Home Solar a con

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8 yrs ago

Home Solar energy is a con on taxpayers and consumers .

I have recently installed Solar on my home. The cost was to me 3,500 which included a 1500 subsidy from the taxpayers .

The power you generate you do not use yourself but you feed into the grid and you power your home on what you buy from the grid .

The power company pay me 8c a kilowatt for what they buy from me and charge me 24c for what they sell me . What a con ..

Until we have storage to hold what we generate and use ourselves it is not worthwhile.

Tesla a Silicon Valley. Company has released power wall where you can store your own power .

I haven't done the Maths yet but this technology will be a game changer ...

8 comments

Sandi (SA)

8 yrs ago

What rubbish Pete.

During the day you use the solar and you only feed back into the system the extra power that you generate that you are not using.

I agree though about the batteries to store power and they are already available but very costly at this stage and won't store enough to go completely solar.

Once the battery costs come down I will definitely get them and if I can store enough to run the house I will go off grid.

Using the power at night is more costly because it's peak pay time. They charge you different amounts for different hours.

You are wrong and Pete is right

As yet we have not put them on as we don't intend living here much longer but will look into doing so at the next place we call home.

By then the Tesla batteries will hopefully be down to a more economical price and we will be able to store and use what we have generated; not feed back into the grid.

Going right off the grid ; I don't know about that. What happens when you get days in winter where the sun never shines. Will there be enough stored power to keep you going? I don't know.

The power companies would not like that too much and the sods would probably still manage to charge you a fee of some sort even if you are not connected.

I have investigated further and it's very complicated and varies from state to state.

From what I can make out you are right that you use what you are generating at the time as there is no storage .

However when you are generating more than you use it is fed Into the grid and here in NSW you get a max of 8c per kilowatt .

But when you buy back to power your house when you are not generating you pay 24c

there is a huge surplus of electricity in Australia due to power stations still having to run at high levels due to back up of Renewables . And yet have To accept renewables by law. This was at a level of 20 per cent by 2020 . The Libs wanted to stick to this level but Labor and the greens have forced a target of 25 per cent . So keeping prices higher than they need be..

The power from solar goes onto the grid and is metered.

You use normal power and the bill is ....power used equals EG $250 minus rebate from solar EG $175 .......equals a bill of only $75.

In the summer our bills are zero but in winter it averages $150.

We have twelve panels and broke even on the installation cost two years ago.

Pete must be using a company based in NSW who pay less for energy received.

Yes Davey in NSW we have no State subsidy for Solar so there is a max of 8c that the companies will pay so pay only 4c yet charge 24c

I think those who got in earlier get a much higher feed in rate but this will only last for the period of their contract..

Davey Radi how much is your feed in tariff and how much is subsidised by your state govt..

Sandi (SA)

8 yrs ago

That's how it is done here Pete. We get more than 8c tho, but we have been on a fair time now and it was for a fair amount of years.

Davey, here they run on peak and off peak hours for charging. Our solar hot water during the winter comes in on off peak at 11 pm.

Must ask Bob about when we broke even. Power is more costly here Davey and guess what it goes up again this week I think.

They're talking about shutting down two power stations here. Port Augusta and Torrens Island.

Davey do you intend to get battery storage ??

Pete, I dont know how things work re what you get back. I do know they have reduced it right back and I think some get zero. Those who got in early were getting 40 cents a kilowatt.

But of course those who got in early also paid dearly for the installation. The cost of installing them has dropped considerably. I know of some who paid around $20K

The current feed in tariff rate in Victoria is a minimum of 6.2 cents reduced from O.8 cents last year . People on older schemes will stay on them until the end of their contract..

The minimum feed in Tariff rate in SA is 5.3 c but only for two years

You are correct that the folk on solar are getting money from the taxpayer but we have saved the cost of a new power station in the Latrobe valley. Taxpayers and power users would have been slugged for the cost of that.

Not really Davey Australia is oversupplied with Electricity as we need to maintain the coal and gas stations to provide peak load . So the investment in Rebewablrs is a waste . The e tra electricity we generate everyday is not used .

The reason the smaller coal fired power plants are closing is that the country is Oversupplied and the power companies are forced to buy the subsidies renewables .

We estimate that the total, undiscounted value of the feed-in tariff and renewable energy certificates accrued to the 899,014 PV systems installed between the start of 2010 and end of 2012 will be a little over $8 billion.

http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2014/1/22/solar-energy/8bn-solar-subsidies-what home Solar is middle class welfare that cannot be afforded by our pensioners who do not have the capital to put up . So our pensioners get hit with higher bills and the taxpayers money spent would be better spent on increasing the pension...

SA boasts it has the highest rate of retablos in Australia . I believe SA also has the highest cost of Electricity in the world .

It is shutting down its cheap electricity coal and gas power stations in favour of rewables which is being subsides by all Australians .. IMO this is economic madness ..

South Australia moved from having little renewable energy a decade ago to installing the most renewable energy since 2001 on a total and per capita basis. Having already met its 2020 renewable energy target of 33%, South Australia has now set a 50% 2025 target.

Home Solar a con

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