Today is the winter solstice. The darkest day of the year. If you have solar on your roof, this is about as bad as possible.
What is the perfect time to ask: your system pulls its weight if you need it most urgently?
Average values are for amateurs
It is likely that their existing solar was developed based on the average generation. This is a beginner. Or how my hero Nassim Nicholas Taleb put it:
“Never cross a river that is four feet deep.”
Average values hide the bad days and solar is all about the bad days. The design for this with a larger system and the rest of the year is a breeze.
The temptation to under greatest parties
From July 1, feed duties fall to only 1-3 ° C per kWh. Understandably, some solar owners are wondering whether it is worthwhile to have a large system more. Why oversized when exports are practically worthless?
And it gets worse: the export fees are already there with some local electricity networks (SA -Power networks have just joined the party). At the moment, most retailers are taking the fees of the networks, but it will not take. Sooner or later, households will probably have to pay for exporting their excess solarings.
However, the answer to exports with lower value is not minor solar arrangements. They are smarter sun inheritances.
Cover your winter needs with panels and make sure that your inverter can be set to the command zero – and protects you from future export costs. It is even more important that your installer is someone who helps you configure this when the tariffs change. Spoiler alarm: It will probably not be the one who has a retired cricket player in the ads.
What about batteries?
Batteries should not be dimensioned to minimize sun exports. You should be dimensioned to minimize network imports overnight. And tonight, the overnight stay of your house, especially at heating, is probably the highest.
So measure it. Follow your use from sunset to sunrise. Assuming you have already done everything you can to address the gaps, glazing and insulation of your house, this is the number that must be taken into account in the size of a battery. And if you don’t have consumer monitoring, do you have to see yourself? Light up. It is 2025. Get it sorted.1
An example of seasonal estimates of the change of invoice changes before and after the solar using our Solar & Battery Calculator.
Common setbacks against larger systems
1. “Mr. Frugal on Facebook is good at 6.6 kW.”
Great! He has the right system for him and maybe lives in a super efficient home. That doesn’t mean you copy it. Check your use, no Facebook.
2. “I will only use off-peak daily to charge cheap from the network.”
Perhaps. But these supermate daily quotas are often equipped with top rates. They give up energy autonomy for a tariff carrot that can disappear without warning.
3. “I will only play amber.”
Do it when you have a huge battery and time to take -up wholesale prices. However, if you want stability and reason, there is a better way: design your system as well as possible without playing the system. It is much less stressful.
Start now (but no hurry to get quotes)
When the battery discount begins, the installers are flat. So you will not change a system before July 1st than most tariffs flip. Use instead of hurrying and use the next or two months as a solar test window.
Take a look at your last 7 generation days. Switch the loads into the day. Follow your use overnight.
Ask yourself:
In most Australia also with a mid-winter solar works
That is the beauty of it. Even in the depths of winter, the sun still appears.
So design for the darkest days. And build up a solar setup that is observed all year round.
Footnot
- In order to measure consumption overnight without surveillance, read a measuring device and a measuring device at sunrise at sunrise. The difference is their use overnight. ↩
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