3 Phase 10kW microinverter tier one solar panel system fully installed

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• Solar Energy Specialists Quote Request #413116

Giuseppe requested 3 quotes from Solar Energy Specialists in Kew

  I've written this description after some angst in trying to get something that makes sense financially and keeps my risk low. I want to discourage people from calling me unless they are prepared to come and look at the job on site, do the right investigations and checks and provide a quote that is fixed price and includes all the items required to do the job properly.

I am currently a Powershop customer on a TOU tariff and buy my electricity at a much lower marginal cost after discounts/rebates than I was paying two years ago. Powershop offset my carbon emissions already within the pricing I pay.

However, I am seriously looking at doing more to get my energy costs down over time.

My reading over the last year or so leads me to believe that despite the $A dropping, globally solar panel systems have become more affordable especially systems utilizing micro-inverters which would work more effectively on my site due to variable shading problems. It may be that there still needs to be another round of price reductions before the economics stack up but I am prepared to be pleasantly surprised.

Our heavy use is on weekends but the house does tend to suck up around 10kWh of electricity each 24 hours even when we aren't home. All heating and cooling is via two reasonably large three phase reverse cycle ducted air conditioners. On particularly cold days we use up to 170kWh with a lot of that in the early to late evening and early morning and on particularly hot days 150kWh with peak usage in the afternoon to early evening. When the two ducted units are operating, they each consume around 7kW of electricity every hour until the preset ambient room temperature is reached so they are the biggest single variable part of our electricity consumption. On days when we don't operate the pool equipment or heating/cooling, our usage is around 25 - 30kWh.

I've got a whole year of interval data and obtained some generation data to produce a ROI model that I can use to determine the net return from installing a system. It indicates I should be able to get around 16,000 kWh of electricity a year from a system based on the orientation of the panels. I've matched production of electricity to consumption so I can estimate what is going to be used and what is going to be sold back to the grid.

Over the past three months, I've had a few other quotes but no one to date has put together a compelling value proposition. I see this as an economic decision so the maths has to add up. I've been given a few dodgy calculators/models that make unrealistic assumptions about the increase in energy prices and don't allow for the opportunity cost of capital to install the system or factor in the maintenance costs of the system.

I am looking for a fixed price for installing and commissioning a top quality fully warranted micro-inverter based 3 phase solar panel system.

I'm prepared to wait for a pay-back within 10 years but I expect the system and each component of it to be fully functional with proper warranty and service/support for at least 15 - 20 years backed by reputable Australian-based suppliers.

Salespeople have given me lots of ifs and buts and maybes and extras. I've had people come who quote for someone else to do the work not themselves so I can't eyeball the actual tradesperson or team leader. This doesn't give me confidence.

The installation will be on a colourbond west facing pitched roof (with some panels on the east face) located on top of a pool house adjacent to the main dwelling (where the main switchboard is located) so all the system components must be able to cope with moist air containing pool chemicals and salt.

The installation has to include the connection back to the main switchboard and commissioning of the system including liaison with my retailer/distributor so it is all operational including getting the feed in tariff and metering changes completed. The system must be capable of proper monitoring from my home network so I can see at a glance whenever I want what generation has occurred down to the individual panel as well as overall. All the interface equipment, software, manuals, user maintenance guides and warranties must be supplied at hand-over and included in the price.