Obviously electricity prices arent going to go down (Prices generally fall when I take some sort of remedial action.LOL) so seriously considering installing solar panels toprovideenough for water heating and to run myheat pumps in winter.What do I need in the way of panels and what is a likely cost in the Wellington area. Only drawback seems to be life of units which I understand is about 10 years. Is this still true!
wind.turbine,
Jan 25, 4:52am
Remember that being in wellington means there is a lot of low cloud and will cause less solar power.
omamari,
Jan 25, 5:24am
google the wattshop
aredwood,
Jan 25, 8:18am
definetly consider solar hot water, but with solar PV you will have to feed power back into the grid during the day and buy it back at night and when there is not much sun. Meridian are the only power company that will pay you the same rate as what they charge. That will be the first thing to go when they get sold off. Battery capacity is very expensive in relation to amount of energy stored. Don't even bother considering it for what you want to do.
You need to compare how much money you will save on power by spending say $10K on a solar PV system. Vs leaving that money in the bank and using the interest to help pay the power bill. Vs spending that money on better insulating your house and buying more energy efficient appliances.
t_naki,
Jan 25, 8:43am
Solar for hot water and solar for electricity are 2 different things. It is not economical to have a panel make electricity and then use that to heat water, you would be better with a dedicated solar hot water system. Also generating power to heat your home is not really that economical either since you will mostly be using the power in the early morning and at night when there is no sun you will need batteries and lots of them to store a days worth of power for a heat pump. IMO the most economical way is to get enough panels to take your houses base load and then sell the remainder back to the grid.
It won't make you rich but it won't break the bank in set up or ongoing maintenance costs either.
t_naki,
Jan 25, 8:45am
I may be wrong but hasn't Meridian stopped that offer!
I heard that 75% of the retail cost is the best on offer from Contact. That may only be for new signups and existing customers may be allowed to continue with the full priced buy back.
Someone may be able to say for sure.
drsr,
Jan 25, 9:31am
Panel life is at least 30 years, possibly more. At that point they may be still working but 20% down from their original output, but by that time there will probably be much better and cheaper panels available anyway. Inverter life may be more like 10-15 years, although you can get microinverter units that are guaranteed for the same life as the panels.
Currently the economics in NZ are borderline viable due to a lack of a good feed-in tariff, and high installation costs that have not really fallen in line with falling costs in other countries e.g. Australia.
cantabman1,
Jan 25, 7:31pm
From what I have read recently the cost of panels is reducing all the time, and also more efficient panels with a better rating of efficiency.[thanks china] I understand there has been a whole city built in China entirly run on solar energy. The other advantage is that your not as dependent on supply if the power goes off, or if there is a natural disaster.
tigra,
Jan 25, 9:23pm
Just come back from visiting rellies in Sydney who built a new house recently and took advantage of a Govt subsidised Solar installation. Admittedly Sydney has better and more sunny days than Welly, but itsacompelling arguement especially since they havent paid a power bill for 2 years, and in fact sell excess back to the power people.
kcc55a,
Jan 25, 9:27pm
You are joking!$10k at todays interestgives about $300 at today's rates after tax. Barely pay 1 months winter power bill. My house is fully insulated with double glazing.
t_naki,
Jan 25, 9:31pm
$10k will not get you off grid it may reduce your bill slightly but you will still be paying a power bill. You would need to work out how much power it would output and then how much you would be able to use directly and how much you could sell back to the grid and then make the comparison.
wind.turbine,
Jan 25, 9:52pm
wrong. the inverters will now power up your house unless there is power still on the grid. this means that you wont kill anyone working on the lines thinking that they are off when really your solar is putting power back in. the only way you can do it is the use battery's and non grit tied inverters, and that is a totally different system.
I just guessed that 10K amount. Wasn't going to try and be more accurate since you haven't said what type of system you want.
I was just trying to say that it is silly to send big money on a solar system. When no one knows what will happen to retail power prices and feed in rates. Or if there will be time of use based pricing or peak demand pricing introduced. (as used in "the lines company" area)
daves01,
Jan 26, 1:39am
Cant ever imagine retail power prices dropping .
raven71,
Jan 26, 2:17am
Remember that if you do invest in a big bank of batteries to store power, they'll eventually all need replacing, at a large cost to you.
It's best to replace them all at once as using an old battery with a new battery will severly shorten the life of the new battery.
purplegoanna,
Jan 26, 2:58am
$25K to get you off grid with the minimal of mod cons + sell power on occasion back to the giants.
t_naki,
Jan 26, 3:59am
In a power cut you should be able to isolate the house and use the output from the PV to power the house as long as you have enough output to run the load that you are drawing.
wind.turbine,
Jan 26, 5:43am
but unless you have battery's set up and non grid tied inverter (another big expense) you cannot do it. if the power is out the only real time you will need it is at night when you need lights and power for cooking. so this is not a great plan as since you wont really need emergency power till night when there is no longer any solar power. plus you still need the non grid tied inverters. You can do a setup the includes grid tied and off gred , but it is going to be more costly and complicated. also if you are not cycling the battery's properly ie.running on grid unless power goes out then you could find the life of the battery's shortened more than you would think.
loose.unit8,
Jan 26, 7:42am
From what I understand, wind.turbine is right. grid tie inverters look for ~230 volts, 50hz (i.e that the grid exists) on their output so they can synchronize frequency with it before they will start inverting.
210sback,
Jan 26, 7:49am
solar to power your heat pump in winter!stop it.now that's funny.
wind.turbine,
Jan 27, 9:32pm
Of course I am right! I'm always right!
kcc55a,
Feb 11, 2:46pm
Any advance on $25K
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