Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

A year... or a quarter...

Yea i thought that would be the theory, but as far as my knowledge goes, gst is placed on what you pay for.
Its a confusing one, ill just have to speak to an expert on monday i think.

yep. looks like we got it good in WA compared to the other states!!

They dropped the rate for "new" installations in NSW.... but before that date.... people were getting about 65c I think... locked in for ten years...

Think of it a two separate transactions.

Or, say you are returning milk to your supermarket (which is gst free) and trade it for a bottle of coke.
The milk was $2, the coke is $4 inc 36c gst.
You will pay the supermarket $2, but included in that transaction is 36c gst.

You are comparing two separate transactions.
You sold the power to the provider for $340 gst free.
They sold you power for $390 including gst.
You pay them the difference, but included in the difference is the gst component

Yeah, you can't change or collect GST if your not registered..

so that's how the government make back the money with the rebates!!!!

i pay per quarter. 8c for solar is everywhere as far as i know. the 60c deal was only for x number of homes. once enough people installed solar on the plan, it was closed. hardly far since they sell green energy for 10% more so a minimum of 25c for your 8c.

The wholesale cost of power is around 7-8c/kw.

Someone has to pay for meter readers, maintenance, capital costs, admin etc.
And the companies are trying to make a profit, so there has to be some profit in there as well.

Their profit should be in their service and other charges if you theoretically make exactly the same as you use.
it is not fair for them to profit if they have not given you more than you gave them.
If you did use and make exactly the same amount, then the government should only get GST on the service charge.

This is obviously only my opinion. The government is far too geared towards sucking up the arses of corporations.

Please let us know how it goes. Seems to be a possible problem for all those on solar.

The problem is the model used for provision of solar power. Go check any site/company and you will find they operate only for grid-connected solar - i.e. you use your solar when you can and the rest feeds back to them.

In 9 months I have been unable to get a single mainstream provider of solar to even quote me on a battery-backed system let alone a battery backed 'overflow-to-grid' system. I have tried at least 8 or 9 different companies. Zero interest.

One wonders why...

My Theory: The Govt do not want you to have systems that allow you to be standalone let alone feed back without consuming and so be a provider to the system. This is NOT about self-sufficiency nor even about power considerations, it is solely about money. By getting everyone hooked up on systems that CANNOT run standalone, they know precisely who to tax when they reach some pre-defined reliance on the system.

And without the standalone capacity everyone will then be paying the companies AND the govt for producing power for them to sell to us.

I'm sorry but I wouldn't be a conspiracy-oriented person if they would just stop confirming most o the conspiracy models. Seriously. Over and over they keep doing the things the conspiracy types bleated about a decade or more back.

JM, Have you tried EnergyMatters?
They sell components - through thier components site Apollo Energy. You could certainly buy all your parts from there, and they do off grid installs, but they dont list for cities or not...

I used them for my solar system, they seem pretty good and have a forum.
They seem somewhat like this place, but for solar.

Its simple what you want is not the basic solar that 99% install. Installing a battery backup is a whole level of complexity above due the grid isolation required. To do an battery backup system actually requires some thought.

Ask on the energy matters forum and I will be surprised if you don't have a name or 2 to call very quickly.
You are probably going to need something like the SMA Sunny-Backup or the Nedap "power router " range of inverters.

I'ld give you then name of someone local here but the travel expenses would be a bit much.
Batteries are not exactly cheap either. A 2v 1200Ah is around $800 and need 24 for a 48v dc system.

I'll check out EM a bit later today - I'm not sure I need 48V x 1200Ah - so maybe I don't need to get top-of-the-line batteries... I was looking at some that were deep cycle type, 6v and 240Ah. I was thinking 2 x 2 would give me 12v and more than enugh Ah to power my systems through several days. There's Trojans with those specs available for about $260ea, so a bit over $1000 for the 4.

I was told it is illegal to have a battery system hooked to the grid?
In case a power worker gets zapped if they are working near you house and assume the power is down

hmm well in no way should power from your batteries be feeding back into the grid! you would trip your inverter/ups the second a power failure happens. solar systems that add power to the grid shut off when there is power failures/faults etc. you could be right though. there are millions of laws and regulations to punish a few to keep the majority that don't know what they are doing from killing people.


4 x 6v 240ah batteries should give you 5.76KWh of power. wish i could buy some.