Quote from: Betty on February 14, 2012, 06:59:06 PM
Does nobody think of the children?

Filthy bloody bourgeois boomer land owners.

Us gen-X renters don't get no stinking rebates for solar power, insulation or anything.  Yer children just cop inflated bloody power bills to pay for you lot.

Quote from: suzyj on February 14, 2012, 07:25:35 PM
Filthy bloody bourgeois boomer land owners.

Quote from: Betty on February 14, 2012, 03:20:48 PM
I hate you too

I still love ya Betty 

Well I just love everyone 

Quote from: Jukie on February 15, 2012, 09:12:01 PM
Well I just love everyone 

Even Dez?

Yes of course Dez

ok, my 2 cents.
ever since the supply authorities have sold off the retail arm of their business they have been bending over backwards to "encourage" consumers to conserve energy, use it outside peak times etc. the reason is simple, they are assessed on their performance during peak times, if they can reduce consumption in these times by the smallest of margins the govt. can save millions of dollars in "guaranteed supply" required upgrades to the network.
Hence the rebate system to entice us all into adding solar, great in theory, however, be warned, there are pitfalls, firstly, the sneaky bastards, aka govt. offer quite generous incentives like 4 to 1 kilowatt hour prices paid for anything generated by solar and fed into the network, this is unsustainable, the authorities have already figured out that while most people are at work during the day the solar system is feeding the network and they're paying around 45c per kW/h. when the family gets home and fires up the appliances they consume from the network at 19c. The bubble will burst, and very soon from what i have seen, depends on how tight your contract is but even if it's honoured, when it's expired parity will be the best anyone will ever get again. As for the varying charges depending on usage during peak times? brace yourselves for a royal screwing over!
  The solar systems themselves are not subject to any kind of regulatory control, there's all sorts of junk out there from china, and the like being peddled as quality kit, be careful, the panels output can be low and their performance can and does degrade, the cheaper the panel the quicker you will see your benefits erode, inverters are a necessary evil, you can't supply the meter or network without one but the side effects of inverters are power robbing on their own, if you have an inverter for your solar, as well as an inverter air conditioner chances are your sine wave will be that screwed up your appliances are running well below peak efficiency, causing higher power consumption and more failures of appliances. even LED lights with their little inverters will add to dirty power supply.
Lastly, i reckon the advances in technology are on the cusp of some serious savings, 12 to 18 months should see you able to install a quality system that will maintain a high level of efficiency for much much longer than panels on the market today, systems will become much more affordable as well, meaning the rebates that are currently on offer will not be offered, or really needed in the near future. general consensus seems to agree that an average years electricity cost will buy a substantial 3 to 4 kW system installed within a year or so.
I work in the power industry and am not buying into the scare tactics of the solar industry, some were taken to court here in QLD i believe for advertising the subsidy was running out when it wasn't to generate immediate sales, there's a lot more dirty tricks by those wanting your cash in an unregulated industry.

Quote from: loony888 on February 17, 2012, 04:03:38 AM
The bubble will burst, and very soon from what i have seen, depends on how tight your contract is but even if it's honoured, when it's expired parity will be the best anyone will ever get again. As for the varying charges depending on usage during peak times? brace yourselves for a royal screwing over!

I think parity is fair - although a slight 'incentive' would be more fairerer ... as, like you said, the potential infrastructure savings for 'them' are enormous. 'They' were however talking about buying the power 'we' generate at wholesale prices and selling it back to 'us' at retail prices - that deserves a slap in the chops.

Quote from: loony888 on February 17, 2012, 04:03:38 AM
Lastly, i reckon the advances in technology are on the cusp of some serious savings.

Not doubting your knowledge ... but they have been saying that for years (5 or so?). What we have seen is continued improvement - and, it must be said, a reduction in pricing becasue of 'demand' in the market. From what I have heard almost all panels now sold in Australia come from China ... and like all things there are good, bad and ugly (guess where ours came from ).

Quote from: loony888 on February 17, 2012, 04:03:38 AM
Inverters are a necessary evil, you can't supply the meter or network without one but the side effects of inverters are power robbing on their own, if you have an inverter for your solar, as well as an inverter air conditioner chances are your sine wave will be that screwed up your appliances are running well below peak efficiency, causing higher power consumption and more failures of appliances. even LED lights with their little inverters will add to dirty power supply.

Any chance you might be able to expand/explain this further in simple terms an idiot (me) can understand? I'm intrigued.

http://www.smeco.coop/yourEnergy/electricalDisturbances.aspx

basic examples of sine waves, look at the one marked "noise", the issue involving invertors is way more complex but you get the idea.

paul

Quote from: Jukie on February 15, 2012, 09:12:01 PM
Well I just love everyone 

Quote from: suzyj on February 16, 2012, 03:19:31 PM
Even Dez?

Quote from: Jukie on February 16, 2012, 08:55:33 PM
Yes of course Dez

Ok you two keep your claws off, i'm pretty sure Dez is happily married.

I know he is. He told me all about it, in full details 

Quote from: loony888 on February 17, 2012, 06:21:42 PM
http://www.smeco.coop/yourEnergy/electricalDisturbances.aspx

basic examples of sine waves, look at the one marked "noise", the issue involving invertors is way more complex but you get the idea.

paul

I did say for an idiot to understand:

IQ Range    Classification
70-80    Borderline deficiency
50-69    Moron
20-49    Imbecile
below 20    Idiot

So I think you are trying to say that the inherent on/off nature of these things causes problems with the consistency of power use and generation ... all the equipment in your home is effectively linked into the one 'system' ... and each piece of equipment in this system is having an effect on the other because their operation is never in synch with the others
causing disturbances in the force and therefore your lightsaber goes a bit limp.

Everything works better (more efficiently) and lasts longer if everything can just learn to get along ... but because they are constantly having to adjust to the changes - your 'stuff' gets tired, confused and wears out quicker and/or don't work so good no more.

Close?

Quote from: Betty on February 18, 2012, 10:26:46 AM
I did say for an idiot to understand:

IQ Range    Classification
70-80    Borderline deficiency
50-69    Moron
20-49    Imbecile
below 20    Idiot

So I think you are trying to say that the inherent on/off nature of these things causes problems with the consistency of power use and generation ... all the equipment in your home is effectively linked into the one 'system' ... and each piece of equipment in this system is having an effect on the other because their operation is never in synch with the others
causing disturbances in the force and therefore your lightsaber goes a bit limp.

Everything works better (more efficiently) and lasts longer if everything can just learn to get along ... but because they are constantly having to adjust to the changes - your 'stuff' gets tired, confused and wears out quicker and/or don't work so good no more.

Close?

yeah kinda i guess........
The thing is, electricity is incredibly complex, it doesn't work black/white, there's so many variables and conditions that cause very strange and often unexpected behaviour that can be unpredictable, which is one reason it can be so dangerous.
i'm NOT an electrical engineer, i'm a cable jointer, in essence a high voltage electrician and what i had to study as an apprentice was enough to cause a meltdown of my noggin and frankly my curriculum was only scratching the surface of what those who REALLY understand need to know.
Having said that i know enough of those really clever people to learn from them through my day to day experiences, and while i understand in myself what i mean i'm no teacher so putting in a paragraph as an explanation that can be understood is really difficult.
Very basically put, in physics you're taught that "every action has an equal and opposite reaction" and it is true with electrical energy, I've had to wire outback camps with air conditioned dongers for offices and crib rooms and they were all invertor type A/C units fed from the same sub board, it tripped constantly, and the load wasn't the issue, each invertor was doing it's bit to mess up the sine wave of the ac circuit to the point the neutral was overloading and tripping out, we had to install a completely separate sub board with isolated earths and split the demand to fix it.
All inverters disrupt supply to a degree but the more there are or the bigger they are the more the symptoms multiply, ac power in oz runs at 50hz our appliances are designed to run at that frequency, if the supply is not constant the appliance draws more amps (load) to compensate, highs and lows are returned to the network via the neutral, which means there's more kWh charged to your meter and more cycled through the neutral, (causing heat and sometimes overload) back through the switchboard.

Just a couple of quick points.

Firstly, anything that's connected to the power network (regardless of whether it comes from China or anywhere else) has to meet Australian standards.  The standards are particularly onerous for solar power stuff, partly because the electricity producers are trying to protect their business and don't like competition, so lobbied the regulatory authorities pretty hard.  Yes, there are inverters used in solar power gear (there has to be to convert the DC power from the panels to AC for the grid), but they're remarkably high-tech bits of kit, and produce a really clean waveform.  The same cannot be said for the inverters that run airconditioners etc, as they're subject to rather lower standards.

The reason that the govt are so keen on solar has a lot less to do with being green as it has to do with meeting peak loads.  All the infrastructure in a power system (generators, substations, power lines) has to be big enough to supply the peak.  When it isn't, you get blackouts because transformers etc blow up.  Over the last decade, this has happened mainly on hot summer days, when everyone turns on their airconditioners.  The govt figured they could either spend billions upgrading all the infrastructure, or else spend a lesser amount in getting people to install solar panels to supply power more locally during these peak sunny periods.

That's the reason the rebates were so generous to begin with, and why they've wound them back now they've hit their target.  Blackouts during summer are now a lot more rare than they were a few years ago.  When the number of airconditioners grows enough, they'll probably repeat the generous rebate exercise again to get the peak power requirements back under what the network is able to supply.

Quote from: suzyj on February 19, 2012, 03:54:01 PM
Just a couple of quick points.

Firstly, anything that's connected to the power network (regardless of whether it comes from China or anywhere else) has to meet Australian standards.  The standards are particularly onerous for solar power stuff, partly because the electricity producers are trying to protect their business and don't like competition, so lobbied the regulatory authorities pretty hard.  Yes, there are inverters used in solar power gear (there has to be to convert the DC power from the panels to AC for the grid), but they're remarkably high-tech bits of kit, and produce a really clean waveform.  The same cannot be said for the inverters that run airconditioners etc, as they're subject to rather lower standards.

Like everything in life there's quality kit and there's rubbish, buyer beware i guess but i was under the impression there is no minimum australian standard for panels, be it output or degradation, same for installation kits, cable and inverters, the only minimum std i'm aware of is the installation which has to pass as3000 wiring tests and polarity.
The waveform of a solar inverter is subject to the same issues as any other inverter, give or take, often times it's proximity to other inverters as well as distribution Tx is the biggest issue.

as for the govt push on solar i agree completely, i think i said basically the same thing in my original post.

My point overall is that technology will improve very quickly, the cost of this technology will fall just as quickly, so don't be pressured to buy right now because of the threat of higher electricity prices. These installers are interested in margin, which is worked as a % so the cheaper kits get the less profit they make, that's why they want to sell as many as they can now, add to that the demand for carbon credit certificates they're keen to sell kits, stretching the truth to do it is commonplace, buy smart.