Backyard Aquaponics
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Ok, now that all the gov deals are over , we have decided to get solar. Yeah, I know, but what are the best deals around now. For a 3 Kw system from NU energy $10.7K with travel. Any better ideas, we are looking and will keep this post updated as we go.

What inverter do they supply?

Ask them, then do a search to see if there are issues?


Cheers
Wazza

Hi Mantis,

if your moderately handy and feeling a bit adventurous you should be able to DIY a lot cheaper. There are lots of Solar cells, diodes etc available online eg- http://cgi.ebay.com/108-Grade-Solar-PV- ... 4cf44ff2e0 . I haven’t done it but doesn’t look too tricky, (I don’t know how many times I’ve fallen for that one!). The word is get pre tabbed cells. Apparently tabbing is a pain in the ‘you know where’. US cells are also meant to be better, well according to some people from guess which country. For that matter there are also plenty of charge controllers and invertors there as well.

Here is an article how to build a 18V approx 60W panel- http://www.greenjoyment.com/how-to-buil ... olar-panel . Prices on cells are coming down a fair bit in recent years. Basically making a box to mount them on and cover them using what ever you can find that is suitable locally. Scope for making them cheaper than this fella did depending on what and cost of materials you can find.

Good luck,

Cheers.

From the cost stated in your post, I presume you are talking about grid-connected solar. Check out the thread I posted... $7500 after the trading-in the RECS....
http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=8700

I also found the www.energymatters.com.au website is actually quite good for information...

SMA Sunnyboy inverters are good. German made. The TL range comes with bluetooth in-built, hence you can track your solar production with a bluetooth enabled PC/laptop.

Ozinbrazil, if Mantis is considering grid-connected, he needs to get a clean energy council approved installer to install energy company approved equipment... I doubt the ebay equipment will be approved equipment. And often the panels on ebay are cheap for a reason, the efficiency is not guarantee. All grid-connected solar panels need to guarantee their output performance at a certain percentage (I think 80%) up to 25 years...

Hi ivansng,

yes I assume you're correct about approval requirements. Ebay and other online vendors certainly do have wildly varying quality and prices, as do physical shops. It is often possible to purchase the same cells from the same manufacturer as in the commercially available complete panels. Just a possible alternative suggestion as you say it may well not be within the realm of practicality.

Many items, including I’m sure approved items, these days are manufactured in one of not many big manufacturing countries. I would doubt their assembly quality is necessarily higher quality soldering etc than can be achieved at a home level. I know there is a huge mark up on most of these items for various reasons- ie shipping, middle men shop front rent, etc. Shipping of the panels is a huge proportion of the cost of a panel. So when we buy a commercial panel we are paying to ship mostly fragile and bulky glass and some aluminum extrusion. Nothing that generally can’t be obtained much cheaper locally.

I also agree with your recommendation of the Sunnyboy Invertors. They can also be purchased online. Like all purchases, it all gets down to what exactly you are purchasing and for how much.

Guarantee of performance for 25 years- certainly impressive. If our regulators say that is the case then it must be good.

Cheers.

Warranty for my panels...

http://ap.suntech-power.com/images/stor ... 7-2010.pdf

Hi Mate, If you are after a system quote try Gary on 0412 899 771

Try "Solar Gain"

Australian family owned business and they do good deals, have an outlet in Melbourne

http://www.solargain.com.au/solar-energ ... -melbourne

I got 12 x solarfun panels (2.28Kw) and a 3 Kw inverter (Sharp solar) for $5,500 installed and have been very happy with customer service (including after sale) and the performance of the system. Componants are quality and have good warranty as I did a lot of research before committing.

I tried many company's for quotes and ended up going with NuEnergy. I signed yesterday for a 1.5KW system. The reason I went with them is that by-the-by I spoke to the local (Tasmanian) power scompany and two of the people suggested that NE were very reliable and did good work. It also happened that they were the cheapest of my 4 quotes. I contacted about 7 companies for quotes bit only 4 replied. Why advertise or have web sites if you don't respond to customers?
Should be installed in about 4 weeks. $3200 , a bit more than the city dweller as I am 200 K from their office and in Tasmania we get very lousy rebates as we are already considered as being a clean, green, renewable state with our Hydro-electricity. This does not make sense to me as we are also connected to the mainland power grid (Shrug).

Lot of good advice on the Whirlpool forum in the HOME and GREEN sections

Thanks for all the replies guys and you have given me lots of stuff to research. Got the local elec company dude coming around today to gives us info on their installs and a quote. Would be good to deal with someone I actually know so I hope his quote is good.

3.3KW system with 4kw inverter getting installed today. Final wiring being done at the moment

Cost???...

And is this "back to grid"... if so what's the buy back tarriff down in Vic?? ....

Cost around $9000 and there are two tarrif thingos we can go with , normal and premium
Normal we pay 21C and get the same back for infeeds
Premium we pay 32C and get 66C back and it has an offpeak time where we pay only 11c

I think thats the way it works. The missus did all the ringing around. We will start on the Normal tarrif and see how the system performs over time then decide whether to upgrade to Premium

Plus we are doing as much as we can to cut our consumption. Got all the televisions and computers on switched adapters that plug in and can turn off the power completely with the push of a remote button. So none of these units will be on standby when not being used.

As my wife would say "gee that was quick"

You have to try and reduce your consumption as much as possible to get the full value of the solar generation, we have reduced our comsumption by 3 units a day and last bill was $57 in credit but in WA I think we get 47c back and we use a smart power meter.

Feels good

Which company did you go with and why?