looking to get solar this year. what are good resources to educate oneself?
what is the typical kw one would get for say 4 bedroom house for a family. i see 6.6 kw as popular choice.
also we are in strata with 2 houses. would it be better to get across for both?
would you recommend to just go to solarquotes and get the process started. most installed are reputable and would help guiding in the process?
This OzResearch. It like ChatGPT manual / stick shift.
solarquotes and install as much as you can afford is the consensus there
Start with how much power you are using. Then look at how much a particular sized system will output. Compare.
we have no way of knowing what your roof is like.if it faces the wrong direction your 6.6mw system might only output half what a 6.6kw system does on an optimally oriented roof.
Typically for a 6 kw system is is not known how much it will produce per day on average as it depends on where you are and if there are any shade issues.
As for strata you need to ask the strata committee.
As for recommendations you will need to do research, so yes.
My electricity retailer says I use on average 15kwh of power a day costing approx $4.78 a day. Live in FNQ so summer is air con heavy.
What size system would cover our needs?
A few pages say a simple 5kw system would be enough.
Install as much as you can, to future proof. While your usage time will vary, in general multiply your system size by 4 to estimate the total kWh output per day. 6kW system x 4 = 24 kWh.
Will you ever buy a battery? Do you think you would ever want to get some split systems and keep the place toasty warm in winter and icy cool in summer? People who keep their homes at nice temperatures have it all figured out, makes me coming back to my pathetic home feel miserable after visiting them. I need to dress indoors the same as I do when I go outdoors, just to save a few thousand bucks a year.
How much roof space do you have, which direction does your roof face, are you home during the day, do you have appliances that often run in the daytime.
Congrats on owning your own house. I fitted the biggest system I could on the second story roof as there's no shade up there. Works great, can run several split system air conditioners all day long in summer and still end up with a credit that covers the winter heating bill.
If you don't work from home and don't have a battery, solar is not worth the investment considering the lousy feed in tariffs.
A lot of recommended capacity estimates are overkill as they're based on feed-in tariff assumptions that are years out of date, and more or less never take declining feed-in tariffs into account when giving you arbitrary claims about payback within X number of years.
Feed-in tariffs are dropping towards near zero, and some electricity retailers have been arguing that you should actually be charged for feeding electricity into the grid during peak solar periods.
Most over-capacity is therefore wasted as all those extra kilowatts in your over-capacity system are pumping into the gird at exactly the same time that everyone else's over-capacity kilowatts are pumping into the system, giving you back bugger-all feed in credit.
Daily KwH consumption is a poor basis for estimating what capacity system you need because a lot of those KwHs are being burned after dark. A better basis is your peak daytime use. In my case, with a family of 4 and the heater or aircon on, we would never exceed more than about 2.5KwH, making our 4.2Kw system more than adequate for our needs.
Do not believe the line you are fed about extra capacity, future proofing and similar nonsense from solar installers and retailers. Every one of these guys gets paid based on how many solar panels they can sell you therefore they have all the incentive in the world to up-sell you useless redundant capacity. If your needs ever change the average PV inverter only lasts 10 years anyhow so you can review then, and extra solar panels can always be added to your system later on if need be.
One final thing, you often hear that you should orient your solar panels to the north to maximize your daytime solar production, which is misleading. In fact, most typical households use more electricity in the morning and evening when people are not at school or work. Consequently, orienting your solar panels east and west will extend your generating capacity further into the hours you're actually using power, which is more than worth the hit to your net electricity generation.
Purchase of a battery with the solar system might change some of the above a bit as you can save some of that over-capacity for use in the evening, however there is virtually no use case where buying a battery today will result in any kind of realistic payback period, even with higher energy prices. Batteries remain uneconomic for the average household solar system, however if the economics ever change you can always add a few extra solar panels to your system at the same time that the battery is being installed if things get to that.
So much misinformation in this post….. Its ok to say you're anti solar and move on.
If anything, they appear to very solar power production and self utilising aware.
The "put as much on your roof as you can fit" responses don't consider time of day utilisation, low or heavy power utilising household, or realistic ROI periods. With diminishing fit returns, making sensible system choices, best suited to your house/roof/usage will result in getting energy value for $.
(From someone very solar aware, with solar on the roof, detailed solar monitoring/pvoutput logging over years etc)
If anything, they appear to very solar power production and self utilising aware.
Not at all, it's full of misinformation like this throw away line
In my case, with a family of 4 and the heater or aircon on, we would never exceed more than about 2.5KwH, making our 4.2Kw system more than adequate for our needs.
LOL if using the heater, then that 4.2kw solar system won't be covering the 2.5kw load, Solar systems never do the rated output in winter. Sure might cover it in summer, but not winter. So yes, misinformation, and as you have 'detailed' solar monitoring, you'll know this as well.
The "put as much on your roof as you can fit" responses don't consider
YMMV, but based on the info provided from the OP, a family in a 4 bedroom house, I would say larger would be better in this case. Most people don't have huge roof spaces either, so its not like they'll be putting a 25kw system on the roof. More like 7-10kw. So yeah, go as large as you can and if they are on single phase, then inverter is capped at 10kw anyhow.
Log into your distributor portal to find you kwh use by day and by time (usually 3 min increments).
If you are good with a spreadsheet you can do a chart of how many KWH you use per time period. Then you can tell how many hours you use from sunrise to sunset. How much after hours usage there is that can be move to daylight hours.
Your solar output would be a bell shaped curve. Work out how much you are going to produce (that depends on orientation and system you are going to install) and how much of that will offset your usage.
thanks a lot for the advice.
also we are in strata with 2 houses. would it be better to get across for both?
You can only access your roof area, so no real plus unless they do a discount for both.
Enough for Standard House?
The general rule is fill the roof…. It's cheaper to do it upfront and means you get some usable power from it in winter.
YMMV.
Your "general rule" is a very convenient line for people who sell solar panels.
Going from, say, 10 to 12 solar panels will add at least $500 to your installation quote, and potentially twice that depending on rebates.
Adding 20% of mostly wasted capacity simply to scrounge out a few extra KwH in the middle of winter would easily have a payback period longer than the typical lifespan of the solar panels themselves, bearing in mind that in the above example, in the middle of winter, you still have 10 panels already doing exactly the same thing either way.
Something isn't cheaper if you don't need it in the first place, it's more expensive.
Your "general rule" is a very convenient line for people who sell solar panels.
My general rule comes from people who have installed smaller systems who then find out in 5 years time as they go to upgrade to a bigger unit they have to toss it out as it isn't upgradable as it doesn't meet the requirements anymore so can't be used.
Something isn't cheaper if you don't need it in the first place, it's more expensive.
It is if you have to throw it out in 5 years time when you need or want a bigger one.
OP asked for advice, MY advice is fill the roof if you can, your advice can be whatever you want it to be. YMMV.
With feed in tariffs so low, most of your savings come from you offsetting your grid usage as much as possible.
If most of your power usage is 6-8am, with the sun not too high in the sky, a 5kw system might only generate 1kw, so you're likely still paying for grid power, a 10kw system will get you 2kw at the same time of day (provided the roof space/orientation is the same). That is why the general advice is to go as big as you can comfortably afford, because it means more power is available earlier/later in the day.
If the neighbors are interested, try and get a discount with the installer.
Buy the biggest system you can afford. If I had the roof area I would fit 10KW inverter and over-panel the maximum allowable with an East-West configuration.
Solarquotes are a great starting point but not all the installers are great and the only guidance some will give you is guidance to their maximum profits.
My latest system (using SolarQuotes recommendations) was a bunfight and I would not recommend My Energy Group in Sydney as an installer although the hardware appears to be very good.
Do you mean "quotes for both"? We were doing 2 systems and there was no discount
Just start off a quote with solarquotes. Depending on your roof type, someone can sit down with you and go through a quote with you on how many panels you can fit, what panels to choose, cost etc. Ultimately my roof is so badly designed that it would cost me way too much to justify installing one (too many micro inverters needed, too much shade, too small space, too small electricity bills). Better to get a quote and just get an idea of the cost for starters.
thanks
you have done zero research yourself it seems