Crunching the numbers on your solar panels’ performance is fun!
One from the mailbag today that is bound to please fellow solar nerds:
Current solar PV regulations “a dog’s breakfast”
Nigel Morris and a Dog’s Breakfast
Nigel Morris of Solar Business Services has described current renewable industry regulations as being like a “dog’s breakfast”. And while his comments may not come as a surprise to many solar power insiders, the fact that he admitted feeling sympathy for utilities networks just might. [Read more…]
Solar Panel Direction: Which Way Should Your Solar Panels Face?
Should you point your solar panels North so that you get the maximum power from them?
Not necessarily…let me explain:
And here’s the transcript if you prefer reading: [Read more…]
How Do You Know If Your Roof Is Good For Solar Power?
Back to the absolute solar basics today on the SQ blog!
In this video I describe the 3 things you need to understand about your roof before buying a solar power system.
And here’s the transcript if my pink shirt gets too much for you: [Read more…]
Are your “Green” Solar Panels killing Chinese villagers?
Solar Panel production produces large quantities of toxic waste. Where does that waste go?
If you are looking to invest in solar panels for environmental reasons, you’ll be pleased to know that, the solar electricity you will get from those panels will be 40 to 50 times less carbon intensive than electricity generated from coal.
But before you buy those solar panels and start basking in their green glow, you should be aware that the environmental impact of those panels might not be all good news. [Read more…]
Poly vs. Monocrystalline Solar Panels – Let’s put this argument to bed!
One steaming pile of Solar BS that you hear all the time from worst sales people in this industry – who will feed you any line to get a sale – is that polycrystalline panels are better than monocrystalline solar panels, or vice versa.
In this video I finally get off my chest why you should avoid anyone spouting such drivel:
Transcript follows if you don’t like listening to angry, sweary solar geeks, and I go into great detail about the two technologies over on the main site:
How Much Will You Get Paid For Your Solar Electricity?
Hint: It’s a bit more complicated than you might think!
By my reckoning 25% of people buying solar power systems want to save the planet as a priority. The other 75% want to save their bottom line and saving the planet is a nice side-effect.
I get a lot of emails saying: “Help! My bills are [insert large number here] dolars a quarter – what size solar system do I need?”
The answer to this question is quite longwinded – but if you want to understand whether a solar system is worthwhile for you financially – you need to understand this stuff! So I made a video to help explain. If you are considering buying a solar system I strongly recommend watching this:
[Note: Since I made this video the Victorian and QLD Feed In tariffs are no longer more generous than the rest of the country – they are both 8c per kWh at time of writing!]
Do you really want to go off the grid with your solar power system?
Did you hear about the Queensland proposal a couple of weeks ago that proposed an 8c per kWh GROSS Feed In Tariff? That would mean Queenslanders would have to sell ALL their solar power to the retailers for 8c (yes – ALL of it – even the stuff that they used in their home). And then buy it back for about 30c.
Yup – that would be called institutionalised theft.
Stories like that make most people want to get off the grid altogether.
So I get quite a few quote requests these days for “Off Grid” solar power systems. However most people don’t fully realise what a big and expensive step it is to cut the wires to the grid.
So I made this video to explain what it really means to go off grid in 2012. I hope you enjoy it:
How Do Solar Panels Work?
Ever wondered how solar panels actually work? We all know that they convert light into electricity – but have you ever stopped to wonder just how the heck that happens? Here I do my best to explain the inner functioning of a solar panel in plain English:
What Should You Buy First? Solar Hot Water or Solar PV?
Solar Hot Water is fast becoming the poor cousin of Solar PV (AKA Solar Electricity). Consumers just seem to prefer solar PV to solar hot water these days. In fact solar hot water has gone from almost zero to 1,000,000 roofs in about 30 years, whereas PV has gone from almost zero to 1,000,000 roofs in less than 6 years. There is now more PV than Solar HW out there! Unbelievable.
It doesn’t help that retailers prefer to sell PV over hot water – for a whole bunch of reasons that I’ll go into in a future blog post.
Here’s a video where I answer the question posed in the title: Should you buy Solar Hot Water or PV first?, But first I answer a much more fundamental question that creates an enormous amount of confusion out there:
And here’t the transcript for the video-phobes amongst you: [Read more…]
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