Peter Hannam quoted me in RenewEconomy on Friday, saying I expect there are hundreds of thousands of solar and battery systems out there that aren’t optimally installed or configured, some of them carrying real potential for dangerous outcomes. [Read more…]
Neovolt have been threatened with de-listing because their CEC approval paperwork isn’t in order.
I find this curious because when I’ve asked about similar approval paperwork in the past concerning Growatt products, they weren’t de-listed. And the CEC refused to answer our questions.
Carefully trickle-charging your EV with surplus solar instead of buying electricity from the grid sounds like the perfect way to charge. But there’s an uncomfortable truth: slow charging can waste considerably more energy than charging at higher power with a home charger.
Spoiler alert: that doesn’t mean you should stop charging from solar. Cheap electricity still trumps charging efficiency when it comes to your wallet. [Read more…]
Last week I was in Officeworks waiting for some printing. Next to me, a woman was buying a laptop, and the Officeworks bloke helping her knew his stuff. Processors, RAM, screen brightness: all of it correct. Then he asked whether she’d considered a Mac, which opened a second long conversation about MacBooks, and by the end of it, she looked more confused than when she started.
He left her to think it over. I couldn’t help myself. [Read more…]
Australia’s data centre boom is going to need an extraordinary amount of electricity. Without the right rules, households and small businesses could end up sharing the bill. [Read more…]
Parallel supply to the house on the left – Series connection on the right
Everyone buying solar wants lower bills, but adding expensive batteries should be more about a reliable supply than straight-up bean-counting.
The solar industry has, for a long time, glossed over a pretty basic point in battery-backed systems, so strap in while we explain the difference between series and parallel-connected supplies, and why it matters.
Most of us want to believe the best in people.
If your solar installer says they’re waiting on stock, you’ll probably accept it. If they ask for a few more weeks, you’ll give them a few more weeks.
But when does patience stop being reasonable?
That’s the question NSW homeowner Mark Barnes eventually found himself asking after seven months of delays, a missed installation date and, after cancelling his battery order, still waiting for the return of his $6,500 deposit. [Read more…]
A fortnight ago, 7.30 aired an investigation into Solar Power Nation, a retailer the ABC reports is under investigation by authorities in Queensland, NSW and South Australia after hundreds of complaints.
One customer, Amin Khorram, paid $13,000 for a battery system. Only one of the two inverters was installed, so he got 5 kW of the promised 10 kW and couldn’t charge or discharge his batteries fast enough to get all the savings he expected. He chased the company for eight months. The missing inverter finally appeared last month, as his QCAT hearing date approached. Funny, that. [Read more…]
I first wrote about this back in 2012. Fourteen years later, I’m still writing about it. That should tell you something about how sticky this confusion is. [Read more…]
Looking at a modular home battery, adding another module appears about as difficult as stacking another Lego brick. Lift the new battery into place, stack it on top of the others, plug it in and away you go.
How hard can it be? It’s probably why the question pops up every now and then in online owner forums. [Read more…]
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