me bills are about $15 a month
Damn how do you get this? My supply charges alone are over $35 per month.
Comment on Rooftop solar eats up all demand in South Australia, world’s most renewable grid
Edgelord_Of_Tomorrow@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Feel such whiplash talking about solar with Australians and Americans.
Australians are like “yeah mate I put solar on and me bills are about $15 a month fucken sweet as”
Americans are like “I would love to get solar but what do you do when there is a cloud???”
Zagorath@aussie.zone 1 year ago
anathema_device@bne.social 1 year ago
@Zagorath @australia I just got a bill for $0, with $88 in credit towards the next bill. Solar + battery is great :)
Zagorath@aussie.zone 1 year ago
Wow that’s very cool! I don’t have any solar at the moment, but I’ll be moving in to a place with solar + battery in a few months, so that’s very exciting to hear.
anathema_device@bne.social 1 year ago
vividspecter@lemm.ee 1 year ago
You might be able to shop around a bit as supply charges tend to vary (although some of it is tied to the underlying network) and of course feed in tariffs (although they are not massive in most states).
brlemworld@lemmy.world 1 year ago
In US. I pay my co-op to source my energy from renewables. It’s more economical for them to put up solar in fields than it is to have a bunch of tiny roof projects.
abhibeckert@lemmy.world 1 year ago
So, we have a “tiny roof project” on our rooftop.
For 9 hours a day (in winter - more hours in summer) they produce four times more power than our peak consumption. When it’s cloudy… it produces about twice our peak consumption. In hindsight, we probably could have saved money with an even smaller system… but a bit of headroom is nice and it wouldn’t have saved much money, since wiring and the inverter were about the same (we installed the maximum number of panels our inverter can handle).
We also have power now even if the grid goes down during the day, which is nice we live in a hurricane area and a few times in my life the grid has been down for weeks.
It reduces our electricity bill by between $3 and $9 per day depending on the seasons. We sell between $1.50 and $3 per day to the grid.
At that rate, it will only take two years to pay off the upfront installation cost… the inverter has a 10 year warranty and the solar panels have a 30 year warranty. So I’m fairly confident it will last longer than two years.
If we couldn’t sell power to the grid, it’d still pay for itself in less than 3 years.
vividspecter@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Adding onto this, there’s a benefit to decentralisation of the grid in general in making it less prone to grid wide problems, and cutting back on the need for transmission as you said (a big deal right now, given conservative farmers have been throwing a tantrum about it of late).
And home and vehicle batteries will help move demand to the middle of the day, meaning less supply needed at night.
SnipingNinja@slrpnk.net 1 year ago
I wonder how much effect reduced transmission is having on various things like efficiency because you’re using most of the energy where it’s being generated.
Taleya@aussie.zone 1 year ago
We have a powerpal (measures grid usage) and i gotta say, it’s absolutely orgasmic seeing that shit show zero grid power used in the middle of winter XD XD
Taleya@aussie.zone 1 year ago
…ok I know different latitudes and all that, but midwinter in melbourne we were still pulling 275kwh over the month and it was a bloody dark month
PupBiru@kbin.social 1 year ago
i can see the “more economical” argument, but it also plays right into the hands of commercial interests… rooftop solar doesn’t allow rent seeking unlike utility solar, which at least makes me question the argument
i’m not sure if you add management overheads (including grid management) and ROI on top of everything that it’d end up more economical, so IMO it’s really a toss up, and in that case i’d lean towards the non-rent-seeking option
if in doubt, invest in yourself; don’t rent your life and all that
princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 year ago
In terms of rooftop solar and grid management, this is already a partially solved problem. New solar installs in my part of Australia use “Smart Inverters” that can receive signals to change the rate they’re feeding into the grid. You therefore create a “Virtual Power Plant” of interconnected rooftop solar, that reacts as one system.
Mountaineer@aussie.zone 1 year ago
I have an American based friend who recently visited and I discussed this with him.
His house has an asphalt shingle roof, which is beyond common, it’s standard where he is.
This means the roof supports are light, and won’t tolerate the load of solar panels (direct weight maybe, but not torque from wind).
Beyond that, his states power company have limited the accredited installers to a group that refuse to sell panels, they effectively lease them to you, with an insane payoff period.
If you go independent, you can’t tie into the grid.
He’s subject to a HOA, which means he can’t build anything in his yard without approval.
And so, whilst he’s paid for his dad here in Adelaide to have panels on his roof as a no brainer, he’s given up in the US.
ProvableGecko@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I read shit like this and think to myself “Man Americans are fucked” and then I realize I’m gonna be dead in about 40 years and I’m fine
DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe 1 year ago
Ironically the exact reason boomers give for being miserable, short sighted bastards.
ProvableGecko@lemmy.world 1 year ago
The difference being they got us into this shit and still actively holding our heads under the water.
vivavideri@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Our HOA would pitch a bitch fit, sadly yes
DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.de 1 year ago
Ah yes, the land of the free.
Isn’t refusing to sell panels collusion or some shit?