Solar Panel Buying Guide for Home or Commercial
Would you like to buy a solar system for a home or business? This article will tell you everything you need to know about solar panels before you go for a quote. And the article is the distillation of everything we’ve learned about solar since starting “Solar world power.com.au” 11 years ago. The first thing you need to know the three principal components that make up a solar power system.
Step One:
Number one is the panel can be either monocrystalline, polycrystalline, or a hybrid of the two known as cast mono. It doesn’t matter if you get mono, poly, or cast mono panels. What matters is that you buy a good brand that will last 25 plus years installed on your roof. Now there are good budget brands or good premium brands that are also known panels that are rebadged junk, and unlikely to last more than three to five years on an Australian roof. Please avoid installing those no-name panels at all costs.
Home solar installation guide:
You can choose to install a budget, but you probably don’t know a good solar panel brand. Here is a handy chart of some of the most popular solar panel brands in Australia. Most of them ranked on the relative price the solar wholesalers are selling them with a good reputation. Now this list is not exhaustive. And if you’re not sure about a brand, you have a short look at the chart here that shows the best solar panel brand in 0Australia.Best Solar Panel Buying Guide for Beginners
But this chart represents probably 90% of what’s being quoted for in 2020 in Australia, and the brands on this chart are more or less a safe bet.
Step Two:
The second main components of a solar power system are the inverter. A string inverter around the size of a small briefcase and a micro-inverter is approximately the size of a small paperback book, a string inverter is installed on the wall, and all the solar panels are connected to it. Microinverter goes on the back of each solar panel. And they are the third option of power optimizers. They are one kind of a hybrid between the two. If you do go with a string inverter, which sits on the wall, make sure that the wall it’s mounted on does not get direct sunlight. Choose a shaded Or ask your installer to put a simple shade over the inverter. This is because direct intense sunlight shortens the lifespan of inverters. It cooks them from the inside out. The inverter is to convert the DC electricity of solar panels produces into 230 volts AC electricity. Which is what everything in your home uses. The inverter is the component most likely to fail in a solar power system in the first 10 to 15 years. This is because they work really hard all day. And yes, they do wear out. So even if you’re on a limited budget, I’d recommend considering a premium inverter. Here’s a rundown of the popular inverter brands in Australia right now, where they sit in terms of price. Again, this list is not exhaustive. But any reputable installer has about a 95% chance of quoting you one of these brands. Best Solar Panel Buying Guide for Beginners.
Step Three:
The third main component of a solar power installation is racking. The racking is mounted on and connecting panels securely to your roof. There is a wide variety of racking brands in the market.
The difference between a budget and brand and a premium brand is around $100 per kilowatts of solar panels installed.
Buying Solar Panels For House:
To know is essential; how much electricity you’re using in your home. And when you use it. When your panels produce electrical energy and export it to the grid, your electricity retailer will pay you a small amount for each kilowatt-hour that your system exports to the grid. Now it’s better to use the solar power generated by your system than to export it. Because self-consumed electricity saves you about 30 cents a kilowatt-hour as you don’t have to buy that energy from the grid export to the electricity and a feed-in tariff. Now that can vary between seven to 20 cents per kilowatt-hour, depending on your electricity retailer. It means that self-consumed solar energy is typically two to three times more valuable than exported solar energy. Australian households that use a lot of electricity during the day or can set their appliances to run on timers are a natural fit for solar panels. They can see very short paperbacks between two and a half to five years 20 to 25% return. If you’re not home during the day, you’ll typically consume, about 20% of an appropriately sized solar power system that will push the simple payback out six to eight years. But bear in mind that still a 12 to 15% return on your investments. Now, avoid any solar energy company that calculates your solar system payback based on 100% self-consumption. Practically no one has 100% self-consumption.
How much are solar panels to buy? Best Solar Panel Buying Guide for Beginners
The third thing you need to know is how many panels to buy. Our advice on this has changed considerably in the last few years because solar installs prices have fallen considerably. Electricity prices have risen, and feed-in tariffs. What you paid for exporting excess electricity has also risen. The only limitations now are your budget, what your roof can adequately fit, and your DNS’s amount that’s your distributed network service provider, your local electricity network, and what they’ll allow you to install. For most homes, the absolute minimum you should consider is 6.6 kilowatts of panels. That’s about 22 panels with a five-kilowatt inverter. The biggest regret I hear from solar power owners is that they didn’t factor in how winter and overcast days would limit their savings. They wish they’d installed more panels when they have the chance. Because it’s expensive and complicated to add panels after the install while adding panels to the initial quote can be surprisingly cheap.
Government rebate on solar panels?Best Solar Panel Buying Guide for Beginners
The fourth thing you need to know about is the solar rebates. The famous Australian Federal solar rebate, technically known as the STC scheme, acts as a point of sale discount of a solar installation’s final cost. Now all the prices you see advertised will already include this discount. The subsidy is worth about $600 per kilowatts of solar panels installed. But this will vary slightly depending on where you live. So for example, a six-kilowatt system attracts around $3,600 in rebates. Anyone can claim the rebate, even if you’ve already bought solar before, the only restrictions on claiming the rebate are one, your system must be less than 100 kilowatts. And that’s bloody big. To get it installed and designed by a Clean Energy Council recommend a three-phase inverter,
that is approved for use in Australia by the Clean Energy Council. And you need to know that the Federal solar rebate is slowly being phased out. It will reduce by about one 10th of today’s value every January until it goes to zero in 2031.
The fifth thing you need to know is the difference between solar rebates and the solar feed-in tariff. We mentioned earlier that the solar feed-in tariff is how much you paid for the solar electricity you export into the grid. between 2009 and 2012 people signed up for a really generous feed-in tariff. It paid them anywhere between 30 cents a kilowatt-hour and 66 cents a kilowatt-hour. He’s generous tariffs were designed to kickstart the solar industry, when solar systems were much much more expensive. solar systems have reduced in price by around 80% in Australia since 2008. And feed-in tariffs have reduced to around seven to 20 cents depending on your electricity retailer. This reduction in feed-in tariff is why you see so many people screaming solar power isn’t worth it anymore. The rebates have been massively reduced. They’re confusing the rebate with the feed-in tariff. The Federal rebate is still alive and kicking and it isn’t being reduced significantly anytime soon. And we’ve run the numbers and even with these lower feed-in tariffs, it’s really not difficult to get a five-year payback on your solar system.
The sixth thing you need to know
Are the basics of roof direction and angle for optimal solar placement?
. First, solar panel setup direction. North-facing solar panels will peak in their power production around midday and give you the most energy overall throughout the year. East facing panels will peak in the morning and give you about 15% less energy throughout the year. West-facing panels will peak in the late afternoon and again give you about 15% less energy. But this means a working household can self consume more solar energy with east and west-facing panels because they give more energy before and after school or work. That’ll accelerate your system’s payback. Sadly, we’ve spoken to more than one homeowner with a Big East or West roof right for solar that thinks it’s just not worth it because their panels can’t base north. It used to be true 10/12 years ago that if you couldn’t install panels on a north-facing roof, then solar wasn’t worth it. But now the price of solar has dropped so much, you can get a fantastic return on your investment. From east-facing panels west-facing panels, a combination of North East and West how you can even make money with south-facing solar panels, although that would be a last resort. Now we discuss panel angles. The ideal panel angle to maximize the energy produced over the whole year is simply within a few degrees of the latitude of your location. Here’s a chart showing the latitude of each capital city. So for my house in Adelaide, the perfect solar panel angle is about 35 degrees from horizontal. If you’re not able to install the panels at the perfect angle, don’t worry. The panels in my own installation are at 15 degrees from horizontal, and they only lose about 4% in annual energy production compared to the perfect angle. So generally, unless your roof is flat, the ideal angle to mount your solar panels is whatever angle the roofs are being built at. The seventh thing you need to know is the typical payback period for buying a solar system. A well-designed solar system has a typical payback period of around four to seven years in Australia. Now, this can vary depending on how much solar energy you self consume, and how high your feed-in tariff is. But when you get quotes for solar, the installer should do a payback analysis for you to estimate your payback period, then you can simply read through that analysis, and decide if that payback makes it worthwhile for you to spend your money on solar. And the eighth thing you need to know is what price ranges you can expect to pay for quality solar, and why quotes can vary wildly in price at the time of filming, approximate prices, but good quality solar systems in Australia. So that’s good tier one panels and the quality string inverter, including full installation as shown on the screen now. Click the link in the description to see the most up-to-date prices. Now to be clear.
Best Solar Panel Buying Guide for Beginners
The upper end of these price ranges for top-end systems, you’re talking probably LG or solar power panels with full panel-level optimization or micro-inverters installed by a solar craftsman. Also, note that these prices include the discount from the solar rebates. However, for those of you in Victoria, those prices do not include the state-level rebate offered by the Victorian Government. If you want to downgrade to a reputable budget inverter, that would be the brands on the left-hand side of the inverter chart I showed you earlier, you may be able to save around $800 on the lower end of those price ranges. Now, costs can increase if you need any electricity, switchboard upgrade, or any other electrical work that makes your home suitable for solar power. Or if the design of your home makes the system installation really difficult like my house is made of straw, it was really hard to install solar on installing batteries will at least double the price of the system. Now really cheap solar energy systems that are much cheaper than these cost you more in the long run from repairs and lost output. We tell you to avoid these systems. It breaks your heart to see solar panels going into landfills after only three to five years. The ninth thing you need to know is whether batteries are worth it. To use an example, one of the most famous batteries in the world, the Tesla power wall. This costs around $15,000 to install, and we’ll save you the absolute best case $1,000 a year. That means it will take you at least 15 years before you break even on your initial investment, let alone profit from it. And it’s anyone’s guess as to how long the power will live past its 10-year warranty. We see there are lots of reasons to buy a battery. Why do we buy a battery? because we’re tech geeks that love to play with the latest technology. And as someone the media regularly asks about these things, You should at least own a battery if we’re going to talk about them. But for the vast majority of homeowners, economic payback is their number one priority and who can blame them. One day batteries will make lots of sense. And when that day comes, they can easily be added to any existing Solar System using a method called AC coupling. Now just a note about state-level battery rebates in Victoria, South Australia, and the ACT. There are state government battery subsidies that can take 30% or more of the total cost of buying a battery. If you get a really good deal on a battery, these additional rebates can take them from being too expensive to worth considering.
Best Solar Panel Buying Guide for Beginners
The 10th and final thing you need to know, it’s all about how to finance your solar system. Now, most Australians actually buy solar power systems with cash. If you’re debt-free now of cash looking for a place to go, then investing in a solar system is worth serious consideration. The solar installation currently generates a tax-free, reliable return at the time of filming. It’s far higher than bank interest rates, or government bonds. However, some of us don’t have the luxury of easy access to 1000s of dollars. Many solar installers offer no interest in finance. And if that sounds too good to be true, it’s because it almost certainly is. If you see a deal that claims no interest. All finance has a cost. The no-interest deals often charge the installer a fee of 20% to 25% on top of the cash price, and guess what? That cost is passed on to you. But in our experience, you can get a much better deal by shopping around for a low-interest finance provider and avoiding the easy signup, no interest deals. So there you have it. You now have all the knowledge you need to buy a good quality solar system with confidence. The safest way I know to buy solar is to get quotes for comparison from reputable pre-vetted installers, which is exactly what our website “solar world power” can do for you. Just stay with us on our web “ solarworldpower.com.au”
How do we prove ourselves as one of the best Solar panel installers in Australia?
As we are in the Solar industry for more than a Decade, Prospective customers get a free energy consultation and continued design and installation support throughout the entire process.
To perfect our service, we have built friendly co-operative partnerships with our customers & provide the products with high efficiency & good quality at a reasonable price. We have our own Clean Energy Council (CEC) Certified Installers with innovative technology.
