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IXXI

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Everything posted by IXXI

  1. Hmm, I'm dubious. From my research (albeit not recent) capacitors are megawatts for milliseconds, batteries are kW for hours. Seems like snake oil to me. Very light on detail on the site. I remember watching a tear down on youtube of another supposed super capacitor battery, turns out it was just filled with cheap lithium ion batteries. Now, I would love to be proven wrong, but yeah, I don't really buy it.
  2. Yes, legal. Don't know much beyond that. I know you can claim STC's for Solar, Wind and Hydro. I looked at this a while ago, and the height you have to put these things to get non-turbulent air is quite surprising. Consequently, they are not really suitable for the old quarter acre block. I think councils generally frown upon them too.
  3. I found that initially I checked obsessively, many times a day. That slowly faded with time. Now (18 monhs later) I just tend to do a check once or twice a week to make sure everything is running as expected and there have been no massive unexpected spikes. It still gives me lots of satisfaction scrolling through the stats though. For a bit of fun and even more different stats on the status of your system, link it up to PVoutput.org. There is even a worldwide output ladder so you can see how your system is performing. Its free for production monitoring, with a cost to include consumption metering. Here is mine for interest: https://pvoutput.org/list.jsp?p=0&id=76472&sid=67800&gs=0&v=0&o=date&d=desc
  4. Hi Full Range, You will be wanting a PHEV (Plug in hybrid electric vehicle) if you want a hybrid that, as the name suggests, plugs in. There aren't a whole lot to choose from at the moment, but more are on the way. This gives you a much cheaper buy in point at this time to get a taste of electric mobility. Off the top of my head, Mitsubishi, Volvo and Hyundai all have PHEV offerings. Think there are some older BMW's, Mercs and Audis that offer the tech too. You will save a heap over an all battery EV, but that will come at the cost of all electric range.
  5. Doh!! https://www.whichcar.com.au/car-news/tesla-cybertruck-not-for-australia
  6. Hi Interface, I have only ever heard good things about Fronius. I believe they have one of the best warranty's available at 10 years. Just need to be sure that you do the online registration, something I think is often missed. https://www.fronius.com/en-au/australia/photovoltaics/infocentre/news/5-plus-5-year-warranty-promotion
  7. Hi Marc, Being a micro inverter system, I need one inverter per panel, so I have 115 inverters in total. Every inverter is rated at 260 Watts continuous, so 115 x 260 = 29,900 W of inverters. In reality the inverters can spike to 270 Watts for a combined temporary output of 31,050 W. There is a pretty specific set of conditions required to exceed 30kw however and I have only ever seen it a couple of times for brief periods. Output of the system to grid is limited to 30kW, so thats the max that will ever pump back to the grid, but I can exceed that briefly if consuming the delta in the house. Analytics - Enphase is probably one of the best. As you have an inverter per panel, you have per panel data. I have the optional consumption CT's installed so it gives me a pretty good idea of what is going on. Panel outputs can be viewed as a map overlay so you can identify dirty/faulty panels and inverters and know exactly which one it is. You can also view lifetime data which is very interesting to see the impact of shading and panel orientation. You hear people always rattling on about panel orientation, but in my system, with a 18 months of data the difference is not substantial. Yes north facing is the best,but not by a margin that would keep me up at night. East and west seem to pump out roughly 90% of what my north facers do. Additionally, I have the installer toolkit which lets me see real time production and consumption data. That's great for determining specific loads, i.e. turn on the Anthem P5, crank it up and watch the power consumption on the house increase a fair bit, lol (SNA'ers may know what I'm on about here). Specific diversion is not really needed on my system. We just have the hot water on a timer to come on during the day and run the appliances we can during the day also. There is always plently of power there to cover what is going on. Smart controls become somewhat redundant. Even the Zappi rarely has to throttle, it only throttles as the sun goes down, then turns on again once off peak kicks in (if needed). I have been following solar for a few years waiting for just the right time to get in, the perfect storm of system size, solar subsidy (many people don't know that the STC subsidy reduces annually) and equipment cost. In SA i believe this occured mid to late 2018 when I installed. SAPN reduced the maximum residential system size for single phase from 10kW to 5kW but retained the 30kW limit for three phase systems. I felt that wouldn't last long so pulled the trigger on the biggest system I physically could as I was certain they would restrict 3 phase systems soon. Turns out I was right, and I slipped in just before the rules were changed to 15kW max on 3 phase. Just need to hope now that they do not introduce retrospective limits.... Not sure that they really could though. I've included a few happy snaps below, best production day, biggest consumption day, total production and a view showing per panel lifetime production on various orientations (you can see impact of shading on a couple of the panels in that one too).
  8. Ahh yes, Harvi. Thats what I meant when i refer to the wifi CT's above. Will be interested to hear how yours goes over a long range. My Harvi is a located about 10m from the Zappi and has intermittent drop outs.
  9. Hi Professor, I believe its actually their Gen 3 model. Remember reading somewhere that their recent capital raise fell short putting the future of the gen 3 in question. Supposedly a 30% price reduction if they can get it to manufacturing. That's all form memory, so some details may not be quite right.
  10. I installed an Enphase/Jinko system in late 2018. I have been very happy with it ever since. I wanted to future proof it as much as possible and be ready for 2 x electric cars so I went the biggest I could fit on the roof - 35.65kW of panels and 30kW of inverters. Actually had to extend the car garage to fit all 115 panels on! Anyway, it was a fun project and is on track to pay for itself in the next couple of years (assuming FiT does not crash horribly). In summer it prints me quite large monthly cheques, and in winter it mints smaller cheques but still ensures zero bills. Best day to date was a hair under 250kWh, worst day on record a poultry 6kWh (an exceptionally stormy and crappy day). Typically in the middle of winter it is unlikely to drop below 80kWh a day. I went Micro's as I have a myriad of roof faces at a variety of orientations. It was a tricky install, but came up well. I'm watching battery tech closely, but it still has a long way to go before its cost competitive. I'm hopeful that V2X will be viable soon as then the cost of the battery is amortised between vehicle and storage. Watch this space.
  11. Hi, Dan here from Adelaide. I'm a fellow SNA'er with a similar passion for Audio and Renewables. Looking forward to watching this online community grow.
  12. I have had my Zappi V1 for almost a year now and it is a great product. Does what it says on the box. Mine is exclusively set to charge on solar and off peak tariff. A couple of things to be aware of though, you will need the separate myenergi hub to update the firmware. Mine came with a glitchy early version of the firmware and I do not own the hub. Myenergi were very good however and sent me a loaner hub to perform an update. I just had to return post it at my expense. It still does occasionally hang up and require a reset, but not too often. This would likely be fixed with an update to newer firmware, but as noted, I don't have the hub to do so. I have 3 phase, so needed the extra wifi CT's which work pretty well most of the time. Occasionally the signal seems to drop out, but a reset seems to fix. All in all, I would recommend the product as its benefits outweigh its minor glitches.
  13. An excellent resource here (I'm not affiliated): https://www.solarquotes.com.au/battery-storage/comparison-table/
  14. Anecdotally around $17k installed with inverter etc. Will be interested to hear actual price if someone has one at their place. Issues are poor round trip efficiency, need an additional inverter in conjunction with the battery, they need down time to do some sort of maintenance cycle (not a problem if you have two connected as they self manage so both aren't off line). On the plus side, they should last twice as long as a lithium battery, can withstand hot environments (i.e. Australia), they don't use rare earth metals and can do 100% DoD without damage. If I could afford one and had a 20 year time horizon, that's what I would buy. In reality though, I think it will be V2X for me as soon as its available.
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