Solar Tips
 

Heres a bit more info on maximising your power output from your system.

1, your panels should all point due north.
2, your roof pitch should be as close to 26% pitch as possible.
3, buy a quality inverter, cheaper chinese brands usually only convert about 92% of power from your panels, whereas quality german brands convert about 98% of power, no inverter will get you 100%.
4, make sure you have a quality installation job done on ALL connections to the wiring system, you can lose power here.
5, As i understand, to get maximum efficiently from the system the panels should be wired in strings of 3, in other words multiple panels of equal amounts divided by 3, i have 39, 3 x 13.
Uneven amounts of panels produce uneven amounts of power being fed to the inverter from each string,which is not ideal.
I see lots of panels on peoples systems and they are usually not counted in numbers of 3.
Most of the installers dont seem to know this fact.
6, keep the panels clean.
I am not an electrician, but i did my homework when i invested in my quality system and hope some of these tips might be of interest to anyone interested.

Tom

I think that the optimum pitch of the panel will depend on your latitude. 26* may be good for you but down south will need a bit more, and north less. Regardless, the optimum pitch will indeed be important.

Geof

That is true, for me up here that is the ideal senario but it does change a bit the more you go south, you just have to check the graphs for your area, glad you mentioned it as i forget about that.

Got it Mike. Thanks. I had a brain brown-out I think, cause I forgot to calculate that of course your not paying for that power during the day when solar is working (up to your 3kwh or whatever system one has!). I was probably thinking (like tomcat) of the days when we could get same or better buy back rates. Duh!

I'm seriously thinking of solar for my holiday house in Mansfield Vic (which is available for rent [/end plug]) cause when I'm not there (most of the time) it just runs a fridge, bar fridge, hot water inverter and electric fence zapper.

Santa brought me an Arcade machine for Christmas. I used to build these for a living in my first job back in 1986. I had been wanting a machine for ages and was looking at restoring an old one but I found this one ready to go.

It has nearly 2000 of the classic games in it and been a real trip down memory lane going through them. My daughter thinks it's great and we've been battling away on it.

http://i1247.photobucket.com/albums/...7.jpg~original

A lot of my youth was spent around arcade machines so having one in the shed was a must have. Video arcades were just what we did back in the late 70's early 80's. That's where we would meet up with friends and hang out. In Hamilton (NZ) there was an arcade next to a hamburger shop in the city that we would go to regularly. I went back a few years ago and surprisingly the burger shop was still there but unsurprisingly the arcade long gone,

That is cool..... but its going to take you away from your car... so I will take it of your hands.

Your right in that it brings back memories and the fun and easy times that it was like to be a kid.

Games I remember are Galaga, Moon Patrol, Gyrus, Galaxian, Space Invaders, Asteroids, Hyper Olympics, all the versions of Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter, Frogger, Dragons Lair, Pacman and variations, Donkey Kong......... these are the ones that come to memory now.

Ahhhh, living in the past, nothing like it.

A not so little bird told me someone has been kicking your butt on mortal combat Mike ;)

Apparently..... according to an electrician mate of mine that may or may not work for an electricity supplier up here.... You can get your panels to produce power to your house during a blackout.
The dodgy way is to turn off your main power switch so that no power gets sent down the line to potential linesmen working upstream. Then you get a battery jump pack ($100 from local parts store) with a built in inverter. Make up a 'dead mans plug' with two 240v male ends on it. Plug one end into a power point in the circuit you want to use and the other end into the inverter. Turn it on.
Apparently the solar system needs to 'see' a 240v signal to activate the system. Then you plug your charging cable into the jump pack so it keeps it's charge and continues to feed 240v into the system and the solar panels do the rest.

You can also have a better master switch installed into your meter box so that it detects the power coming back down the line and switches it over automatically.

We tried it....... yep it works.....

There is a reason that solar systems switch off during a power outage.
Electrical transformers will work stepping down voltage but if you liven the secondary side such as what Ash may or may not be suggesting in the above post they will produce HV on the primary side (read it will fry the linesman working on the system).
Hard wired Generator back up systems have a changeover switch that isolates the incoming supply when they are put on line, if you must do something like what has been suggested ISOLATE THE INCOMING POWER SUPPLY AT THE MAIN SWITCH.

Or move somewhere that has a decent supply grid.

We've just had a 5.4kW solar system installed which involved a lot of prior research, so I thought I'd share for those interested.

Stiffy, speak to Glen Clark before you sign with anyone. http://www.glenclarkco.com.au/. He makes a free site visit to measure light levels, roof orientation, shade from trees and chimneys, etc and provides a detailed report - no obligation. By far the most thorough of the half dozen installers I spoke to and great to deal with. Price was right too.

We're using two "strings" of panels oriented NNE and NW thanks to our roof line. On a clear summer morning the NNE array starts making power at 6.10am and the NW facing array is still generating a bit of power at 8.30pm. We're producing 35-40kWh per day in summer and sitting around 5kW/h in the middle of the day, which is excellent for a 5.4kW system when you allow for losses.

There is no magic number of panels to have in each string, as panel outputs vary wildly - as do site requirements. Newer panels generally produce more power for their size (more efficient), plus panel quality even in tier 1 panels can vary greatly. I was told by one installer that the cheaper systems all use panels that are rejected from the B-grade batches, they're that bad.

If shade is a problem you can opt for micro inverters (per panel) which allow the panels that are not in the shade to generate power. With a normal (single) inverter the shaded panels dramatically reduce the ability of the whole system to make power. With cheap systems a few stray leaves or large bird droppings can lower the voltage enough to knock out a whole array. Stay right away from those $3000 systems on TV!

I went for the LG Mono X Black panels to blend in with the roof and a German built SMA inverter which you can just see inside the garage behind my lovely wife. The inverter logs data and has bluetooth so you can upload and monitor remotely, if you're a bit of a nerd like me. :D

And a couple of photos.

http://i376.photobucket.com/albums/o...psptipsmnf.jpg

http://i376.photobucket.com/albums/o...psuudqkzib.jpg

Thanks for that info Sambo. I've got to set mine up to, and I have a lot of shade, so good tips.

And your panels compliment your house nicely, rather than the ugly eyesore of some system I've seen! Well done.

Panels
 

Sambo,

Great thread, I will give him a call next week.

Stiffy

Great info Sambo. Each site and each system will have unique configurations/costs, but do you mind giving a ballpark of what yours cost?

I'm interested to see how much more you pay for quality compared to the cheapo "as seen on TV" systems.

craig
I have mine hooked to main reverted system as above with generator back up that switches over when the grid unloads the mains
so that there is little to none , delay for the solar or generator kicks in
this cost me $8k plus generator 5.4kva
I have 23 panels with a 5 kilowatt grow invertor this allows me to enlarge the system later if needed
rob

Hi Craig. Our 5.4kW system was just under 9k. The budget systems on TV are generally 3kW or less, so it's hard to compare.

Here's an article from November showing the average cost for a 5kW system in Melbourne at $8,500. So I think we did very well considering the use of top shelf components.

How much does a 5kW solar system cost in Melbourne, Victoria? - Solar Choice

It's worth noting that my system would've cost $3,325 more if it weren't for the solar credit rebate scheme - which our government reviews every two years (read: may be abolished).

Sorry to hijack your thread Mike.

No problem Paul. The solar discussion is interesting.

Our system is only 3KW and from memory was about $2500 after the rebate. It's on the NW face of the roof and probably doesn't start prodproducing till the sun is well up. On the flip side its producing near till the sun has gone.down. middle of a clear the day when I check the meter its usually producing about 2.7KW

Cheers