Poor Feed-in

[Kate8]

I regret spending money buying 17 solar panels as I save almost nothing from them. Now in June I save about 15c per week and during the warm weather, ie February I earned up to $6 a week.

The panels are installed on the 2-story end of my home but regrettably, the installer didn't place the panels further along over the lower part of the home and over the garage instead of where 2 eucalypts growing on the nature strip within 3 metres of my north facing roof cast shade over that part of the roof much of the day. The trees are now 15 metres or more so they are shading the roof panels very well now!!! But will council replace them with other native trees that don't grow so high? I doubt it!! 

[Kate8]

Hi Lester

Yes, it's amazing what we learn after the fact. I guess many of us don't
investigate enough before 'investing' nor look at the nature strip trees
which tower over the house and blow twigs (up to a metre +) and leaves over
my garden, verandah, gutters and across into my back yard in spite of them
being 2m high saplings in December 2019 when we bought the property.



I took notice of my electrician friend who was getting his panels from the
particular local company so I trusted him. He doesn't have the same issues
as me but isn't all that happy either. Agree AGL's 3c per kWh payment cf
their 25c per kWh purchase price is a joke.



Yes you're right of course, now the sun begins to arc higher I will start
getting a few more panels exposed to it and I'm not making 30c a week and
charged up to $73 a week as I did in June and July. I'm now getting up to
23c a day - I received 72c off my bill last week. However we continue to
wear plenty of clothes in the house and limit the time heater is on. 4 big
windows being north-facing help to get some warmth into the house when the
sun shines. Things have changed since the 'good ol' days' eh when my power
bill was $260 a quarter without panels and no sparing the power!!!

[Lester]

"I will start getting a few more panels exposed to it and I'm not making 30c a week and
charged up to $73 a week as I did in June and July. I'm now getting up to
23c a day - I received 72c off my bill last week."

So, what do you consume of your solar during the day Kate ?

Feed in is pathetic (at least here in SA), I'm still getting 6c, suspect I will get that until expiry of my yearly plan Dec 23rd, but now AGL lists feed in for its plans as 3c here for new sign ups.

Solar (for non grandfathered high feed in rate customers) for some time has seen the main benefit for households where you consume during the day, rather than exporting.

Ie, you use power in peak tariff time at the start of the day and the end of the day, and during shoulder soak time through 5 hours middle of the day, when hopefully solar covers most of what you use.

On a smaller system, you have to stagger use a bit so to really self consume what you're making, hopefully you have an app for the system you bought and can see this real time.

Every kw you use during solar production then saves you that amount, here peak just under 49c, and shoulder just under 30c, way more savings self consuming over low feed in.

So my self consumption this past week saved me about $16, similar for most winter weeks.

(It's been a bleak wintry week !)

Usage through the meter was a tad more, about $17, so my consumption cut my regular cost for usage roughly in half.

Feed in for the week was $1.95, so not really a consideration in the real savings.

Even in summer making 70kw a day, that's a paltry $7 or so feed in a week (consumption taken off), but we cover all of our daytime usage, saving say $33 or so a week, and still export 50% of our production . . . which I'd rather have going to a battery for non solar hours use 🙂

So if a household has a couple both working, and away most of the day, you have to set various appliances to work between say 0900 and 1600, perhaps the dishwasher first, then perhaps a washing machine in the afternoon to finish an hour or two before you get home.

If home, most of the household chore usage would be done during that time anyway.

It's very poor for this country to have to start thinking like this, energy prices being so costly now for so many households.