I put this together to try and get across just how economically compelling solar power is if you look at the cost of electricity over 20 years instead of simply focussing on the up front cost.
If you can get good financing, solar power is an economic no-brainer for most households.
How many panels can you connect to your inverter?
It is common practice, when designing a solar system, to ‘undersize’ the solar inverter, by connecting more panels than the inverter appears to be rated for.
This can freak out some solar customers when they see, for example 3.25kW of panels proposed to be connected to a 3kW inverter in their solar quote.
Confused?
Let me explain the nuances of solar inverter sizing… [Read more…]
Power-One has been sold to ABB for $1B
I’m a big fan of Aurora inverters. These thoroughbred Italian inverters are manufactured by a company called Power-One and are the second best selling inverters on the planet. (The best selling are SMA in case you didn’t know)
So news of Power-One being sold, lock, stock and barrel to Swiss engineering conglomerate ABB, made me sit up and take notice.
Why?
Two reasons: [Read more…]
The latest Trina solar panel review ticks a lot of boxes
Thinking of putting Trina solar panels on your roof? Then finding a review that you can trust is critical. After all, unless you are an uber solar geek like me you probably have never heard of the Trina brand before (they are one of the biggest solar panel manufacturers on the planet by the way).
Reliable, honest solar panel reviews are very hard to come by. Why? Firstly because properly testing a solar panel takes at least a year – so that you get all the seasons. Secondly it takes a big investment in carefully calibrated measurement hardware. [Read more…]
Note to Grand Designs: “Do your bloody homework!”
Today’s top solar tip:
Please don’t look to Kevin McCloud or Grand Designs for advice on solar power!
Now don’t get me wrong, I love Kevin McCloud, he seems like a top bloke. And Grand Designs is one of the few things I actually watch occasionally on the gogglebox.
But they really need to do their research when it comes to solar.
The UK episode on ABC1 last week showed that they don’t have a freaking clue about solar power. [Read more…]
We’ll miss you Bosch Solar
Yesterday was a really sad day for fans of top-of-the-range solar panels. German giant Bosch announced that it could no longer bear to haemorrhage any more cash from its solar division. So it is going to shut the whole shebang down ASAP. [Read more…]
Panel prices have dropped 80% in 4 years – can they get any cheaper?
If you want to buy some absolute junk you can currently buy bottom end, ultra cheap solar panels for $0.50 per Watt. But I wouldn’t recommend it. Unless you want to risk your roof turning into a giant barbecue.
Most solar panel factories have been losing money hand over fist for at least the last couple of years. Many of the largest companies have lost many hundreds of millions. This has led many observers to believe that solar panel manufacturers will have to start raising prices in order to survive. In fact there is evidence of this starting to happen with panel prices rising slightly in the first 2 months of 2013.
So is this the end of dirt cheap solar panels? [Read more…]
What warranty are you really getting?
One of the most important things you have to watch out for when buying solar is the warranties that are offered. All too often people end up going with a cowboy firm because they have been reassured by their “25 year solar panel warranty”. What many people don’t realise is that, in reality, this warranty can be worthless. You really need to understand how solar warranties work when you are buying a system that is designed to last 30 years or more, so you can separate the worthless promises from the genuine guarantees… [Read more…]
Over the last four years, I’ve written thousands of words and made hours of videos answering the question:
“Finn – there are hundreds of solar companies out there – they all claim that “they are the best and everyone else is second rate or worse”!
How do I choose a good, honest, solar installer that will charge a fair price and look after me and my panels if anything goes wrong down the track?”
At the end of the day – if you follow these 5 golden rules you can’t really go wrong: [Read more…]
How do you choose a good solar inverter? It’s a really important question. If you choose a bad inverter, it may turn out to be noisy, inefficient and unreliable. If you have a look at the inverter reviews that are coming in to SQ, some inverters appear to have an awful failure rate. For example at the time of writing the Beijing Kinglong New Energy (KLNE) inverter reviews report 7 failures from 13 reviews! Ouch!
Here is my attempt to answer this important question. And I’ve provided a transcript of my rantings below the video. [Read more…]
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