Selling power into the grid is a good bonus. My all electric house plus electric car and house battery mean that I only buy about $1 of electricity each month. No electricity bills (except $25 monthly supply charge) no gas bills and no petrol bills proves the benefit of self consumption.
“I’ve tried nothing and I’m all out of options”! Never let it be said that tradies are smart or anything. The whole idea is to self consume during the day to reduce your power bill! I’ve already got a battery, it’s called my hot water system! If your on gas hot water or have a small electric system then change it out for a large electric one (not heat pump, just an old school kettle boiler) and put it on a timer to run during the day. Use the timer function on your dishwasher to set it to run during the day. If you’ve got a pool set it to run during the day. Wash your clothes and use the clothes dryer during the day! I’ve just got 7kw worth of solar installed and I’m quite sure my payoff period will be between 4-5 years even without exporting to the grid as the only consumption not being offset will be cooking dinner at night and the lights. About 80% of my power consumption can be time shifted to daylight hours when my system is generating enough to offset my usage.
I think the ABCs finding the whole issue of solar technology a bit too complicated and reporters lack the necessary expertise. Maybe a better approach that the ABC commission a more substantial program to promote new technologies instead of just reporting on complaints which may relate to a particular service provider and risk painting the whole industry in a negative light.
Isn't it amazing that state governments can spend billions on smart meters to help DNSPs achieve 24/7 surveillance of individual household energy consumptions (which benefits DNSPs) but can't get DNSPs to improve their end to cope with solar energy export (which benefits millions of households). "Government FOR the people" is a wonderful idea, so long as only small doses of the idea is put into practice.
Nearly 3 million homes now have solar in Australia and most I would say export power to grid and the power company getting almost free power from all these users where they only pay 6 to 11 cents per kWh but when you buy it from them its charged at up to 50 cents per Kwh. Outrageous that the want to now charge for feeding power into the grid! Current governments use the Wait and See approach instead of noticing that the light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train. Could have improved grid years ago, governments didn't notice that people where putting panels on their roofs, mine were installed 2012. The installed PV capacity in Australia increased 10-fold between 2009 and 2011, and quadrupled between 2011 and 2016. According to The Institute for Sustainable Futures, the School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering (SPREE) at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) Australia has the potential to install 179 GW of solar power on roofs across the nation. At the end of 2018 Australia had just over 8 GW of rooftop solar. We are ruled by Neanderthals.
Hi Frank, I'd recommend looking into the difference between wholesale and retail electricity prices. 6-11 cents is pretty good compared to the average wholesale price of electricity. I get 16 cents in one property and 22c in another which is *really* good. If you pay 50c per kWh for your electricity, only about a third of that is for generation, the majority is distribution, transmission, metering, green schemes and retail markup.
@@SolarQuotes Thank you for your response, your channel is very interesting. Keep up the good work. Do you know anything about a new battery SolarEdge is about to release? It seems to me that the government should regulate the market in such a way to encourage power companies to improve the grid and/or install power storage systems. The government is supposed to working for its citizens after all. For example the rule might be that you can not buy a kWh of power from a householder for less than 50% of the price you are selling it to them. This large amount of power is always available when sun is shining with virtually 100% reliability and the house holder has paid to instal and has the responsibility to maintain his/her system which also depreciates and fails from time to time and will need replacement eventually. It would be advantageous to all if the house holder has the ability to sell his/her power in an open market.
I think it may be the electrical distributors, not the retailers who run the grid. These are (in Victoria) Powercor, Citipower, AusNet, Jemena and United. I think they may be responsible for it's stability. As far as the retailers go, well it's a bit like a bank. If you've got energy to spare, you'll get very little if you sell to them (provided they are buying), but if you buy it from them they'll charge you top dollar. So, the best way to save money is use the energy as it's being generated, instead of buying it. This isn't always practical, as most people are out at work during the best sunshine hours and it can't be stored (unless you've got a battery which are expensive). I'm not really sure how this works, though. You are probably right when you suggested he switch retailers. That's what you'd do if you got no interest from a bank, wouldn't it?
@@ruthknowels6084 There’s suppliers & retailers. Only retailers pay a feed in tariff back to customers. Retailers are customers of the suppliers. We are the customers of retailers. Vic government just passed a minimum of $0.055 cents no matter who the retailer is. Hope that helps.
1 car 30k.... 1 ram 120k plus... van 100k plus house 700k plus 10k solar... Then can't afford a battery.... thinking he doesn't understand money or has maxed out credit.... the tax write off on that work Ute would have paid for the solar, battery and a long holiday 😂😂
When that happens it will reduce the amount of dirty power produced even when it’s not needed. Maybe they will shift Controlled Loads including Electric Hot Water to sunny hours of the day? AGL is controversially expanding it’s Tallawarra Gas Fired Peaker to accomodate Liddell. NSW Government is likely to invest in battery storage. There’s always Snowy 2.0, compressed air storage or some maybe some other brilliant idea that isn’t yet public.
@@Nobody_Famous Shifting controlled load to when electricity is plentiful and consequently cheap is both simple and a positively brilliant way of soaking up excess solar electricity and of course reducing demand for black power,
Exporting to the grid is not a good selling point, it requires people with no panels to be paying exorbitant rates. Not paying for electricity is the entire purpose of solar, storage is the answer and while we are marketing exporting, we can't even do community storage properly.
@@Koiler8 Not as more people move to using both solar and storage, then the connection to the grid will become an extra cost that wouldn't be required, so those on the grid will be fewer in number. The pressure to keep prices down with solar is also a marketing thing... The real pressure on grid prices is renewable innovation, which is happening now thanks to early adopters. I can't afford to be an early adopter, I'm waiting until I can make the purchase that takes me off the grid, then prices will be cheapest and most appropriate for the technology. Thank you early adopters for believing the marketing.
@@saxtant If you took your own advice you’d get a green loan & use the money you’re already paying for power to get a solar system now. Get a hybrid inverter off the bat so you’re ready for a battery down the track.
@@Koiler8 It's a close call, I'm keen on solar but it's not cost effective for me for a couple of reasons, firstly, I don't own my own home, so I don't get the same level of rebate, secondly, I can only fit 12 panels and I'd have to cut down some big trees I kind of like. I am planning on building something with solar in mind in future when the money and time is right. I'm certainly in favour of renewables and genuinely thankful so many Australians have taken it up.
If he's not getting any bill there is still that saving....plus a battery would save him more as won't buy any if sized right.... This seems a bad example that's poorly executed and explained
Cheap shots by the 7.30 Report, proving that the independence of our once great national broadcaster has been compromised. Keep up the good work Finn and Ronald. And do yourself a favour and check out Ronald’s blog on Solar Quotes - always entertaining and factual - some liberties with personal history aside.
The ABC has been stripped to the bone by successive Conservative Governments, Coalition and Labor. Then Conservative board members have been foisted on them. If Murdoch had written the script, he couldn’t have made it better for his dying empire.
Perhaps take advantage of all the power generated in the middle of the day by building small battery banks throughout the community to store power for use during peak hours. Takes pressure off the poles and wires too.
That will be part of the solution but we also need to upgrade the grid in lots of specific ways to make the network stronger as solar penetration grows and grows.
Is installing solar about saving electricity or selling electricity? Yes, its a great idea to get something back when your OUT and not gaining anything, but is that what solar is about? And this in Australia? I'm in Northern Europe,it sucks! Keep fossil.
That’s a very confusing post. Lets clarify a few things. When you put solar on your roof you become a small scale electricity provider. If the energy company charges 25c a kWh for electricity and pays you 8c a kWh for the excess energy you produce rather than a giant coal fired power station 20c p kWh, that’s capitalism at work. Installing solar in Australia is about both selling and saving electricity. Because generally people who install solar also become much more conscious about their energy usage because these days systems come with both generation and consumption monitoring. So tell me again why solar sucks and fossil fuels are great? Cause I don’t get it. Pretty sure you don’t either.
@@mondotv4216 the YT post explains that because more customers are installing solar, ( 20%) the tariffsh hadd dropped, so they're not small scale providers. Are you seriously suggesting those people who install solar see themselves as suppliers? A few cents at a time? We all know that alternative energy is a dream, and needs backup from regular gas? I looked at solar here in UK some years ago and thenumbers just didn't add up? Even accepting the overhyped claims being made! As customers installed the tariffs dropped? Whats so disgraceful is the the average consumer including pensioner have been made to carry this dream.
Wait a month or two and it will about Electric Vehicles "where's all the electricity going to come from?! where's all the electricity going to come from?!"
I hope they do better with mains electricity pricing than electric vehicle taxes. In Victoria, electric vehicles are taxed at three times the rate of petrol vehicles. A litre of petrol is rated at 9.1kwH. My electric car uses around (18.2 kwH) per 100 km (or better). If my car (MG ZS EV) ran on petrol, I would pay 85.4 cents per hundred km in tax instead of 250 cents, almost three times the rate of the petrol car. (2 x 42.7 cents = 85.4 cents) I do not think EVs should be taxed at all until EVs are at 50% of the cars on the road. This is good policy from an environmental viewpoint. But if EVs are to be taxed, they should be taxed on the same basis as petrol cars which are taxed on fuel consumption. EVs are more efficient than petrol cars and they should be rewarded for that, not penalized. The government already collects odometer readings and can easily estimate tax for each model. Once I put up solar panels on my house I will be paying $0.067 (feed-in tariff) per kwH which translates to 18.2 x 0.067 = $1.22 per 100 kilometers. This results in a tax of 200%.
I went through solar quotes and have had my system running for less than two months. April my power bill is in credit 😂. Definitely worth n track to pay itself off in 2 years if this keeps up Keep it up Finn, this info is really great. I know if things change that you’ll have good advice for us to make the most of it
Is it worthwhile for this fellow, who, by his shirt is involved in hot water systems. Is it worthwhile for him to put in an electric storage hot water system and use the power to heat his hot water during the day?
And if you're not home, many energy hungry appliances such as dishwashers, washing machines and air conditioning have timers to allow you to set them to operate during the day when you're not home.
@@stephenmason5682 It makes more sense to run appliances during the day when energy is free, that's the whole point of having solar. Don't know why you would come home to floods, I've never had that problem.
@@stephenmason5682, what bollocks. I’ve been using washing machines, dishwashers etc, for nearly 40 years, and the only time I’ve experienced flooding is when I didn’t put the outlet hose into the sink. WHEN I get my Solar panels installed in the next couple of weeks, I shall be using these appliances during the best time of the day, whether I’m home or not, happy in the knowledge that it will cost little to nothing.
