Gidday from Queensland Australia

[guyman]

Hi Will. You are my go for solar. I've learnt more from you in the last few years than in my 60 something years. Thank you.
The only solar I have is 2.4KW grid feed in system. In Queensland the solar/grid system is highly controlled by the state government.
Still hope springs eternal. I have a theoretical system in spreadsheet form. Perhaps one day
Guy

 

[gnubie]

Hello fellow QLDer. My system is totally separate to the mains. Less red tape to deal with, but there's still plenty of regs to comply with.

 

[b.james]

GDay guyman , another queenslander . The Yanks get it good with decent rebates and they get paid pretty well for there feed into the grid , not the paltry 6 cents per Kilowatthour we get . They still charge us 26 cents for what we use . It stinks.
gnubie what regs are you having to comply with. Maybe we could start another thread

 

[gnubie]

Just the usual electrical stuff. Wiring?! OMG?! You want to run WIRES?!?!

 

[svetz]

... The Yanks get...paid pretty well for there feed into the grid , not the paltry 6 cents per Kilowatthour we get . They still charge us 26 cents for what we use .

Yeah yeah.... The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence and in Ireland of course.

Wait? 26 cents? .26 AUD is .19 USD.... I thought the price of electricity in Queensland was far higher, around $0.40 USD?

$.06/kWh ($0.04 USD) would sound mighty good to the folks who live in states where the utility doesn't provide any payback. Utilities in states that do pay back are constantly trying to get it eliminated.

Compared to the US, $.26 is high; Hawaii has the highest rates at ~$0.275 USD, Connecticut $0.20. But yeah, some places are far lower too; Louisiana is the lowest at $.093 and the average is $0.13 USD. I think Denmark has the distinction of the highest cost . Here's a table from the internet so you know it must be true ;-)

 

[Aitch]

Relative to income...

 

[gnubie]

Almost all people in QLD, at least once you get outside of Brisbane, use Ergon on the standard flat rate tariff. That's 26 cents/kWh + $1 / day supply charge.

There's no shortage of generation in QLD so TOU tariffs are a bit odd. Mar-Nov 24 x 7 is off peak rate, that's 21 cents/kWh + 90 cents / day supply charge. Dec-Feb, 3pm-9.30pm daily, is peak rate, 68 cents/kWh + 90 cents / day supply charge. In other words, you could quickly blow way past the flat rate costs if you don't watch your consumption during that peak charge window.

AUD is about 0.65 USD right now, so ignoring all other variables, about 17 US cents/kWh

Regardless of your consumption tariff, the solar feed-in rate is about 8 cents / kWh with Ergon.

 

[svetz]

I'm really feeling for this guy, looks like he's making 15 cents/kWh on power produced, but shelling out 50 cents/kWh used with no net metering.

 

[gnubie]

SA's grid is a bit of a basket case. No doubt you've heard of the 100MWh Tesla battery they had to stick in to hold the network up should something go wrong, such as an interlink to another state trips.

 

[svetz]

I heard about it in a positive way, not as band-aid to a cluster. Had no idea!

 

[b.james]

TOU tariffs........never heard of it here. Ergon is only 6 cents last time I looked...and going down.

 

[guyman]

Hello gnubie and b.james
This is my last 3 month bill. I have since changed plans so wait and see, hopefully it will be similar. I'm with AGL
Our average daily use is approx 8kWh (2 people). For approx $1000.00 AUD it's hard to justify adding more solar
Guy

 

[gnubie]

TOU tariffs........never heard of it here. Ergon is only 6 cents last time I looked...and going down.

Time of use tariffs

Our residential time of use tariff has different pricing periods during specified peak and off-peak periods.

www.ergon.com.au

 

[Supervstech]

Heh... I live in NC... one of the best states for grid tied solar. And I’m not happy... MORE MONEY!!!