>> Australia, which had a massive push for solar (thanks to its lefty government), is now penalizing people who installed solar panels on their homes.
> That’s why you need batteries. You create a self-sufficient solar power system with backup if needed.
> My four car garage in NH will run solely off of solar. When I build my house there it will use a wide variety of energy sources, mainly solar with hydro possibilities as well but only in the Spring. I’m told Hydro is really the best because it’s constant if you got the flow.
I just wanted to add to this that it’s important to be able to shut off ‘the grid’. In this case keep the energy. The hell with the grid. The Aussies really are getting stupider every year.
If you can sell it back, woohoo! If this were to come to America I’ll be shutting off the grid. You can never have enough battery power and panels.
-SB
-SB
Systems to sell power back to the grid - to use your own solar power and any that you don't use can run the electric meter backwards - has one deceptive flaw: when the grid goes down your solar power is dead... UNLESS you wire with a special load switch AND add maybe $10,000 worth of batteries.
They make this power sharing deal seem attractive to the average homeowner but leave out important considerations. Consider spending $20k - $30k for a solar system on your roof able to produce 240vac @ 200 amps (a bare minimum.) Then when your grid power goes down - so does your solar system! The reason for that is simple: they don't want your system voltage feeding the grid while they are working on it to fix it.
As I say, you can invest another $10k+ on batteries and a load switch that blocks your power from feeding the grid while the power is down. It is easy to end up investing $50k - $80k - just to have a solar backup to relatively cheap grid power.
With the simple original hookup for most homeowners (without batteries), the investment tends to come to a break even status in about 7-8 years. The solar panels are generally good for 15-20 years. Batteries tend to only last 10 years, a bit longer with some battery types.
Myself, my modest solar system does not connect with grid power at all - except 'grounds' which are naturally the ground. I have a separate breaker panel with (for now) about 6 120vac circuits run through the house. All the receptacles are red in color so there can be no confusion. I may add 240vac circuits when I can afford more panels and batteries. My panels are NOT on my roof!