# Forum Home Renovation Solar Electrical Systems  Stinky's Shiny New 3.5Kw Solar System

## Sir Stinkalot

Hi All, 
This section of the forum seems to be fairly quiet so I thought I would share may recent experience of getting a new solar system. It will be fairly long winded, however it may be helpful for others considering solar, particularly in SA. 
Back on November last year I thought it would be a good idea to consider solar. Given the rising energy prices, and the fact we had recently sold our second house, I thought it was time to consider solar for our current house. I wasn't too familiar with the current feed in tariffs and benefits, or what was the most up to date equipment, but that was something I would pick up along the way. 
In my opinion the current solar market is particularly confusing. With all of the rebates and feed in tariffs there has certainly been a huge increase in solar companies starting up and offering the world. It seems very similar to when the insulation scheme was at its peak with hundreds of companies jumping up just to catch onto the wave, and not necessarily with the appropriate level of experience or interest in customer satisfaction, just a quick money making opportunity. With this in mind I was keen to avoid the fly buy night operators and try and find a reliable company. 
In the end I obtained a quote from my energy provider, and a second company who I had recommended through work contacts. Having doing some research I was keen on an SMA inverter. They seem to still get positive feedback, and considering they were the bees knees when I last took interest in solar when I was at uni, I thought I couldn't go wrong. 
Our current usage is about 13Kw/day in winter and about 8Kw/day in summer. The recommendations from both companies I had quote was for a 3kw system. Our house faces north, however there is limited north roof space. The initial recommendation was a few panels on the limited north roof and the balance on the east. It was recommended that I would need a dual input inverter due to the north and east facing panels and the smallest SMA inverter that was dual input compatible was the 4kw unit. 
My electricity retailer did the initial unit quote over the phone, obviously using an aerial photo to gauge roof area and the like. I gave the details that our house was single story with a Colorbond roof however they did not pick up on the fact that it is over 100 years old, 3.3m ceiling and a pitch of about 35 degrees. They were quite good and gave a quote quickly and answered any questions promptly. The quote included a range of exclusions and exceptions and given that they hadn't seen my house I was a little uneasy. The price was fairly good I though for such a large company however there were some limitations when it came to customising the system. The panels selected were 250w with a positive tolerance. With the 4kw inverter that I needed they could only supply 3kw of panels. Given I had paid for a 4kw inverter I was happy to bump up the number of panels a little to get closer to the maximum inverter size however the retailer could only go 3kw of panels with the 4kw inverter or 4kw of panels with a 5kw inverter. I was a little concerned with this company as I really wanted to get a minimum of 3.5kw with a 4kw inverter, and given they hadn't undertaken a site inspections I was concerned about the hidden costs once they came out to install. As such they were dropped. 
The second quote came from a local company. The business owner came over to the house to discuss the requirements and have a look at the property - a big plus. After sitting down and going through the past bills a 3kw system was recommended. This was at the same time I was negotiating with the other supplier. I obtained a quote for the SMA 4kw inverter I was after along with 3.5kw of 250w QCell German made panels. Whilst this would have been a very good system the price ended up being a little more than I was looking at (touch over $7k). As a result it was re-quoted with 250w Canadian Solar (Chinese made) panels. These panels were on a par with the other quote as far as quality goes and for the 3.5kw system came in at touch over $6k. The other supplier was a little cheaper but in a $/kw comparison they were the same. Whilst there are cheaper systems on the market I was happy with the components and the cost so accepted. 
The company was signed up in late November and deposits made. The wheels have been put into motion with SA Power Networks (SAPN) to get the old dial meter changed to a new digital import / export meter, along with the small embedded generator agreement. Despite only installing a 3.5kw system we lodged an application for an 8kw small embedded generator agreement with SAPN to enable the flexibility for future upgrades without loosing any feed in tariffs. After a couple of weeks the small embedded generator agreement was approved, I contacted my retailer to confirm a new electricity plan and booked the meter swap over with SAPN, for late January  :Cry:  
As it turns out the Government changed the rebate system and halved the rebate on systems installed after December 2012. As I had signed up prior to the announcement I was still getting the 2x rebate which was good news. Despite assurances I was going to be installed prior to the end of the year I still couldn't lock the company into an installation date. It turned out that despite placing a deposit in early November the panels were still not available by the end of December. SAPN came in late January and changed the meter over and I was finally given an installation date of the system for a week later.   
The installers turned up on the right day, had one look at the 100 year old house with the high pitched roof and high ceilings and said that they were not equipped. They needed additional harnesses and safety rails, plus another person. Whilst this was obviously frustrating considering there was already a site inspection, and a two month wait, I was happy to accept that their safety was paramount. The installation was rescheduled for 2 weeks. 
2 weeks later the installers returned, with an additional electrician and set to work. It was a hot Saturday, and to their credit they worked hard for the full day. The quality of work was A1 which was one of my concerns. They did a very neat job and despite having a stone house with brick internal walls, they used the cavity near the meter box to avoid the easier option of conduit just running externally up the wall. Prior to the installation starting we discussed the setup and it was determined that we would move away from the north + east split and go a east + west split. There wasn't much room on the north, plus it faces the road on a heritage listed streetscape, so the east + west split seemed appropriate. The installation guys were a little disappointed that the proposal put forward by their sales team wasn't appropriate for the site, but to their credit we were able to talk through the options. 
In the end we have 1.75kw (7 panels) on the east and the same on the west. As it turns out with that arrangement I think we could have managed with a single input 2kw inverter, but you live an learn. The east have been installed a little lower on the roof as they said there wasn't room to go closer to the ridge. We end up with a little shading from the neighbours chimney first thing in the morning which is a little disappointing. The west is closer to the ridge and doesn't get any shading from what I can tell. So far the system has been going almost 2 weeks. I would say on average we are getting 15kw/h per day and that will obviously drop over the winter. 
The SMA inverter has a bluetooth connection which is great as I can monitor on my laptop. After struggling with PV Bean Counter I now use PV Upload to collect that data from the inverter to upload onto PVOutput . Whilst SMA have a program to graph the output, PV output is a good little website to compare the outputs of your system against others. I am really happy to have the system installed. I was keen on getting solar from a green perspective, although reducing bills is obviously a bonus. I would think that over the summer we will get a credit on our bills, and perhaps fall just below covering our usage over winter. On average over the year I think we will break even. As making money wasn't a key issue I wasn't too concerned on the return on investment time but I think it will be in the order of 3-5 years depending on the feed in tariff (currently $0.26/kwh).  
There is certainly something cool about producing your own power. I have become a little addicted watching the output of the system and how it is impacted by the weather. I am more conscious about power usage now, down to the point of trying to convince the Stinkette to run the dishwasher and washing machine when the sun is out and we are generating our own power. I also try to turn off as many lights as possible. Whilst a north facing system would be ideal, I don't mind the east + west split. This will give a good spread across the year and also give some protection is there is cloud in the morning or afternoon. The daily generation graphs make interesting reading with the system typically coming to life at about 9:30am steadily rising to about 1500w by about 10am (typically starts at about 7:15am at a few w rising steadily to about 265w at 9:30am before jumping up). It ticks along at about 1500w until about 1pm which must be when the west facing panels kick in as it jumps to about 2300w, the peak starts to decline again at around 2pm where it starts a steady fall to about 1300w at 6:00pm and then a sharp drop, similar to early morning, for another 2 hours. Over the almost 2 weeks that the system has been going it has been a similar pattern, although the total output has varied a little due to temperature and cloud cover, but the trend is similar. 
With PVoutput you can compare to similar systems in your local area. I have somebody in the same suburb with a 4kw north facing system (no shade) and it is interesting to compare the two output graphs with their system following a very similar pattern, although producing about 1.5kw/h more per day than my system. On reflection I was a little surprised with the low generations first thing in the morning. The recommendation was to put panels on the east to cover your morning usage, however based on the graphs produced it doesn't really do much until about 9:30am which is after we have left for work so there is little benefit there. It may be interesting to watch over winter. I discussed about having more panels on the west, but by looking at the outputs we should be close to covering our use then anyway so it may not make much difference. 
So that is about it I think. Just a long essay about my journey through solar. I am very happy to get the system up and running and monitoring it has become a new hobby. The new meter was installed a few weeks before the solar (so it had a head start), however given the current generation I would expect the solar exports to overtake the import in a week or so. Given the slightly different costs I will need to exceed the import slight to make a profit, but I think they system is certainly heading in the right direction. 
If there are any questions I am happy to share what I know as it is a messy market out there. 
Cheers 
Stinky

----------


## METRIX

It really annoys me that the gov't initially brought out a good rebated Solar scheme, then they keep dropping the rebates to the point that it is not fesable for the average family to invest into. 
I am a big advocate for Solar energy, initially the Govt had a set amount of money put aside to "show the world" Australia was doing their bit for going green, that money was forcasted to last for a certain amount of years worth of installs based on their (obviously wrong) forcast figures, the money ran out in a very short period and therefore the scheme was brought to a halt. 
This is absurd, it just goes to show that the average person is concerned about the environment, and they would like to do their bit to help out, but now only a lucky few who were able to jump onto the initial good value schemes can benefit from it. 
The gov't (labour or liberal) waste sooooo much of our tax money on rediculous things, when a rebated Solar scheme is a long term benefit, (20 - 25 year aveage panel life), IMO they need to rethink these types of schemes, and not just offer a limited amount of money so we look good to the rest of the world, we need to do this on a mass rollout, such as in Germany, these can save the building of new coal stations, renewable energy is now cheaper to produce than gas or coal fired stations, we need to look to the future and act on these technologies now. 
The entire "War on Terror" is based on scare tactics, and is only about the US gaining access to oil reserves to feed their massive apetite for oil, Imagine if the trillions of dollars spent on that war which has not achived anything, and nearly sent the US broke, let alone how many young people have been killed was actually spent on developing more efficient solar panels (which they can do it has been proved) and rolling these out around the US and offering them as export product worldwide  ! 
But then developing solar energy, is not as profitable as developing new weapons and aircraft etc for a war which is un necessary.  Renewables now cheaper than coal and gas in Australia : Renew Economy

----------


## barney118

Thanks Sir stinkalot for your generous description as I have/am procrastinating about the same, I believe they are giving more to  the east/west split than previously given credit for. 
I was speaking to a supplier (german background sales) difficult to understand "how it works" and I am disappointed at the lack of transparency in understanding how it all works given each state has their own "rules". 
I use approx 15kw/ day and I have been trying to understand how the cost works, some tell me its a net off equation, your use - your generation over the pay period. Or its your use first then pay the difference for the top up, which is sneaky as they pay you 6c for your power and 23c to buy it, as you have put it your not home when you are generating etc. Then I can work out my payback time for investment. 
ALso my question is to understand 3kw system in E-W set up should on average generate 10kw a day summer 8 kw day in winter (figures made up of course).  
What are the dimensions of the panels? As I have limited space nth facing on roof and would estimate how many I could fit before I look at other options, (but have a verandah) across the width of my property which I cant see why you wouldnt use that but I would have to install brackets to get the right pitch to sun.

----------


## johnc

We put on a 3.2KW system a little under two years ago on the old Victorian feed in fate of 60C a KW on power exported to the grid. Back then the systems were nearly double the price they are today although the feed in tarrif will compensate for that over time. Our install was fine, SP Ausnet took forever to install the smart meter due to a hold up in paperwork somewhere in the system and it took several phone calls to get that sorted. We also had a switch fail as a result of water ingress and that took one string off line, it generated power it just didn't go anywhere. That was annoying because it took the installer sometime to acknowledge there was an issue and another three months to come out, identify and repair. The system has probably run on half power for around nine months. We have put the repair problem down to experience and overall are happy with the bulk of the process. For most people with a bit of cash putting up a solar array on current capital costs of the install and the current cost of power which will increase over time is a bit of a no brainer. If you intend staying in the house the payback period is quite short and given the expected 25 year minimum life span of these systems should deliver very good returns over that period.

----------


## Johning

> If you intend staying in the house the payback period is quite short and given the expected 25 year minimum life span of these systems should deliver very good returns over that period.

  The 25 year expected lifespan is just for the panels not the whole system. Many inverters only have a 5 year warranty (some extendable at extra cost). I have been looking at the price of a 3kw system and the inverter represents approximately 40% of the installed price. If this fails after 10 years and there is no  manufacturer support you may have to buy a new one and pay for installation. No one knows what the cost of electronics will be in the future but I suspect it will be cheaper than the present day. Labour costs will rise.

----------


## johnc

> The 25 year expected lifespan is just for the panels not the whole system. Many inverters only have a 5 year warranty (some extendable at extra cost). I have been looking at the price of a 3kw system and the inverter represents approximately 40% of the installed price. If this fails after 10 years and there is no manufacturer support you may have to buy a new one and pay for installation. No one knows what the cost of electronics will be in the future but I suspect it will be cheaper than the present day. Labour costs will rise.

  
10 year warranty on the inverter, and current prices of a 3.2kw inverter are about 15% to 20% of our original install price, if it fails in 10 years I suspect the cost of a new unit along with efficiency and technological gains that come with it will mean it is not a big deal.

----------


## Sir Stinkalot

> I have been trying to understand how the cost works, some tell me its a net off equation, your use - your generation over the pay period. Or its your use first then pay the difference for the top up, which is sneaky as they pay you 6c for your power and 23c to buy it, as you have put it your not home when you are generating etc. Then I can work out my payback time for investment.

  Barney, It is confusing as it does vary from state to state. I am only really familiar with SA as that is where I was installing. Over here in simple terms the solar generates your power, if you use less than it is generating at that moment the excess is sold to the grid ($0.26 in our case). If you are using more than you are producing at that moment you will be buying the excess from the grid to make up the difference (at full retail around $0.37 in our case from memory). When the sun goes down you are buying at full retail price. There was a system some time ago where it was calculated differently in as much as you generate x units for the day from your solar, import y units from the retailer to use overnight and your difference between these two resulted in you either making a profit for the day or having to buy additional power - whilst this would have been handy I think it may be long gone. 
Something to remember is that you are selling your power to your retailer at closer to the price they buy from their wholesaler. You can not expect them to have to buy from you at full retail price when they can purchase from the coal generating plants at the same time. Over here were have a set price for the feed in tariff. Mine is $0.16c/kwh until September 2016, on top of this is the minimum retailer payment which increases slightly each year, currently it is an additional 9.8c/kwh and will increase to 11.2c/kwh in the next financial year. This goes some way to linking the retailers wholesaler price with what they are paying the solar generators. The groups before me are getting $0.44c/kwh until 2028 + the increasing minimum retailer payment, but on the flip side systems purchased 2 years ago were costing almost double than they are now.   

> Back then the systems were nearly double the price they are today although the feed in tarrif will compensate for that over time.

  Yep it would be interesting to track the different returns on investment. With the bigger feed in tariff people were recommending as many panels that could fit on your roof. Great idea at the time except for the fact that as the tariffs have dropped the upfront price of the system has also tumbled. They are now recommending only getting a system to cover your day time use if you have a low tariff. I would think that buying a cheaper upfront system now on lower tariff would be better than a huge system at a higher cost with higher feed in tariffs. The tariffs and your return are only good when you own the house, there will be many that have purchased a large system that will have to sell and move before breaking even.   

> The 25 year expected lifespan is just for the panels not the whole system. Many inverters only have a 5 year warranty (some extendable at extra cost). I have been looking at the price of a 3kw system and the inverter represents approximately 40% of the installed price. If this fails after 10 years and there is no  manufacturer support you may have to buy a new one and pay for installation. No one knows what the cost of electronics will be in the future but I suspect it will be cheaper than the present day. Labour costs will rise.

  It certainly pays to get a good inverter. I paid more for the SMA as I feel that putting more money into the electronic component would make better sense than spending more on the better panels, which is most likely only a marginal improvement overall. Warranty on inverters is only half the battle. No point getting a 25 year warranty on an inverter if the company folds in 5 years. SMA have been around for a long time so I was happy with their shorter warranty, knowing that the company has a good track record. I am surprised that you are finding that the inverter is 40% of the price. Whilst they are not cheap, and without looking at my quote again, I felt the labour for installation was the much higher component of the system and will increase as regulations make installations harder (more expensive). If you take out the rails, wiring, mounting panels etc the labour required to replace an old inverter, with all of the wiring and panels already in place wouldn't be too bad. I am sure my guy had the inverter mounted and wired up in about and hour while the other guys were doing the rails for the panels, the panels themselves took very little time. To replace an inverter I think would be 2hr labour on top of the new inverter cost ..... hopefully I don't need to find out too soon!

----------


## johnc

> Yep it would be interesting to track the different returns on investment. With the bigger feed in tariff people were recommending as many panels that could fit on your roof. Great idea at the time except for the fact that as the tariffs have dropped the upfront price of the system has also tumbled. They are now recommending only getting a system to cover your day time use if you have a low tariff. I would think that buying a cheaper upfront system now on lower tariff would be better than a huge system at a higher cost with higher feed in tariffs. The tariffs and your return are only good when you own the house, there will be many that have purchased a large system that will have to sell and move before breaking even.

  I think that is right, if we had of known how far the prices would drop we would have waited. The size system we have installed is a reasonable match for our usage it was also all the useable space on our north facing roof. We could add 2KW to the west side however in the end we didn't want panels there due to some shading and ascetic issues, what we have ended up with will wipe out our bills which is all we wanted. The forecasts for future energy prices and installation costs indicate we are at breakeven or better now and more than likely we will see a continued rate of new installs at current levels for some time. We will see how that effects feed in tarrifs in another decade it is possible that the solar contribution may actually be assisting in keeping prices down in what will be an unsudsidised industry.

----------


## Smurf

If you're going with an East and West arrangement then you really only need an inverter that's about the size of one side. You'll lose a bit due to clipping at noon, but not enough to warrant the cost of a bigger inverter. 
I'm presently running 1.52kW East and 2.25kW West on a little 1.1kW inverter. Ideally it should be a 2 - 2.5 kW inverter, but the 1.1 kW one is still capturing about 75% of the available energy over the course of 12 months.  
In due course I'll be adding inverter capacity, but for the moment it'll do.  :Smilie:

----------


## Johning

> 10 year warranty on the inverter, and current prices of a 3.2kw inverter are about 15% to 20% of our original install price, if it fails in 10 years I suspect the cost of a new unit along with efficiency and technological gains that come with it will mean it is not a big deal.

   

> It certainly pays to get a good inverter. I paid more for the SMA as I feel that putting more money into the electronic component would make better sense than spending more on the better panels, which is most likely only a marginal improvement overall. Warranty on inverters is only half the battle. No point getting a 25 year warranty on an inverter if the company folds in 5 years. SMA have been around for a long time so I was happy with their shorter warranty, knowing that the company has a good track record. I am surprised that you are finding that the inverter is 40% of the price. Whilst they are not cheap, and without looking at my quote again, I felt the labour for installation was the much higher component of the system and will increase as regulations make installations harder (more expensive). If you take out the rails, wiring, mounting panels etc the labour required to replace an old inverter, with all of the wiring and panels already in place wouldn't be too bad. I am sure my guy had the inverter mounted and wired up in about and hour while the other guys were doing the rails for the panels, the panels themselves took very little time. To replace an inverter I think would be 2hr labour on top of the new inverter cost ..... hopefully I don't need to find out too soon!

  3 kw system installed SMA inverter + Munsterland panels = $5,200
Sunnyboy Inverter SB3000TL-20 = $2,112 
Is the price of the inverter too high or the price of the full system too low?

----------


## johnc

> 3 kw system installed SMA inverter + Munsterland panels = $5,200
> Sunnyboy Inverter SB3000TL-20 = $2,112 
> Is the price of the inverter too high or the price of the full system too low?

  We are comparing apples with oranges on price here. We paid a little over $13,000 for a 3.2KW system two years ago. The cost you have been quoted illustrates how much panels have reduced in cost in that time. For you a replacement inverter represents roughly 40% of the original cost while for us it represents 15% of original cost. Based on the numbers we calculated on payback when we installed the system the impact of an inverter failing just outside warranty is a far smaller impact than the calculations you will have done when you installed yours. We are both on different feed in tarrifs our supplier gives us 66c a KW but charges 31c a KW for supply. We figure we will achieve breakeven 5-8 years from installation, depending on future supply tarif increases. If we blew an inverter it would not take us as long to recover its cost. You can't really compare our respective situations as we are on different plans although over a 20 year period you should be better off than we are.

----------


## Sir Stinkalot

This is my breakdown: 
14x Canadian Solar 250W panels = $3687 ex gst
SMA Sunny Boy 4000TL = $2100 ex gst
Electrical and Mechanical Install = $1774 ex gst
Rails, cabling & testing etc = $1656 ex gst
Less STC credits = $3700
= $6418 inc gst 
I guess on closer inspection the inverter was actually quite a whack of the overall cost. I am glad I got an SMA as I don't think I will need to replace it any time soon  :Blush7:

----------


## Johning

> We are comparing apples with oranges on price here. We paid a little over $13,000 for a 3.2KW system two years ago. The cost you have been quoted illustrates how much panels have reduced in cost in that time. For you a replacement inverter represents roughly 40% of the original cost while for us it represents 15% of original cost. Based on the numbers we calculated on payback when we installed the system the impact of an inverter failing just outside warranty is a far smaller impact than the calculations you will have done when you installed yours. We are both on different feed in tarrifs our supplier gives us 66c a KW but charges 31c a KW for supply. We figure we will achieve breakeven 5-8 years from installation, depending on future supply tarif increases. If we blew an inverter it would not take us as long to recover its cost. You can't really compare our respective situations as we are on different plans although over a 20 year period you should be better off than we are.

  My original post was intended to highlight the fact that the warranty of 25 years only covered the panels and not the inverter and therefore, by implication, that any potential purchaser should take this into consideration. Historical prices, subsidies, credits and feed in tariffs should not influence potential buyers.

----------


## Kingers

> If you're going with an East and West arrangement then you really only need an inverter that's about the size of one side. You'll lose a bit due to clipping at noon, but not enough to warrant the cost of a bigger inverter. 
> I'm presently running 1.52kW East and 2.25kW West on a little 1.1kW inverter. Ideally it should be a 2 - 2.5 kW inverter, but the 1.1 kW one is still capturing about 75% of the available energy over the course of 12 months.  
> In due course I'll be adding inverter capacity, but for the moment it'll do.

  
Can no longer do splits like this as the cec (clean energy coucil) has changed the rules. It is not ideal to have these splits as you will be losing more power than you think. And the fact your inverter is no longer covered by warranty as you have ignored manufacturers recommendation and overloaded the inverter. Most will allow about 100 ~ 200 watts over

----------

