Solar Power

[icer]

keep us posted mate.

[Smoke them tyres]

XR09,

I commend you for trying to do something positive. A hell of a way though ending up having some exterior roof insulation. Bugger. Probably safer than the internal variety though.

Yeah, good on them as per usual. Their old trick of being a hypocritical bunch of Indian givers. Give some, talk it up like it's something fantastic and then actually take away more.

They want people to do these things "for the environment" but it must not come out of their pocket for the greater good. All bl**dy platitudes I'm afraid. Fits in well with all their other clunkers/ministers.

I think that if this was taken seriously, some good would be done. But they also don't want their income reduced by an effective measure when this crap carbon trading rubbish comes in. I wait for the reverse engineering on that one to raise the revenue they want, not to actually achieve something.

I gather that they would get the tax revenue from the sale of the panels and the business tax on the installer's profit????? I bet the income tax applied is at the highest marginal rate. They've got nothing in it.

I looked at it and was quite prepared for it to cost me, but the return has been absolutely "neutered" unfortunately.

As per usual, this mob have NFI of how to actually achieve some greater good/get things done. The word I think of when I think of them is Sycophants, particularly "her".

Edited 05/10/10 12:28 PM by Smoke them tyres

[pharkit]

A friend who I was living with had some panels put on her roof for the hot water (sydney). Trouble is it only really worked when there was heaps of sun and therefore on days when it was hot and you didnt want much hot water. On the days when you needed hot water (cold days) it hardly worked due to lack of sun and we had to keep turning on the electricity.

Most environmental crap is just to stop people from feeling guilty imo.

[spine]

The systems your speaking of dont use battries. The inverter will feed the grid the whole time, or if your home and using power, it will utlise what your making and send or use the grids to suplement your useage. You can go a bigger inverter, but this would only be for having more panels installed on your roof. I cant tell you about the rebate and electricty bill just yet as I only got my solar smart meter, after pumping 320kwh back into the grid...f*cking *beep*

[ronburgundy]

ZAP - couldn't be more wrong re the tax side of things mate (and I'm qualified to have that opinion)

http://www.ato.gov.au/rba/content.asp?doc=/RBA/Content/92788.htm

Unless you're "in the business" of generating electricity of course! Which on a primary residence (investment property is a different story) you are not considered to be

[Mat]

I have NFI how it all works but a few months ago we had a 1.5kw system installed on my parents roof and it appears its going OK.

With all the rebates we got it set my dad back around $400. One of the blokes at work got the same deal (Mum + dad income must be less than 70K and with mum not working dad was ok). Apparently the bloke at work has had some credits already. Not much of course but he's worked it out that he'll get his money back in less than 2 years.

Whether its any good or not, I dont know but I figure with so much sun in Perth, solar power has to be a decent option.

[ZAP]

Geez Ron, that ruling is from this year, I am not an accountant, so I do not keep up with all the latest rulings.

I happily stand corrected, but had seen a story from ACA or TT about pensioners earlier this year that said they were being assessed from their income derived from power generation. This was only 3-6 months ago.

[Kingers.]

im an installer for a solar power company, and as has been said the inverters arnt a storage device they constatly pump the power either back through your house or out onto the street. No point having a 5kw inverter yet 1.5 kw of panels. wont be any help unless you want to upgrade with more panels in the future.

As getting paid for the power you put back in. I'm not 100% sure how the power compainies work this out. I dont think that customers will ever see any money from a company at all. They will only ever credit you and take that off your bill. Not that you'll ever produce more than you use unless you have a big system, but if its bigger than 5kw they wont pay you at all.

"Victorian legislation only requires that customers receive a credit on their bill, not a cash payment for their excess power." true energy website

There is a hype about the solar power its not as good as some companies tell them, my company too. We as installers cop a fair bit of stuff when we go to a customers house to check to make sure the systems is still functioning correctly because it isnt doin as the sales person told them. One customer told us that the sales person told them it would produce power in strong moonlight...

Solar does work, but if I were you if you want to make some sort of a saving dont go a system any amaller than 2kw. I see people with double story house that use 40 - 50 kwh a day and expect 6 panels (1kw) to halve their bill...

Edited 06/10/10 09:27 AM by Kingers.

[Kingers.]

1000kwh a month is around 33 kwh a day a 2kw solar system will on average produce 10 ~ 12 Kwh a day. Many varing factors with solar...

an average household will use between 15 ~ 18 kwh a day. I have seen 2 houses that have used ovver 100 kwh a day. Both double story houses

Edited 06/10/10 09:44 AM by Kingers.

[ronburgundy]

I know you're not mate, just making sure anyone reading gets the right info. No doubt there are plenty of threads where people have said things about cars that are wrong that some poor schmuck like me will take as gospel and go off and do something stupid.

At least THIS I do know about and can set things straight