

Klathman

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#2982317 13-Oct-2022 14:52

billgates:

Thanks @Klathman for posting about your experience with Harrisons Waikato. The last installer for a quotation which is Harrisons is coming tomorrow and their name is (Greg). What was the inverter brand, panel brand and sizing solution you were sold and if you don't mind sharing the cost? How was your experience with Greg?

Our house has no eaves so the inverter will have to be installed inside the garage anyway which is my preference anyway from weather damage + theft point of view.

We were dealing with Greg as well (he owns the franchise with his wife) but he's now gone very silent for the last couple of weeks. He was great to deal with up until the point of the failure. Since then he's been totally absent and as I said the best they can do is send us a quote for $5956.14 to provide a new inverter including additional installation costs.

I did suggest installing it in the garage but their preference was to install it on the outside due to where the main circuit board and meter was. I trusted their judgement which clearly was a mistake now.

We got 20 REC395AA panels and the Fronius 6kW inverter with a hot water diverter for $22K

billgates

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#2982328 13-Oct-2022 15:34

Thanks @Klathman and sorry to hear about your troubles. I will be staying away from Harrisons for our install even though my install would be under cover from any weather damage but if the after sales support is not there from a company that did the install knowing a potential issue that was brought up by the homeowner and they said, 'she will be fine' and it's not fine then that speaks volume.

Let me know if you want the contact details for the Fronius Primo 6kW inverter from company that I got above quote from which is $3270 + GST. Surely the re-install will not be more than $300 to $500 being very generous here. $2k cheaper than Harrissons if you do want to get it fixed incase disputes tribunal does not agree with you. You have a very strong case here and I wish you all the best on winning the case.

Do whatever you want to do man.

Klathman

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#2982350 13-Oct-2022 16:34

That would be great.

Hopefully they ultimately come to the party and resolve the issue but it really should never have gotten to this point nor taken this long. We think we have a pretty strong case as well. It'll just be a case of whether we need the court to order them to comply with the Act.

It's just ironic that their last email to me had this lovely statement in it.

"We have a strong reputation in the Waikato and install more solar than any other supplier in the country. We aren't in that position by not taking care to work hard for each and every customer. We are here to assist and will do our very best to get this resolved as soon as reasonably possible."

*sigh*

billgates

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#2984282 18-Oct-2022 16:17

Got couple of quotes from multiple suppliers today incl Harrisons. Harrisons is by far the most expensive. The second supplier is $2k cheaper for exactly same inverter and panels as first supplier's quote few posts above. Waiting for couple more quotes which hopefully will show up by end of this week. The REC panels upgrade even over Q-Cell is mind bogglingly expensive. For comparison Harrison's option A which is 12.48kWH is $32,790 and second supplier's is $28,600 for 14.14kWh of panels.

Tesla Powerwall 2 have also gone up it looks in last 50 days by $1100 as a work colleague in South Island got his first PW2 for $18400 incl install from Harrison's franchisee there. Now it's $19,500. I did learn though that if you combine multiple Tesla PW2, the peak power output also adds so 2 x PW2 will provide 10kW of continuous power.

Do whatever you want to do man.

eonsim

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#2985972 21-Oct-2022 21:31

What you are paying for with the more premium panels is panel life and warranty. If you look at the JA panels they promise 82% output after 25 years, vs 86% for Q.cells and 92% for REC. So losses of ~0.7, 0.5 or 0.3% per annum, with modern panels functioning lifetime is likely to exceed their warranty period, with some estimates being close to ~40years. With the cheaper panels though that degradation means there is an increased risk that the output of the panels may drop below the requirement of the house and require earlier replacement. While you probably aren't planning to be in that house in 40 years' time the greater life expectancy of the panels and reduced environmental impact may appeal. Also the REC panels are lead-free, which you may value.

Finally, the whole warranty period if a panel develops a defect in 16 years with JA no cover while the other two will replace the panels (assuming they still exist).

When we put our system in we went with the REC panels for the likely longer life expectancy and reduced environmental impact, but pretty sure the upgrade cost wasn't as high per panel...

As a more general comment, with the two 6K Fronius inverters, you would get a solar backup/emergency power point for both inverters. So assuming it was sunny then you could be getting upto 2x3kW of power available via those power plugs during a blackout...

billgates

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#2985976 21-Oct-2022 23:09

Thanks @eonsim for the solar backup power point tip with the new Gen 24 Fronius. I had not thought about that and that certainly is a big advantage over the SMA especially now that I am not going with battery storage to begin the PV journey.

I have now decided to ditch all black panels as our roof colour is gull grey. We saw a house with similar colour roof as ours in neighborhood with the JA Solar panels in Harrison's quote above and it looked particularly good. The black panels will suit ebony colour roofs only, I think. Reading online, black panels generate a lot more heat and will be 3% to 4% less efficient than the silver panels. The cheapest installer recommended Jinko Tiger Type N 415W panels. These have 15-year warranty like JA Solar however these have 30-year linear performance warranty at 87.4%. The Jinko comes out ahead of both JA Solar and Q-Cell and just slightly behind REC at 25-year mark. Annual degradation with Jinko is 0.4%

I will be going with the 36 x Jinko 415W below which will bump the PV array size to 14.94kW. These will be paired with 2 x 6kW SMA or Fronius so that's 1.245x over provisioning which is below the 133% acceptable value. I have also decided to balance both phases which will be moving the ducted aircon on 2nd phase paired along with the existing induction cooktop which is already across both phases atm. This will allow 2 x 5kW grid export. The near 15kW PV array leaves some generation head room spare even after adding upto 2 x 70kW EV, 50kW battery storage in the future as well.

JKM410-430N-54HL4-(V)-F1-EN (IEC 2016).ai (jinkosolar.com)

Still waiting for that final quote. It was meant to come today but looks wont be delivered before Tuesday at latest now.

Do whatever you want to do man.

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