Continuing with what has turned out to be a solar obsession, I bought another lot of panels today.
20x250W or 5 KW.
The offerings have slowed down a bit of late with not too many coming up and most of them wanting stupid prices. That said, I did miss out on another setup of 20x 250W panels and inverter etc the other week for $400. Buyer had to take down but for that, well worth it.
This last lot of panels I got for $500. The seller had advertised them for $1500 which was well more than they were worth. This has been working well for me. I know sales and the flip side of that is knowing how to negotiate. it's taken a little working out but is now working pretty effectively. I put in some low ball offers, wait, come back with a slightly higher one after a week or so and they are in a lot more negotiating demeanour generally.
Of course some are just arrogant and indignant twats that stick to their stupid prices and abuse you for your offers but you see them still advertised a month later. I get a mate to send them another offer and they still stick to their unrealistic prices. Hmm, whos the time wasting idiot now 'eh?
It IS starting get get hard keeping track of what I have now. My Dad wants me to put some on his place seeing I have now changed his mind. He thought they were bit of a gimmick but on hearing how much I'm saving on my power bill, has now given him a change of heart. I think I'll donate him my original set of 1.5Kw worth of 190's and my slightly limited but still working fine 3 kw inverter with one tracker out of action. Regularly puts out 1900W with the array I have it connected to so will do full tilt on this lot. There are a lot of the 180/ 190W panels around so if the 1.5kw isn't enough It will be easy to get more and bump the system another 1.5 and get him another inverter.
My plans will be to keep the existing 5.5KW on the north side of the shed, put the 4 Kw on the south side that are still sitting on the back retaining wall, the new 5KW on the north side of the house and the other 3Kw of 180's on the west side of the house.
The shed is only 5 and 13o pitch so even though the south is the wrong side for panels here down under, I have been getting very good performance out of the ones up there. I will run the numbers again to check but I think they will still be better up there than on the west side of the house.
Our power bill came in today which was interesting. I'm recovering the cost of these panels almost straight away. Instead of years with a new system, it's one quarter's billing at worst for each set and the way I am getting them cheaper all the time, sometimes as little as 6 weeks.
The one phase I haven't been back feeding so far and only has the AC on it was by far the highest at $180. Being a 3 phase system, that means the total bill just for the Ac would have been $540 alone. The total bill with over $100 " supply charges" was $362. Hot water was $44 which was a lot lower than I expected. I have set up a control box now and am feeding that from the phase
I'm currently pumping the most solar into . The box has the voltage switch on it and a PWM controller limiting the 3800W element to just 1500W so the standard circuit is not overloaded. Although the bill was low this time, I expect it will be a lot higher over autumn and winter. I'm convinced the water heater copping the afternoon sun on the 40o++ days we have had so many of here does completely neutralise any heat loss or even add to the water temp. Going to paint the thing black to make the most of this theroy. Might even see if I can find some shiny material of some sort to put on the wall behind it and curve it round a bit.
These used panels really have been a great thing. The ROI is so quick and they have given me a new interest and something to take my mind off things. Now I want to get this all set up for winter and the new wiring done to handle it all.
I'll look at a way to feed the other phase with the AC but other than that for heating it might just be a case of going back to the little fan heaters we used at our other house. Not exactly efficient but as long as we can keep up with the power they use, not really a concern.
For those that can get used panels, I highly recommend even a small setup plugged into the outlet. "Powerjack" brand inverters are designed specifically for this and come in decent outputs that would make a worthwhile difference to ones consumption.