SolarQuotes Vodcast Episode 32 – Days Of Wine And Panels

Finn and Ronald discuss battery fails, AusNet forcing new solar households onto ToU, hydrogen hype, LG’s new AC solar panel and more.

Finn and Ronald discuss battery fails, AusNet forcing new solar households onto ToU, hydrogen hype, LG’s new AC solar panel and more.

AusNet Take Away Freedom Of Choice For New Solar Households

1:03 – New solar households in Eastern Victoria are being forced onto a time-of-use tariff for the first 12 months, which may not suit these customers.

In Victoria, electricity customers have a one month billing cycle. You can change your electricity retailer or electricity plan every month if you want. But if you want to change your actual electricity tariff; you are only allowed to change that once a year.

“It’s particularly bad for solar owners, because usually when you have solar, you’re better off with a standard tariff – you have a flat rate,” says Ronald.

Finn says the thing he doesn’t like about time-of-use tariffs is they make it really hard to determine which electricity plan is right for you.

“What is almost impossible is getting the average consumer to sit down and do that,” states Finn. “Because as we know it’s very very hard to get a lot of consumers to even switch standard tariffs.”

Ronald says:

“Then to say, “Oh, consumers have freedom of choice” and there’s competition, yeah that’s not true, is it? People can’t tell which is cheaper, there is not true competition.”

There appears to be a trend of Distributed Network Service Providers putting solar owners on worse or more complicated plans.

“Why not put people who buy air-conditioning on a worse or more complicated plans – because they’re the people who are really pushing up the network and distribution costs,” states Ronald.

$42,000 Solar + Storage System Doesn’t Deliver

06:10 – A caller to the SolarQuotes office said he spent $42,000 on a solar and battery storage system through a company that SolarQuotes doesn’t recommend. Even after spending that huge chunk of change, his bills were still in the region of $600 a quarter.

Among the problems, during summer months the system was often cutting out at midday – which was possibly due to overvoltage issues.

However, the company he bought the system from doesn’t appear to be interested in fully investigating the situation.

That aside, it was also revealed the person had spent around $10k on 10kW of solar power and $32k on the 22kWh battery system. Ronald feels the money would have been much better spent if it went the other way around.

“You could have 20 kilowatts of solar and 10 kilowatts hours of batteries – but you don’t need any batteries at all, you just need a lot of solar, then you can get a credit.”

The roof in question had plenty of space for more solar panels and the household had a three-phase connection – so this was possible.

A significant proportion of the person’s energy consumption was overnight – heating the house.

“I think solar’s at a point where it’s kind of no-brainer to whack, you know, your 6.6, 10-11 kilowatts on the roof,” says Finn. “That just makes sense if you’ve got an unshaded roof. But when you start looking at 20, 30, 40,000 dollars on solar and batteries; stop, take a deep breath and think about the thermal envelope of your house.”

Finn believes Australia has an emerging problem with people just throwing money at solar energy and batteries to fix “gas-guzzling” houses that are obviously horrendously energy inefficient.

Worst Review Of The Week

09:47 – Another big solar power and battery system that didn’t cut it, but this time in a very different way. The reviewer spent $41,000 on solar and storage – but the installation was so poor that it allegedly caused thousands of dollars damage to household goods and “the street”. Apparently, the installation was so bad the smart meters caught fire.

This installation was allegedly performed by a CEC “Approved Solar Retailer”.

Best Review Of The Week

11:39 – Oz Solar World in Queensland receives a glowing review from a customer who had a 20kW solar system installed by the company. The system was installed within 2 weeks of the contract being signed. After 6 months, it had provided just over $2,000 of feed-in credit – that’s on top of self-consumption.

“So, you really can smash your bills with a big solar system without a battery,” says Finn.

SA Releases Hydrogen Energy Plan

13:10 – South Australia’s Marshall Government unveiled its plan for making the state a major green hydrogen producer and exporter.

Ronald remains skeptical about the future of hydrogen.

 “Where’s the money coming from?” he says. “At the moment, it all depends upon other countries paying more for energy then they need to … I’m not saying there’ll be no hydrogen used, but people who are expecting, Japan, Korea, China, to be putting millions of hydrogen fuel cell cars on the road are mistaken.”

Ronald thinks hydrogen simply won’t be able to compete with electric vehicles. Both Finn and Ronald believe people have an emotional attachment to exporting stuff in bulk.

LG’s New AC Solar Panel

15:28 – LG recently showed off its latest AC solar panel – the LG NeON R ACe. Unlike its predecessor, the LG NeON 2 ACe, the new panels don’t have an Enphase microinverter on the back, but a unit that was designed by LG.

“It’s very hard to make reliable electronics under a solar panel,” says Finn. “Enphase have done it – I’m sure LG can.”

We’re still not clear on whether these panels will be available in Australia. Apparently there’s a weird Australian standard that says you can’t have micro-inverters on a panel with a capacity of more than 350 watts.

Finn and Ronald also discuss latest panel-level optimisation technology from Maxim, which after a couple of false starts might soon pose a threat to microinverter manufacturers.

“If, assuming there’s no problem with Maxim panels, that’s really going to take a lot of wind out of the sails of people selling microinverters and optimizers,” says Ronald.

ClimateStrike March

The pair touch on the recent ClimateStrike marches, one of which Ronald and Finn participated in.

As for the criticism of Greta Thunberg:

“Middle-aged, grumpy old men – she’s just a messenger,” says Ronald. “She’s just saying what scientists, economists, many big businesses, insurance companies, power companies, et cetera, are saying”.

Subscribe to the SolarQuotes Youtube channel!