Ronald cleaning the solar array powering his country residence.
I have already written about why it doesn’t make sense to pay people to clean your solar panels. I also wrote it doesn’t make a lot of sense to clean them yourself. Once you add in the value of your time, the chance of falling off the roof and killing yourself, and how cleaning panels usually only adds a couple of percent to their average output, it is not really worth it. [Read more…]
Smaller, cheaper, more powerful. LG Chem’s new batteries look very compelling compared to a Powerwall.
If you are in the market for a home battery and are tempted to buy a Powerwall, then I urge you to also consider the new range of LG Chem batteries announced last week.
Whilst LG have been unable to compete with Elon Musk for mainstream media coverage, the LG Chem RESU, or Residential Energy Storage Unit for the long winded, has been one of the biggest successes in on-grid home energy storage in Australia. While solid figures are hard to come by, it may have been used in almost half of all on-grid home battery installations.
Which of our elected politicians can tell the difference? Read on to find out…
Yesterday all of South Australia was blacked out and parts of the state are still without grid power today. This occurred because a powerful storm damaged transmission lines and the entire state grid automatically shut down as a safety precaution to prevent more damage.
Restarting a grid after a complete shutdown is complex and requires several hours. And it took several hours for grid power to start to be restored.
There is no mystery to what happened. It is very simple:
1. There was a really big storm.
2. Transmission lines were damaged.
3. The grid shut down automatically as a safety precaution, like it should have.
If you don’t believe power lines were damaged by strong winds, here is a picture of high voltage, steel girder, transmission towers near Port Augusta. The wind bent them over so their tops touch the ground.
This picture shows how unusual the situation was. Transmission towers do not normally lie down on the ground to take a rest.
In addition to gale force winds there were also so many lightning strikes they would have been countless if someone hadn’t counted them and tornadoes. As more detailed information is reported we will probably learn if it was lightning strikes, gale force winds, or a big willy willy that provided the straw that safety precautioned the camel’s back. [Read more…]
Solar Panel Cleaning – It’s A Dirty Job, But Nobody Has To Do It
The day your solar panels are installed is the day you will get the best performance out of them. After that it is all down hill. Admittedly, it is a very shallow hill and it might take over 40 years to get to the bottom, but day one is going to be as good as it gets.
One of the reasons for this is dirt. As soon as your panels are out in the open in the clean air, or not so clean air, dust will start to settle on them, blocking sunlight, reducing their efficiency, and costing you money.
The obvious solution is to pay someone to clean those panels, or get out there and clean them yourself. And sometimes this obvious solution will be a sensible course of action. If a dust storm has covered your panels in dirt or pelicans have had a poop party on your roof, then it’s a pretty good idea.
But most of the time solar panel cleaning is not worth it. [Read more…]
The scene in the Brakels’ household last Sunday morning.
On Sunday morning the program Sunrise had a segment on solar power and battery storage. While I am glad whenever popular TV takes the opportunity to educate people on these topics, that wasn’t what happened here. It was the opposite of education, as anyone watching it could easily come away believing the following three things:
1. Battery storage pays for itself.
2. Battery storage cuts CO2 emissions.
3. Rooftop solar needs batteries to be worthwhile.
None of these things are true.
Battery storage does not pay for itself when used on-grid and it may be years before it does.
Home batteries do not cut emissions, they increase them. In the future they may allow us to decrease greenhouse gas emissions, but that point is still years away.
Rooftop solar by itself is cost effective. It is adding batteries that can make it uneconomical. The mistaken belief that rooftop solar needs batteries to be effective is causing harm to both the solar industry and the environment, as people are delaying installing rooftop solar until batteries become affordable. [Read more…]
This yellow box is a DC converter (not an inverter) that lets batteries share your solar inverter.
If you own a solar system and want to add batteries then, in theory, the cheapest way to do this is to simply plug your batteries into your existing solar inverter. The solar inverter can then convert the batteries’ DC power into AC power, just like it does for your solar.
Unfortunately, in practice, regular solar inverters are not designed to be shared by solar and batteries, so this hasn’t been possible and battery upgrades have been jolly expensive as a result.
But Goodwe, a major Chinese inverter manufacturer, has just released a battery DC converter, going by the catchy name of GW2500-BP. It is designed to allow batteries to interface to existing solar inverters.
This DC converter may be the cheapest way to add batteries to an existing solar home. It will also bypass any restrictions that Australian network operators may put in the way of using battery-inverters, such as the Sunny Boy Storage.
By itself it won’t make battery storage pay, but it brings it one step closer to being cost effective. [Read more…]
This is how I felt after spending 2 days trying to work out the best electricity plans for solar owners.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, electricity bills are confusing.
If you are one of those rare people who don’t find electricity bills confusing, then I have two things to say to you. Firstly, “Good for you”.
Secondly, “When are you returning to your home planet?” because I find it hard to believe you are human.
Because they are so confusing, it is very difficult to know which retailer offers the best plan for your household. Especially for people with rooftop solar, as they have the additional complication of accounting for feed-in tariffs. [Read more…]
If you want to save the environment and have limited funds, then buying batteries should not be a priority.
Millions of Australians have installed rooftop solar to help the environment and save money.
Many are hoping home battery storage will soon let them do the same.
The cost of home energy storage is falling rapidly and it may not be long before it pays for itself. But at its current price it will not save money, even under favourable circumstances, when used on-grid. Despite this, there have been hundreds, or possibly thousands, of people who have installed home battery systems because they want to help the environment.
Have these people made a horrible mistake? [Read more…]
You can now buy an Aquion salt water battery to power your home. Nemo not included.
UPDATE MARCH 2017: As of March 8, 2017, Aquion has filed a voluntary petition under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code
UPDATE JULY 2017 : Aquion Energy is resuming operations
Keen on storing your excess solar in a big battery? Worried about having a big box of toxic and/or flammable chemicals in your home? Then you’ll want to know about the Aquion battery and its salt water technology. [Read more…]
The Victorian demand tariff appears to be a cunning plan to slow the spread of solar.
Residential demand tariffs are now available in Australia, and I recommend you watch out for them. If you are a modest user of grid electricity, as many solar owners are, they have the ability to blow your electricity bill through the ceiling. [Read more…]
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