We are in Northland at approximately 35° latitude with two of our buildings’ roofs suitable to install solar, both 30° pitch, one 12mx2.8m and the other 5.2mx1.8m, bearing about 32° and a few metres apart. We have a hill to the west and there will also be some morning and afternoon shading from the shelterbelts but the direct insolation hours are a fairly good match to our usage profile.

We’re with Frank Energy at the following rates (ex.GST):
Daily charge $1.55 
Day $0.32 / kWh
Night $0.21 / kWh
Buyback $0.11 / kWh

We have a 2 phase supply coming from a 15kVA roadside transformer that feeds two properties (one not ours). The building with a suitable roof for solar is 60m from the shed where the meters are installed on a 63A breaker. There is an unused 2 pair Cat3 cable between the buildings in case that could be used for signalling of some kind? (Presuming a controller and potentially a battery would need to be close to the panels to minimise losses but not sure how to activate a grid protect relay when the meters aren’t co-located).

Power outages here are often a multi day affair (Gabrielle was 9 days). We can normally get by as the hot water cylinders are usable for 3 or four days, we have gravity headers, and most of the family don’t eat animal products, so the refrigeration/freezing situation is manageable. It would be nice to keep the fridges and freezers going though, and to pump to the header tanks. A battery may therefore be a better option than having money tied up in a generator. We could probably get by with a system that just had a critical load output during the day but the pumps and some freezers are much too far to run an extension to.

I had made contact with a few solar installers. A fair few don’t service this area, some sent through their generic packages but didn’t really engage. One of them did a site visit but it did seem more like a sales pitch and they were a bit light when it came to the technicalities. Another was quite engaged but didn’t end up having an installer who would come out this way. Both of those outfits were a bit disparaging of the other’s solutions, neither fond of the other’s panels. One of them offering a Huawei lithium battery (touting the dominant position of Huawei, modernity and usable capacity), the other a lead battery (touting the recyclability and ½ price buyback at end-of-life).

We wouldn’t be looking to run everything in an outage (just occasionally pumping, freezers, a few lights - WISP CPE and about 9 APs and bridges would be handy) but an idea of the maximum appliances used would be:

Fridge x7
Freezer x3
Large hot water cylinder x2
Small hot water cylinder x2
Header tank pump x2
Pressure pump x2 
Oil column heater x8
Convection heater x2
Dehumidifier x6
Washing machine x4
Dryer x2
Oven x1
Cooktop x3
Kettle x4
Toaster x4
Desktop PC x6
A smattering of phones and laptops plus other small appliances

No EV but it would be good to plan for that in future.

Our average spend per month over the last 12 months is $670

An idea of maximum recorded usage per hour over the last month is below:

12:00AM    2.71
01:00AM    2.71
02:00AM    3.31
03:00AM    3.31
04:00AM    2.24
05:00AM    2.24
06:00AM    4.84
07:00AM    4.84
08:00AM    6.42
09:00AM    6.42
10:00AM    6.86
11:00AM    6.86
12:00PM    5.22
01:00PM    5.22
02:00PM    4.99
03:00PM    4.99
04:00PM    4.97
05:00PM    4.97
06:00PM    8
07:00PM    8
08:00PM    8.36
09:00PM    8.36
10:00PM    5.5
11:00PM    5.5
    
Daily Max kWH    126.84

And here is the cumulative hourly usage over the last month to get an idea of the daily pattern (there’s generally going to be at least 7 people home during the day).

Anyway, thanks for reading all this. I’m just wondering if you have any advice for products that would best suit our scenario? Or installers or consultants that you would recommend in Northland who you would recommend?

Thanks