Browse Forums Building A New House 1 May 01, 2014 8:58 pm Hello, I know very little about solar power installation. I am building a two storey house and thought of having solar power in future, definitely not fully through the builder (head chopper). Is it worth provisioning to this during the build phase? shall I ask them to put any conduit or cables to facilitate future installation of solar system? What considerations are there? Many Thanks Re: Solar Power During building 2May 02, 2014 1:05 am The only real consideration is having the right orientation, as they can be easily retrofitted. You basically want as much north facing roof as you can get, as that will give you the best solar uptake. Re: Solar Power During building 3May 02, 2014 5:21 am I asked this question in another section of the forum a few months ago, and the answer was basically "no". Trixee adds a new perspective, one I'm too late for, I'm afraid. http://www.housebythewater.wordpress.com From blank block to new home in Mandurah, Western Australia. viewtopic.php?f=31&t=65564 Re: Solar Power During building 4May 02, 2014 9:37 am Perhaps if you can see the sparky whilst he is wiring the house up, see if he can run some conduit up the wall in to the ceiling, so that the solar installer can use near your meter box. However I think most installers will just run conduit down the outside wall anyway. In short, don't worry about pre-installing for solar. As others have mentioned, if you haven't got good north facing roof for all the panels you plan on getting, then you're already too late. However, you could look at passive solar tracking if you've got various facing roofs. Owner Building at Jimboomba Woods in Logan City Qld. Blog : http://bandlnewhomebuild.blogspot.com H1 thread : viewtopic.php?f=38&t=68283 . Re: Solar Power During building 5May 02, 2014 4:49 pm Although north facing panels will produce the most electricity, depending on your usage patterns, west & east facing panels aren't bad either. When the government was forking out that huge FIT (feed in tarrif) of 60c, the idea was to have north facing panels, as many as you could afford, producing as much electricity in the day as possible (60c for each kW you fed back to the grid). Minimise day time usage, & by back electricity from the grid (at the going rate of say 20c per kW). Now that the FIT has been reduced (& you're lucky to get 8c per kW), things have changed. It's no longer economically favourable to export power produced from your panels back to the grid. At 8c per kW it will take forever to get those panels paid off. Now the idea is to only get a system that will cover your daytime usage. That way your saving around 24c per kW you produce (that is, whatever the rate you'd be paying to buy electricity in the daytime). The other idea now is to shift as much as your usage into the daytime as possible, washing machines, dishwashers, pool pumps, water heaters, etc. So back to my initial point. Although east & west facing panels won't produce quite as much electricity as north facing panels, they will increase the amount of time that electricity is produced. East facing panels will produce earlier in the morning, & west facing panels will produce later in the afternoon (great for when kids come home from school). Along with orientation, the other big issue is shading. NO shading. Even a TV antenna can significantly reduce the amount of electricity produced. Re: Solar Power During building 6May 02, 2014 6:53 pm ddarroch Although north facing panels will produce the most electricity, depending on your usage patterns, west & east facing panels aren't bad either. That's why I mentioned passive solar tracking. Quote: Now that the FIT has been reduced (& you're lucky to get 8c per kW), things have changed. It's no longer economically favourable to export power produced from your panels back to the grid. At 8c per kW it will take forever to get those panels paid off. Now the idea is to only get a system that will cover your daytime usage. That way your saving around 24c per kW you produce (that is, whatever the rate you'd be paying to buy electricity in the daytime). I can understand your thinking there, but on low solar days during winter and overcast days, then you may not be producing sufficient power to cover your normal usage. On good solar days you're virtually giving it away for the power retailer to make some easy money. Quote: The other idea now is to shift as much as your usage into the daytime as possible, washing machines, dishwashers, pool pumps, water heaters, etc. Or on to off peak tariffs where you can. In Qld you can put anything on to offpeak tariffs if they are hardwired (but pool pumps can remain as plug in). Quote: So back to my initial point. Although east & west facing panels won't produce quite as much electricity as north facing panels, they will increase the amount of time that electricity is produced. East facing panels will produce earlier in the morning, & west facing panels will produce later in the afternoon (great for when kids come home from school). Hence the value in passive solar tracking. Quote: Along with orientation, the other big issue is shading. NO shading. Even a TV antenna can significantly reduce the amount of electricity produced. But yet people won't believe you when you tell them that. They are also getting told that their new panels won't be affected by shading. Owner Building at Jimboomba Woods in Logan City Qld. Blog : http://bandlnewhomebuild.blogspot.com H1 thread : viewtopic.php?f=38&t=68283 . Re: Solar Power During building 9May 09, 2014 9:00 pm ddarroch I didn't know there was such a thing as "passive" solar tracking. Very interesting. Thanks very much bpratt. Here's a thread on another forum you might like to look in to where they are talking about passive solar tracking. :- http://forums.energymatters.com.au/sola ... c5064.html Been very successful for some of the posters in that thread. Owner Building at Jimboomba Woods in Logan City Qld. Blog : http://bandlnewhomebuild.blogspot.com H1 thread : viewtopic.php?f=38&t=68283 . Can you give advice on how to get missing certificates needed for a form 21? Our bank requires us to provide one but we are missing 4 building certificates from our first… 3 71814 i would suggest nothing is unreasonable for PCI. we did all sorts, including checking the hot water, checking all the GPO's had power, testing that the showers were… 9 98681 Just to makea point about this, an approach that some people have found sucessful in negotiating these rises down, Is to provide some workings to the builder, specifying… 4 81718 |