Walkin' On Sunshine

Greetings everyone - hope you all are well and happy.

We have decided to go solar. Our power bill is climbing out of sight, so we bit the bullet and are doing a complete installation. With the various incentives and rebates (federal and state) we'll recoup roughly half of the $56K cost. Initial estimates indicate that we should recover the remainder as produced power within 10-12 years. We are grandfathered in as far as Duke Power having to pay for any overage - for any power that we produce over our usage they must buy back at retail value.

This is an 11.5 KVa system: 40 4x8 panels on two roofs, inverters for both arrays, 2 new tankless water heaters, thermal attic barriers, house-wide light replacement with LED bulbs, a new 2-stage pool pump. The neatest thing (to me) is the LG battery backup system: if we lose power, the capacity is roughly 3 days of current for vital systems ('fridges/freezers/appliances, heat pumps, lighting) - and that's if the sun don't shine. Long as we got sunshine we can keep on cookin' indefinitely!

It's a work in progress - I estimate that the contractors are appx. 75% finished. If y'all are interested I'll keep updating, show the entire system when it's up and running.

 

Nice house Caliban and great looking setup.
We have just bought a new house that has 7 split system air conditioning systems so I have made enquiries about going solar and we will be installing a 12kw system which comprises of 52 monocrystaline LG panels and a 15kw German Fronius 3 phase inverter. If I could fit more panels on my roof I could get another couple of kilowatts........this setup will cost about AU$16,000 and this will be a power grid feed-in system installed because no batteries will be fitted yet.
Over here the battery solution isn't really viable yet based on price/battery life/payback but in the next few years we will probably go off grid and install salt batteries which are about the size of a large refrigerator and their great advantage is that they can be run down to dead flat without affecting the cell technology's ability to continue to hold charge and they are the most environmentally friendly and safe battery on the market.
https://www.solarchoice.net.au/blog/aquion-saltwater-batteries-australia
Pity Aquion in the USA has filed for bankruptcy but hopefully someone else will pick up the technology and it will still be competitively priced.

I will post back when we move into the new house and let you know what is happening. I have already spoken to a supplier and based on satellite images of the roof of my new place they have worked out the above approximate quote but need a site inspection in case there are other problems that need to be rectified.

I would be really interested in how your system performs on cloudy or overcast days and if you want to PM me that would be great. Please keep us informed of the progress and I would appreciate you mentioning any pitfalls or traps you encounter as I am sure there are downsides never explained by the salespeople on the journey to make another system sale.
Thanks for the great post