Solar is now ‘cheapest electricity in history’, confirms IEA
www.carbonbrief.org
external-link
The world’s best solar power schemes now offer the “cheapest…electricity in history” with the technology cheaper than coal and gas in most major countries.

95% of what we generate during the goes to the battery and once fully charged we can go days without needing to recharge it

and then your solar panels are doing anything for you in days. you seem to have been offered a very bad deal. I suggest you find other company to analyse your case

Nope that’s literally the only way you can make solar viable here. We get no credits or anything for the excess power we generate and we use hardly any power during the day. So literally any excess power the panels generate goes to waste. And if we go to a smaller unit the money we save is negligible again

You do get paid for unused solar, it’s just less than it used to be. The idea is that you’re meant to shift your loads to the day. Even without the additional feed in, 6.6kw only costs 2.5k and pays itself off within 4 years if you’re shifting your loads to the solar peak

Also, it feels like you’ve installed an overly big battery system.

Panels and batteries are subsidised here in Victoria and the panels only costs 2500aud for a 6.6k system. Most people spend 20k on batteries or less

How can we shift our peak power use when no one is there to use it?. Again we did all the math even with the company and we all came to the same figure. If we did solar only then the system would cost us more in the long term as we still need to draw power during our peak usage. Battery was the only way to make it viable.

  • Do things like turn on the dishwasher/dryer/washing during daytime instead using timer
  • Also, switching a heat pump hot water system and turning it on during day is effectively like a battery too. I got rid of gas (electric is healthier anyway). Most heat pump hot water systems are designed to turn on during day only

You can get devices which hook into your smart meter and measure energy usage, and optimise for that.

The reason you don’t get much feedin anymore (unless you’re a Virtual power plant, at times more power is needed), is because previously, people were just generating too much excess power during the day, and forcing non-renewables to turn on again at night (so it was pointless). Ideally, you should be trying to export 0kwh back to the grid

Create a post

A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.

Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.

Subcommunities on Beehaw:


This community’s icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

  • 1 user online
  • 144 users / day
  • 275 users / week
  • 709 users / month
  • 2.87K users / 6 months
  • 1 subscriber
  • 3.1K Posts
  • 65K Comments
  • Modlog