2. 0000004823 00000 n What made the situation all the more frustrating is periods of high congestion which can threaten the stability of a local network can be quite brief. Normally it makes more sense to buy a second, separate system, than to expand an existing one. All is explained here: http://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/kw-and-kwh-what-is-the-difference/, ( 5kW per hour is a non-sensical unit unless you want to describe an acceleration of energy! 0000009027 00000 n 0000005359 00000 n Powercor's network solutions manager Claire Cass said of 32,580 customers connected to solar with Powercor in the last 18 months, only 2023 could not export power. NSWs Essential Energy area: Regional NSW. But depending on our network capacity, export constraints may influence the size of the unit they install. The distributor deals with that by putting the voltage slightly up at the sending end. I suspect that it is likely, that that they are all signaled equally, not in truth I dont know for sure. Economically this probably Is not viable, as our electricity bill is fairly low. As per current standards, a single phase premises is limited to 10kW generation and 5kW export. To me it does not quite make sense as no system can produce 100% of its capacity meaning my existing 3.5kW will never produce full 3.5kW (on a good day, I am lucky to get 2.5kW). So you may decide adding a second system is worthwhile, or you may want to put it off until your current system develops problems and replace it with one large new system. So far I have not seen much more than 5kW DC anyway, but in summer I would expect to see a curve thats flattened at the top during the high sun phase, as it is cut off by the inverter. I have seen my panels producing over 13 kW of power when the battery is drawing 3 kW DC power and the battery, house and car 10 kW of AC power. The following is a list of the areas in case youve been missed. To get your quotes, please enter your postcode: AEMC: Electricity Prices To Continue To Fall, http://www.johnrogers.com.au/battery_charging_noon.jpg, http://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/kw-and-kwh-what-is-the-difference/, Why Australian Solar Installers Love Austrian Fronius Inverters, Tesla Powerwall Price Takes A Tumble In Australia, "Snail Mail" Home Battery Offers: Be Wary, New Minimum VIC Solar Feed-In Tariffs Locked In, Glenrowan Solar Farm Construction Gets Cranking. He's been reporting on Australian and international solar energy news ever since. Instead the home can benefit from a small system, as I explain here: Ah yes I see. just wondering if anybody can shed some light on the following, Assume positive intention.4. Any ideas of how I can get a system that is actually going to generate enough power to charge a battery? But this is at least partially because when you throttle back output, you also reduce the amount of voltage rise you are causing on your local connection to the point of interconnect which is probably contributing to the issue. If they want a big solar system with an inverter larger than 5 kW, they must export limit the inverter. Residential properties are unlikely to be allowed to use export limiting to install even larger inverters. The Ugly: In these areas export limiting may not be allowed at all. The new home didnt have solar. Michael caught the solar power bug after purchasing components to cobble together a small off-grid PV system in 2008. 0000004736 00000 n Powercor says the Solar Hotspots initiative is the first stage of a five-year Future Networks program to support customer investment in solar power systems, electric vehicles and battery storage. Victorias Powercor area: Western Victoria, including a large portion of West Melbourne. 0000009573 00000 n Thanks. If you cant store the power (too expensive) and you cant export it, why the requirement (or desire) to put in large systems? Powercor claims 30% increase in rooftop solar export approvals Victorian network service provider Powercor claims a major works program designed to alleviate grid congestion in areas of high rooftop solar PV penetration has boosted the approval rate for new solar connections to export excess energy to the grid by an impressive 30%. If your pumping needs are large enough this can pay for itself, but it will be expensive to set up. 100% Despite the low feed-in tariff you will receive it can still be worthwhile, especially if you can shift some electricity consumption to the middle of the day. Our Solar & Battery Calculator can give an idea of if its likely to pay: https://www.solarquotes.com.au/solar-calculator/. An Update: I just had system installed 4 days ago in the Energex DNSP and suggest the above is perhaps not quite correct. Youll also start receiving the SolarQuotes weekly newsletter, keeping you up to date on all the latest developments on Australias solar scene. A condition of this basic connection offer is that all inverter energy systems must have the volt-watt and volt-var response modes enabled with the following settings: While losses increase as the solar power system size goes up, even with 10 kilowatts of panels which is twice the export limit, only 13% of generation is lost. The current Envoy they will be selling is the Envoy-S. Before that was the straight Envoy which did not have the consumption monitoring / metering needed to do export limiting. Information on whether export limiting is allowed can be found here, but I am going to present the information differently for both ease of use and to make my boss think Ive done something useful. This seems technically impossible, because theres only a wire going from the inverter to the meter (the export or feed in to the grid) and a wire going from the meter to my homes main fuse. ), Finally understand, the article above is very well written for the layman Is there anything that can be done about it? It clicked, not long after I wrote the comment, My 10 kW system will not go above 10 kW unless my house battery is charging and then it can go to 13.25 kW. Most systems have mostly N facing panels, so really only generate peak power for a few hours a day (often 10am>2pm approx) Off the main grid, rural properties can have 3 kilowatts of inverter capacity. Even if I were exporting 100% of it, it still would only bring down my bills by a tiny amount per month. As has been explained (and COSTED) on previous occasions batteries are VERY cost-effective.IF you stay away from the hi-tech/overpriced/dependence-creating/unproven battery-systems advocated by commercially self-interested parties. To give you example, you will probably find the profile you mention is probably throttling from a very low 250v and will ramp down to 20% at 265v. It is possible to max out the 10 kW inverter capacity with my Tesla, house load and Heat Pump hot water. The reason for this query, is that, in the past, my understanding has been that, in WA, where export limiting is apparently, banned by the gratuitously oppressive state parliament, and, where a limit of a 5kW output inverter, is allowed, for a single phase grid connection on the SWIS grid, a limit of 6.66 kW of panels generating capacity, is imposed for single phase connections to the SWIS grid, and, thence, the limit of panels generating capacity, to which the federal solar panels rebate applies, for such a connection, has been the 6.66kW. Because people have been refused any STCs for being just a few watts over, no installer will go over the limit for a normal installation. 0000001575 00000 n Even if you have the Envoy-S, I believe at least on paper there was a Enphase Envoy-S Enter your postcode now. 0000005986 00000 n I am looking at adding a second system (6.2kW) with GoodWe inverter. STCs can be received for panel capacity up to one-third greater than the inverter capacity. Of course the manufacturers dont want this to be public knowledge and pretend that once you paid for a system you are set for life (yours, not that of the system). Up until quite recently, Powercor had been informing a large proportion of households looking to install new solar systems they will have to cop a zero export limit due to high congestion created by exports from existing systems. This certainly goes well beyond initial configuration and reporting. 0000008571 00000 n &K?BK:T$A1Cn So the size of the system becomes irrelevant if you can only export 3kwh (we are Regional NSW Essential Energy). This is sufficient to charge a battery, although larger solar systems generally improve the return from batteries. Victorias AusNet network area: The eastern third of Victoria, not including Melbourne or French Island. I am not even sure the inverter would support that, but I fear that sadly up to 25% of the PV energy might be going to waste! 0000093063 00000 n One thing I find is that Voltage control works well: instead of the inverter resetting if the voltage gets too high, my inverters roll back output, so it actually helps my neighbors too because their inverters reset less often. I am on my second Tesla EV and the new one has a rage of 700km if youre not a lead foot. I realise that Australian legislatures do not care about the future, but, the future is coming, whether the legislatures like it or not. This gives the advantage of having a new system covered by a new set of warranties. Thus, the question arises; if a single phase domestic rooftop photovoltaic system, involving a Goodwe GW-5000-MS inverter, and, 10kW of solar panels generating capacity, is installed (across up to three MPPTs), would the federal solar panels rebate apply to all of the 10kW of solar panels, or, to only the first 6.66 (or whatever is the exact applicable quantity) of the solar panels generating capacity? Depending on their location, some may be constrained to a lesser export level or even no exports at all. Can I share my power excess with me neighbour? We have a 3kwh system and are really using as much during the day as we can. But, if you are living in an area where it is required to install a large solar system a situation around half of Australians are in then export limiting can allow a larger system with normally very minor losses of clean solar generation. Many Australian homes are not allowed to export more than 5 kW to the grid. I wouldnt drive anything else. Am I wrong? While this is fine during the week when we are open, it seems a huge waste of electricity on the weekends when we are closed. Finally! My AS4777.2:2015 profile allows voltages up to 265v (for short periods, and shuts down on 10 minute averages above 258v). But it took him about another ten years to focus on it in a way that wasnt really stupid, Good Article. It would definitely be better if we didnt need to limit the amount of power solar systems sent into the grid. But just note, not everyone Envoy has required bits to do export limiting. Notify me of follow-up comments by email. 60% lagging you aren't allowed to export any power from your solar system to the grid. As a side issue for you, if you (like lots of people) have high voltages issue causing shutdown / throttling, I am not a big fan of the Volt-watt modes, as often these modes will also lower the voltages at which the throttling kicks in. But there is also the DNSP rules which need to be followed. Ill upgrade the Endeavour Energy area from Ugly to Bad, since things are clearly not all bad there. This is done for three main reasons: In this article, Ill give a broad outline of how export limiting works and why it can be a good idea. (We are conected to a 25Kw transformer, with 5 consumers connected.). Of more concern is occasional spikes in consumption which go past the 5kw limit. Have a good christmas. There are two options: 1. 0% But a sub optimally configured grid sometimes forces installers into implementing setting that are probably less than ideal if the high voltage events in the grid were just occasions where there is too much generation and they do want have all generators throttle back to allow some time for rebalancing supply and demand. 100 litres alone means little, but if there are 100 litres per hour, this means 100 litre hours of output. The standard relating to solar inverters is about to change. The inverter reduces the amount of electrical energy supplied by the solar panels. Its the same with kW and hours of solar electricity production. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Download the first chapter of The Good Solar Guide, authored by SolarQuotes founder Finn Peacock, FREE! 1. As batteries currently operate they charge from power in the morning that could otherwise be sold rather than from power that may not be able to be sold in the middle of the day. There are versions without this consumption monitoring (old Non -s version of Envoy and even the Envoy-S without consumption monitoring). I was told that as there is an export limit of 5kW and I already have 3.5kW system, my new system will be export limited to 1.5kW. Australian network service providers (including CitiPower) use solar export limits to keep voltage levels in transmission lines operating within safe . 11kW panels with 10kW 3-phase inverter (Fronius Symo + Fronius 3-phase meter). Please stay on topic. If at any moment in time you are generating more solar electricity than you need, the excess is exported to the grid. I know in the movie the Bad was worse than the Ugly, but thats not the way Im doing it. An option is to take your pumps off-grid and run them independently off a separate off-grid solar system. Very true AL0126. This is assuming that my understanding of what I have read, is correct; that such a system would be permitted, in a single phase connection to the SWIS grid. In addition, all modern solar inverters must comply with AS4777.2015 at least. If you use a pre AS4777.3:2005 the limits are probably even higher, but you loose some other features (like frequency ramping which is probably very sensible to have if you want to be a good grid citizen), and you probably are not supposed to run those unless it is a pre 2016 install. The fact that export limiting is necessary is not a good thing. 0 After all, Im a big picture kind of guy. In contrast, most other network distributors set a strict upper limit on the size solar panel system you can install, typically 10kW for single-phase properties. Select your country/region. Solar Analytics confirms in this scenario its only exporting up to the limit; 3kw. You could contact Powercor and explain your situation, but I suspect theyll say you need to be an installer to check if an increase in export capability is available. Worried the impact this will have currently when we charge an EV in the near term. But still the solar companies keep trying to sell it to me.. 00@ Oo Many NSW rural situations are limited to 3Kw export, due to the length of the transmission lines. The earth is used as one conductor which has a higher resistance than a copper wire. Phone, email, give us feedback or make a claim. Allows installation but has an export limit. Furthermore, the sustained overvoltage inverter protection set point shall be set to 258V. Its also unusual for a large solar system to have all the panels facing the same direction. There are profiles that still conform the microinverters to AS4777.2:2015, but can disable Volt-Var/Volt-Watt, change the power factor to 0.9 (some grid operators require this), turn off export altogether or set specific maximum export levels like 1kW, 3kW etc., or configure to satisfy specific grid network requirements. And for this reasons, I have increasingly seen that it is more challenging to run micros without the envoy which would no doubt be extra code required in later versions of the envoy to enforce implementation of various AS4777 and export limiting requirements that cant be done in the micros alone. 0000038484 00000 n so if I was correctly explained to, then I am limited to export less than 5kW (because my existing system will never produce 3.5kW), No installer (or their salepeople) is able to explain to me how the limiter is connected/set up in the scenario where I have 2 inverters. Its only possible to go larger with a zero export limit: https://www.powerwater.com.au/customers/power/solar-power-systems/pv-class-requirements. If that doesnt worry you then you can get a battery and just hope it mostly pays for itself. The good news is, if you had a total of 6.6 kilowatts of solar youd probably loose very little due to export limiting if you consume half the output of a 3 kilowatt system and can export 3 kilowatts. I prefer a profile that just has the voltages set to a high voltage threshold, and if I have to sacrifice V-W mode, so be it. Is this perhaps one of the well-kept secrets about the reality of residential solar production in Western Australia, one that neither the solar installers or inverter manufacturers, let alone Synergy or Western Power want to be publicly known? Limited export means more power for home If your system has a limit on how much it can export then it means more power will get used in your home instead. A rooftop solar system's grid export limit is determined by the local electricity network operator - sometimes on a case-by-case basis, sometimes according to an across-the-board standard, and . It is critical that you install an approved smart inverter and set it correctly. 0000004622 00000 n Still, few people will want more than the 13.33 kilowatts of panel capacity single phase homes can generally install: The Bad: Homes with single-phase power on the main grid can have up to 5 kilowatts of inverter capacity but can usually get around this limit by installing an export limited solar inverter of up to 10 kilowatts. Once voltage thresholds etc are configure in the profile by the Envoy at install, each micro operates largely independently.