Solar 101 - A Beginner's Guide To Solar In Australia - 2021 Edition

solar for beginners or solar 101 2021 edition [Music] this video will tell you everything you need to know about solar before you go and get quotes my name is finn peacock and i founded the website solar quotes oh 12 years ago this video is the distillation of everything i've learned about solar over that decade and a bit so let's get started the first thing you need to know is there are four main parts to a solar system number one is the panels solar panels are simply a collection of 60 or more solar cells panels can use different cell types and different cell arrangements for cell type you can buy either monocrystalline or polycrystalline the difference in performance between a mono and a poly panel of a similar wattage is absolutely marginal so don't feel any pressure to get one over the other for cell arrangement you can choose standard which looks like this or you can have half cut which doesn't mean they're on the piss it means they're cut in half and look like this finally you can get shingled where the cells are slightly overlapping like this there are some benefits to using half cuts or shingle panels over standard ones if you have shade which creeps up on the panels through the day otherwise don't stress any cell arrangement will work well panel manufacturers generally make solar panels in two major sizes 60 cell residential size which is about 1 by 1.65 meters and 72 cell commercial size which are about one meter by two meters and if the panels are half cut you get twice as many cells because the cells are chopped in half although it's not a karate chop it's with a laser commercial sized 72 cell panels are bigger and heavier and pump out more watts than residential sized 60 cell panels and it's becoming more common for companies to quote residential households on commercial sized panels to squeeze more power out of fewer panels on the roof the downside is that it's much harder to get the clamping zones right for commercial panels and if those clamps are not in the correct place you compromise the longevity of the panels because they can flex too much don't use commercial panels on small residential roofs you are asking for trouble it really doesn't matter if you get mono poly regular half cut shingled and if your roots big enough residential sized or commercial sized panels what matters most is that you get a good brand that is well supported in australia now you probably don't know a good panel brand from a lemon and why should you so here's a handy chart of all the brands i consider to be good quality and well supported in australia this list is not exhaustive so if you're not sure about a brand shoot me an email but this chart represents probably 95 of what's being quoted in australia right now and are brands i consider a safe bet i could list all the brands i believe to be crap but my lawyers are busy enough so unless you're an industry expert i'd just strongly advise to sticking to the brands on the charts to get an idea of what buying premium panels will do to your budget going for a high-end brand like lg over a budget end brand like long-e can add about 30 to the system cost the difference in performance between a budget brand like jinko and a premium brand like sun power is fairly marginal the main difference between the two is how much output they guarantee after 25 years on your roof as well as the length of their product warranty for example 370 watt jinko panels are warranted to have 83.1 percent of their rated output after 25 years and they have a product warranty of 12 years top of the range 400 watt sun power maxi on solar panels on the other hand are warranted to have 92 percent of their rated output after 25 years and they have a full 25 year product warranty but the sunpower maxion costs more than double what a jinko does is that slower performance degradation and longer product warranty worth it that's a decision for you to make the second important part of a solar power system is the inverter which can be either a string inverter around the size of a small briefcase or micro inverters which are about the size of a paperback book a string inverter is installed on the wall and all the solar panels connect into it a micro inverter goes on the back of each solar panel now there's also a third option power optimizers and they're kind of a hybrid between the two because an optimizer system has both the string inverter on the wall and optimizes on the back of each panel if you've got a short attention span here's my hot take micro inverters and optimizer based systems are more expensive than simple string inverters but they have a variety of benefits that make them worth considering especially if you have a shaded roof now 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 spot a cool garage or ask your installer to put a simple shade over the inverter this is because direct intense aussie sunlight shortens the lifespan of inverters it cooks them like a christmas turkey the job of the inverter is to convert the steady dc electricity solar panels make into oscillating 230 volts ac electricity which is what 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 really hard all day and they do wear out so even if you're on a limited budget i'd recommend considering a mid or high end inverter as i'm confident they'll last longer overall than the cheapest ones and if your inverter fails that will bring down your whole system unless you're using micro inverters here's a rundown of the inverter brands available in australia that i believe to be good quality and well supported again this list is not exhaustive but any reputable installer has about a 90 chance of quoting you one of these brands upgrading from a budget inverter like a goodwill to a premium inverter like a fronius will add around a thousand dollars to the cost of a residential system going for optimizers or micro inverters can add an extra one to two grand on top of that the third main component of a solar power installation is the racking this is what your solar panels are mounted on and what connects them securely to your roof there are a wide variety of racking brands out there and at the end of the day racking is just aluminium bolted together so most brands are much of a muchness except for premium brands like radiant which give more adjustability and flexibility in the design of the system and they may corrode less over decades this chart shows brands that we're familiar with and where they sit on price the difference between a budget 10 brand and a premium men brand is about 100 per kilowatt of solar panels installed the fourth main component which not many people talk about is the consumption monitor this is a small box that sits in your switchboard and it measures how much electricity is coming from or going to the grid to be clear you can absolutely install a solar system without this device and it will work but i strongly recommend getting one here's why without a consumption monitor although your inverter will be able to tell you how much solar is being generated at any point in time you'll be blind to how much solar is being used by your house now i could make a whole other video on why you need this information but for now let me just say for about 500 bucks a consumption monitor will allow you to understand exactly how your solar system is working and the best way to manage your energy for maximum savings for me personally it's worth every dollar the second thing you need to understand is how solar is used by your home the easiest way to explain this is to show animations from my home's tesla monitoring app you can see that in this snapshot in time my solar system is producing 4.4 kilowatts 0.9 kilowatts is going into my home with the surplus 3.5 simply going into the grid i'm paid a feed-in tariff by my retailer for each kilowatt hour of energy that i export here in sa at the time of filming i'm getting 14 cents per kilowatt hour of solar energy exported now let's look at a situation where my home is drawing more power than my solar system can supply you can see that my home needs 2.1 kilowatts of power while my solar is only generating 1.8 kilowatts so the grid simply tops up my home with the extra 0.3 kilowatts required the third thing you need to know is how many panels to buy my advice on this has changed considerably in the last few years now in my opinion the only limitations should be your budget what your roof can fit the amount your dnsp that's your distributed network service provider your local electricity network allows you to install for most homes the absolute minimum you should consider is 6.6 kilowatts of panels that's about 18 panels with a 5 kilowatt inverter because you're highly likely to add an electric car and a battery to your home within the next five years you should seriously consider going even larger than this if you can i don't think i've ever heard someone complain that they put too much solar on but i do all the time hear from people that wish they'd bought more solar panels because it's expensive and complicated to add panels to an existing system after the fact the fourth thing you need to know about are solar rebates the famous australian federal solar rebate technically known as the stc scheme acts as a point-of-sale discount off the final cost of a solar installation now all the prices you see advertised will already include this discount the rebate is worth about 550 dollars per kilowatt of solar panels installed but this will vary slightly depending on where you live so for example a 6.6 kilowatt system attracts around three thousand six hundred and thirty dollars in rebates anyone can claim the rebates even if you've already bought solar the only restrictions on claiming the rebate are one your system must be less than 100 kilowatts and that's bloody huge two you get it installed and designed by a clean energy council accredited professional three you use panels and inverters that are 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'll reduce by about one-ninth of today's value every january until it goes to zero in 2031. so it does reduce every year but not by much don't get sucked in by a slimy salesman claiming you need to get in quick before the rebate massively reduces if you live in victoria you may be eligible for the victorian solar rebate too at the time of filming that's worth 1850. but it is means tested and you can only claim it if you don't already have solar the fifth thing you need to know is the difference between the solar rebates and the solar feed-in tariff i mentioned earlier that the solar feeding tariff is how much you're paid for the solar electricity you export into the grid between 2009 and 2012 people signed up to really generous feeding tariffs it paid them anywhere between 30 cents a kilowatt hour and 66 cents a kilowatt hour these generous tariffs were designed to kick-start the solar industry when solar systems were much much more expensive solar systems have reduced in price by over 80 percent since 2008 and feeding tariffs have reduced too to around 3 to 20 cents depending on your electricity retailer and where you are in australia this reduction in feeding tariffs is why you sometimes see people running around screaming solar isn't worth it anymore the rebate's been massively reduced they're confusing the rebate with a feed-in tariff the federal rebate is still alive and kicking and it isn't being reduced significantly anytime soon we've run the numbers and even if you can only get a lower feeding tariff for many households it's still realistic to expect 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 generation first let's discuss panel 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 boost morning production but give less overall and in the afternoon that works out to about 15 less energy throughout the year west facing panels will boost production in the late afternoon but give less overall morning production again working out to about 15 percent less energy annually but this means a working household can self-consume more solar energy with both east and west facing panels because they give more energy before and after school or work this can often increase your savings despite delivering slightly less energy overall sadly i've spoken to more than one homeowner with a big east or west roof perfect for solar that thinks it's just not worth it because their panels can't face north it used to be true maybe 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 or a combination of north east and west hell despite what many well-meaning installers might claim you can even make really good money with south-facing solar panels personally i'm about to install panels on my south facing roof because i've got a battery and two electric cars and i need as much generation as possible to fill them up now let's discuss panel angle 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 your panels at the perfect angle don't worry the panels in my own installation are at 15 degrees from horizontal and i only lose about four percent in annual energy production compared to the perfect angle so generally unless your roof is flat the ideal angle to mount your solar panels at is whatever angle the roof's been built at if your roof is flat you can still install the panels but you need to be aware that you'll lose about 10 percent of your total annual generation compared to the ideal angle and more importantly you'll need to pay someone to clean them frequently probably three to four times a year as you need at least 10 degrees tilt for rain to reliably run off the panels and clean them so if your roof is flat i strongly recommend using tilt frames to avoid lost generation and the hassle of cleaning them the seventh thing you need to know is how a solar system savings and payback are calculated this depends on a few key things the output of your system which when annualized is very consistent your self-consumption ratio which is the amount of solar you use in the home versus what you export to the grid your feeding tariff which as already mentioned varies from retailer to retailer and state to state your usage tariff which is what you pay for grid electricity putting it all together the main way solar saves you money is by offsetting your grid usage if you pay 36 cents per kilowatt hour like i do in adelaide and your solar system generates one kilowatt hour to offset that you've just saved 36 cents but if your solar system generates one kilowatt hour and sends that to the grid because it's not needed in your home the value of that exported solar is less here are some payback calculation examples taken from my solar calculator which i'll link to in the description it's for all the major capital cities in australia and i use sensible defaults for usage feed-in tariff and self-consumption ratio at home personally i have six kilowatts of solar a battery and two electric cars on my most recent winter bill my self-consumption was a staggering 90 my solar system is printing money i'll finish this section by saying avoid any solar company that only calculates your solar system savings based on 100 self consumption crazy high self consumption like mine is still very rare make sure you see the savings for multiple more realistic scenarios like twenty percent and fifty percent self consumption depending on the system size and what appliances you run the eight 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 december 2020 approximate prices for good quality solar systems in australia that's panels and inverters from my trusted charts including full installation as shown on the screen now note that installing batteries will at least double the price of the system i'll put a link in the video description that will show you the most up-to-date prices now to be clear the upper end of these price ranges are for top-end systems you're probably talking lg or sun 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 federal solar rebates however for those of you in victoria these prices do not include the state level rebates 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 charts i showed you earlier you may be able to save around 800 bucks on the lower end of those price ranges costs can increase if you need an electricity switchboard upgrade or any other electrical work that makes your home safe and suitable for solar power or if the design of your home makes a system installation really difficult take my house for example it's made of straw seriously it was a pain in the ass to install solar on now really cheap solar energy systems once cheaper than the prices i mentioned can very well cost you more in the long run from repairs lost output and just the general emotional frustration of dealing with a company that is unlikely to return your calls i tell my friends to avoid these systems it breaks my heart to see solar panels going into landfill after only three to five years on a roof 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 powerwall this costs around sixteen thousand dollars installed without a subsidy and will save you pretty much best case one thousand dollars a year that means you're looking at at least 16 years before you've broken even on your initial investment let alone profited from it and it's anyone's guess as to how long the power wall will last past its 10-year warranty now you don't need a nobel prize in economics to realize that with those numbers unsubsidized batteries generally won't pay for themselves at current prices but i'll be the first to tell you that there's lots of reasons to buy a battery money isn't everything i get it i bought a battery because i'm a tech geek and i love to play with the latest technology and as someone the media regularly asks about these things i thought i should at least own a battery if i'm going to talk about them but for the vast majority of homeowners saving money is their number one priority and who can blame them one day batteries will make lots of sense financially and when that day comes they can easily be added to any existing solar system you use a method called ac coupling now just a note about state level battery rebates as well as virtual power plants or vpps in victoria south australia and the ict 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 one way to get a good deal on a battery is through what's known as a virtual power plant vpp in a nutshell they usually offer an upfront discount on the cost of a battery plus a premium feeding tariff for some of the battery energy discharged into the grid the quid pro quo is that you must surrender control of your battery to the vpp operator when it comes to vpps i'm yet to be convinced that the huge savings promised will actually be the norm for most households that sign up to one after all most vpps are operated by energy retailers and as we know many of them have a long history of screwing their electricity customers the 10th thing you need to know is all about how to finance your solar system now most australians actually buy solar power systems with cash if you're debt free and have cash looking for a place to go then investing in a solar system is worth serious consideration a residential solar installation currently generates a tax-free reliable return that at the time of filming is far higher than bank interest rates or government bonds however some of us don't have the luxury of easy access to thousands of dollars many solar installers offer no interest 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 your bs detector should be going off 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 now don't misunderstand me plenty of reputable solar installers not just the shonky ones offer no interest finance because many customers demand it these days but in my experience you can get a much better deal by shopping around for a low interest finance provider and avoiding the easy sign up no interest deals the 11th and final thing you need to know is a bit forward-looking but it's still really important it's about remote inverter shutdowns here in south australia it's been a requirement since october 2020 to enable remote shutdown of all new systems sold in the event of extreme grid circumstances and that requirement is likely to roll out nationally at some point so the local electricity network in sa and soon i'm guessing networks across australia will have a big red button boom that can shut down all recently installed solar systems sounds a bit scary right many people believe this means the government is going to shut down your solar whenever they like and that solar is now no longer worth it as a result there are all sorts of conspiracy theories going around about this all i'll say is this speaking as a chartered electrical engineer who understands how hard it is to maintain a national electricity grid the sa government has legitimate concerns about the stability of the grid and that's led them to propose and enact this legislation i'd be really surprised if such remote shutdowns happen more than two to three times a year for more than a few hours at a time meaning the cost to you of such shutdowns is only likely to be ten maximum twenty dollars per year i'm guessing so don't stress about scary sounding remote shutdowns be glad that we're taking steps to address how to integrate so much renewable energy with the electricity grid it's a wonderful thing that solar is now so abundant that on very rare occasions we have too much it means that for the rest of the year we have heaps of clean energy running through the grid which is something we should all be really proud of so there you have it the 2021 edition of my solar 101 guide 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 my website solar quotes can do for you just visit solarquotes.com.iu pop your postcode into the top right box hit the big red button and i'll do my absolute best to match you with up to three pre-vetted installers who can give you quotes for high quality systems thanks for watching you

Channel: SolarQuotes

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Length: 25min 57sec (1557 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 19 2021