PAYG Solar Too?
Have you considered installing a domestic solar system but have been put off by the initial cost? Then the recently-announced unveiling of a radical new pay-as-you-go plan in Australia may be for you.
According to an April 21 report in the Sydney Morning Herald, an American company, Sungevity Inc., has teamed up with Lismore-based solar installer Nickel Energy to set up an Australian subsidiary, Sungevity Australia, which offers free solar panel installation. [Read more...]
What's the payback?
In my previous 2 posts I looked at the concept and design of Hybrid Solar systems.
The main conclusion of those 2 articles was that
a) Hybrid solar rocks!
b) But you gotta pay for it!
So the question this post will try to answer is:
How Much Extra Does Hybrid Solar Cost?
and bearing in mind the extra costs:
What is the payback of Hybrid Solar Compared To Regular Grid Connect Solar?
So let’s look at the cost of a Quality 5kW Grid Connect system and then see what it costs to upgrade it to “Hybrid”. [Read more...]
If you live in Adelaide and would like to hear about a 100% renewable powered future then come along and say hi next Wednesday At UniSA:
Turbo Boost for Solar?
Some major news on a local technological breakthrough for solar cells this week folks. This, as always, gives your columnist the opportunity for some more shameless cheerleading on behalf of Australian solar watchers, in the increasing wasteland of government support for domestic solar systems.
(For help, see Finn’s latest article on how to future proof your PV system from perfidious state and federal governments.)
To begin with the Mexican wave (or Sydney University wave to be more precise) part of the article. An April 18 press release from the university has stated that Associate Professor Tim Schmidt, from the university’s School of Chemistry, has partnered with colleagues from the [Read more...]
Hybrid Solar Too?
In my previous blog post on hybrid solar systems (aka grid connect with battery backup) I promised to follow up with a post that went into more detail on the costs and give examples of inverter hardware that can be used to make such a beast.
I’ve realised that if I go into the costs and paybacks then this blog post may be longer than War and Peace. So in this post I’ll cover the hardware and I’ll save the financials for next time.
As I said in the previous post, your motivation for spending more on a hybrid solar system will likely be either: [Read more...]
Bob Brown - photo credit flickr:james_tCA
As Greens leader Senator Bob Brown bowed gracefully out of politics this week, news of the latest milestone in the construction of Australia’s largest solar farm shows he is leaving Australian politics a far more supportive place for solar energy than he found it.
Despite some sniping from political enemies both in and out of Parliament (including a predictable diatribe from a well-known Opposition wingnut saying that Senator Brown’s legacy will be the carbon tax), opinion from commentators was that he was that rare political animal: an honest representative with a clear vision. This was particularly so on renewable energy. [Read more...]
I’m angry.I get a lot of emails asking for me to look over quotes. I try to
Don't fall for it!
answer every one. Some times it takes a couple of weeks to reply, but generally I manage to reply.
Tonight I got 3 emails in a row with quotes from 3 separate companies which all appeared to be trying the same trick. They appear to be deceiving the customer into thinking they are getting a great deal and then hitting them with a bill for thousands more than the quoted price when the system is installed.
I love the solar industry, and to see these guys operating like this makes me so freaking angry I want to scream! [Read more...]
Well done Dubbo solar power installers!
Sunny in Dubbo
If you read the mainstream press in Australia, you’d think the towns and suburbs with the biggest average take up of solar panels would be the well-to-do inner city suburbs of our major cities. Perhaps Vaucluse, Toorak or the leafy eastern suburbs of Adelaide?
Obviously they’d be more likely where wealth is concentrated right?
Wrong (as you may have guessed by the headline!). In a sign that solar energy is becoming more accessible to mainstream Aussie folk, a recent survey by the Clean Energy Council (CEC) found the central-west NSW city of Dubbo to have the highest average percentage of houses with solar panels.
Batteries + Solar?
A few weeks ago I blogged about my mate who really hates his electricity company. In fact he hates them so much he wanted his new house to have an expensive off grid solar system with battery backup, diesel genset, the works.
I blogged how the cost of going off grid with solar would be over $50,000 compared to about $12,000 for a standard, grid connect 5kW system and that it would be economically barmy to go completely off grid if your home already has a connection to the grid which you can use.
The German press has just announced that one of my favourite solar companies plans to file for insolvency tomorrow (April 4th).
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