We will move to our new home next month. The house has a moderate size swimming pool and we have 2 fridges and 1 chest freezer run 24/7. Aircon (7kw one in the living room) will run weekends day time in summer, 1.5 kw aircon run night time. Dishwasher is used everyday.
Regardless how much we will get back from the rebate, just think which solar panel 1.5kw or 3kw will cover our daily daytime use?
Thanks
We used hippisparx (positronic solar) 2 1/2 years ago and have paid bugger all since for electricity. We got 6 Kw of panels and a 5Kw inverter, and more importantly the 44cents from the government.
and more importantly the 44cents from the government.
very important.
I think the feed in tariff in QLD (was 44c as above) is now determined by the energy retailer and often is only 6c-8c which is nothing.
This means you have to rethink your strategy. Monday to Friday might not be good when it comes to utilisation as everyone may be at work/school/day care and unless you spend money on a battery system, it isn't beneficial to have a system <3kw.
Changing habits is a good point - run dishwasher before you leave in the morning vs at night after dinner, dryer in the morning vs at night again.
Over 3kw and you start banking a larger credit from the feed in tarriff so the gain improves in form of a credit on your bill (from solar generated when you aren't at home and fed back to the grid).
The low feed in tariffs now are a killer for solar. Do your sums.
The low feed in tariffs aren't great anymore but depending on what you get you might not be putting much back into the grid anyway. The advantage is that it reduces your electricity costs and over about 5 years it has paid for itself. You must remember that electricity prices will not decrease they will only go up in the future.
7 yrs is more like it.
Am building a new house in SE Qld and I put in a 3kW system. Mrs works from home, so have asked her to use the AC, dish washer, washing machine, dryer, everything that's power hungry through out the day during sunny days. We couldn't go beyond 3kW else we had to replace our panels as well, a cost I didn't want to add through builders.
The short answer is >3kw. The long answer is whirlpool forums and having to change your energy consumption habits.