Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

www.beyondbuildingenergy.com are offering to install a 1kW grid-tie solar system for $499.

Although 1kW ain't much, it sounds pretty good ... too good perhaps?

so it sounds like you need to get 50 people from your local area on to it, and then they will proceed. What a fantastic idea. I wonder if it is available in SA?

Yeah, I think that is the difficult part - they expect you (or someone in your neighbourhood) to do all the "sales" work.

I reckon in certain areas getting 50 people to fork out the dough would be as easy as a quick community meeting. In reality though, I can't imagine seeing any change from $1000 by the time they make you change over your meter etc...still bloody cheap.

Almost.... You still have to fork out the full $5500 + installation + meter change over. You then apply for a government PV rebate ($5 per rated watt) will give you a rebate of approximately $5000... Hence $500...

Unfortunately due to recent 'changes' in the federal budget, the 1KW will end up costing a bit more after the 15th of this month.

a 1kw system woud give you what 8kwh on a good summers day? you could do HEAPS with that with the right attitude to power

Unfortunately it is grid connected. An ideally unless they were tracking, you would get more like 5KWH on a good day.

hmmm

500KWh...
* $0.17
= $850

Wow, that's a lot for a summer's day. Did I make a mistake?

Edit: oh, mistake made... 5kWh per day... much better,
so $0.85
* 7 = $5.95 per week in a sunny summer...
my power bill exceeds this by a fair margin.

yes KP, 5MW was a fair error

yep, i use more than this too, but its so much easier to ration when you're thinking about it. my fuel economy on the work car doubles when i'm about to run out of LPG (and i ONLY have LPG!)

Ultimately its not about the money, we've been spoilt with cheap energy for far too long, and that about to come to an end...................

It almost becomes a challenge to not "run out"

Shhh!

If I had 2 KW 24/7 back feeding the meter I would have no electric bill! So just need like 8 or 10 of those

If you have enough sun-area on your roof, you can get degraded panels for free. You have to use more of them because they produce less wattage, but hey, it's free

I need a local (200 mile) source for something like that!

It's a technique I read in one of Steve Harris' books. Call around to companies that use solar panels for flashing road signs and construction signs. Ask for the ones that have been damaged because of drunk drivers or whatever.

I haven't done it myself because my house doesn't have a southern exposure

cool, I will have to find such a company.