National and State Renewable Energy stats

[johnchidgey]

For an individual house to truly go off-grid (i.e. have the grid wires permanently disconnected from their house) is very difficult and expensive to achieve

The houses that have done this successfully (think eco-houses in the early 00s) are designed specifically to be facing the optimal direction relative to the sun for their latitude, as much natural ventilation as possible (no Air-conditioning) and minimal electrical appliances.

I think if you start out with that end in mind it's not as difficult as you're suggesting. Then again, most of us don't have that option, so retrofitting full off-grid into a house/location that wasn't built with that in mind is significantly more problematic.

 

[Vostok]

The houses that have done this successfully (think eco-houses in the early 00s) are designed specifically to be facing the optimal direction relative to the sun for their latitude, as much natural ventilation as possible (no Air-conditioning) and minimal electrical appliances.

That’s covered under my point 1 “a large solar array that generates considerably more each year than annual household consumption”.

If you have a well designed house that requires minimal or no AC at all that will help immensely. Not having a car at all will help immensely. But add an EV (or 2) to the mix, and the job to go off-grid is now much, much harder unless you “cheat” and use public charging instead of your own power.

 

[Vostok]

Not that I'm advocating for anyone to go off-grid, but it should be kept in mind that even those grid-connected have to expect blackouts some percentage of the time, for similar reasons.

But not at the same number of “9s”. You’d have to be unlucky to be in a place where the grid is less reliable than four 9s (0.9999) or 52 minutes of outage per year on average. That’s excluding local planned outages, like when electrical work is being done in a street.

Where I am, my Powerwall 2 tells me there has been a total of 130 minutes of unplanned grid outages over 57 months. That’s a reliability of 0.99995.

For a single household to go off-grid at two nines or better is generally difficult (unless designed from the start to be passive) and certainly costly. It’s called the “long tail” problem in statistics.

Long tail - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Quickst]

So what? It doesn’t make their 71% renewables in 2023 purely on VRE any less impressive.

I didn't say it was not impressive. My point is that Its a lot easier to solve for a small grid than a massive one than NSW

 

[Quickst]

it should be kept in mind that even those grid-connected have to expect blackouts some percentage of the time

Yes imagine replacing a dead inverter is not exactly a same day proposition.

Even for off grid setups, backups need to be considered. A solar array + inverter + battery is not backup.

 

[johnchidgey]

That’s covered under my point 1

I don't think it was covered under any of your points, hence why I felt compelled to make mine. But it's all good really. Let's not quibble...it's the weekend and life's too short.

 

[paulp]

For an individual house to truly go off-grid (i.e. have the grid wires permanently disconnected from their house) is very difficult and expensive to achieve. You’d need a mix of these things:

1. A large solar array that generates considerably more each year than annual household consumption (my array only generates about 55% of my consumption over a year - so it’s impossible for me to ever go off-grid since I have no roofspace left for more panels)
2. A very large battery, if not an infeasibly large one which will never pay itself back
3. A willingness and acceptance for your house to “go dark” some percentage of the time because 100% uptime is not statistically realistic at feasible cost.

Or you can surrendor yourself back to hydrocarbon and get a 10kva generator to keep the battery full when required. This is then a standard houseboat installation.

 

[paulp]

Yes imagine replacing a dead inverter is not exactly a same day proposition.

Even for off grid setups, backups need to be considered. A solar array + inverter + battery is not backup.

If you use microinvertors on your solar and have a failure you only lose one solar panel. To replace the micro is then unplug and plug back in.

 

[Quickst]

microinvertors

Yes I think they are becoming more reliable than string inverters. My (very reputable) installer did not like them when my array was installed 5 years ago as they were problematic at the time

 

[paulp]

Yes I think they are becoming more reliable than string inverters. My (very reputable) installer did not like them when my array was installed 5 years ago as they were problematic at the time

Mine are 7 year old enphase and no issues at all. I have 111 of them. My previous install had them for 5 years before that. No issues there either. There was another brand that was a huge problem (now long gone) which unfortunately tainted the high quality micro’s. Kind of like saying a ford ev is bad so lets assume all ev are bad.

 

[doggy1]

Yes I think they are becoming more reliable than string inverters. My (very reputable) installer did not like them when my array was installed 5 years ago as they were problematic at the time

I believe that Enphase Microinverters have been more reliable than string inverters for years. I've had Enphase for 6 years and no problems- not that this means anything in particular as 6yrs is not that long. As paulp said, there was another brand though they were strictly Optimisers rather than Microinverters. They had a poor reliability reputation which I think has now been largely addressed. As for actual Microinverters, Enphase has been the "main game in town" for a long time and I consider them the "Rolls Royce" of systems not only for their reliability but also their safety and superior command, control and reporting. Plus performance in areas with blobs of shade (such as very treed locations). Certainly in the last >10yrs or so there have been no reported reliability issues. The only catch is that they are expensive. My system cost almost double that of a string inverter system. But despite the shade at my place and non-optimum angles, it will have paid for itself at the 8 year mark which I still consider a reasonable IRR for a project.

 

[Davemcd]

If I remember people had more problems with the older M series Enphase. Touch wood had no problems with mine.

 

[paulp]

If I remember people had more problems with the older M series Enphase. Touch wood had no problems with mine.

Never heard of that version

 

[Davemcd]

Never heard of that version

getting off topic..before the IQ there was S series before that was the older M series.
now I have to google it M250 M215 M190.. I know someone with some problems with S series as well.
I think if I remember Enphase did an upgrade program on the older series. I looked at all of this when I brought 5 years ago

Back more on topic.. for those in Vic I had my second best avg month in Feb since I turned on the system.
Makes up for the worst Dec and Jan I had since I got it .

 

[Quickst]

I wonder what the stats will look like what Snowy Hydro 2.0 comes online including transmission upgrades
(still a long way behind schedule but what's new when Politicians made it a trophy announcement)

 

[paulp]

getting off topic..before the IQ there was S series before that was the older M series.
now I have to google it M250 M215 M190.. I know someone with some problems with S series as well.
I think if I remember Enphase did an upgrade program on the older series. I looked at all of this when I brought 5 years ago

Back more on topic.. for those in Vic I had my second best avg month in Feb since I turned on the system.
Makes up for the worst Dec and Jan I had since I got it .

I’ve referred a lot of people onto enphase micro’s. None have had issues. I know a lot of people with failure of their single invertors, including one that caught fire in my street. Mine are coastal mounted and covered in a crustly salt spray, so probably about as harsh as it gets.

 

[doggy1]

I’ve referred a lot of people onto enphase micro’s. None have had issues. I know a lot of people with failure of their single invertors, including one that caught fire in my street. Mine are coastal mounted and covered in a crustly salt spray, so probably about as harsh as it gets.

Mine are also right on the Coast.

I saw the actual MTBF figures for Enphase Micros (they have sold many millions) and they are very, very impressive.

I have also bought some old M-series ones and used them for an offgrid project. I tried to pull one apart for interest. They are fully potted in epoxy (as are the IQ series). Absolutely no way for weather to get inside all the epoxy. Also not repairable but they are not very expensive on an individual basis.

 

[cafz]

The only catch is that they are expensive.

The other catch is that they appear to consider all the data on your solar production to be their proprietary data.

 

[doggy1]

The other catch is that they appear to consider all the data on your solar production to be their proprietary data.

Not sure why you say "their proprietary data". Have you had a problem with their behaviour and your data? Certainly there is 6yrs of my solar data on their site and I'm happy for it to be there. I can also allow anonymised access to it (for instance on my website) if I want. Sometimes useful when people are looking for solar performance data in a particular neighbourhood They can also do remote diagnosis (if I allow it) which was useful when the grid feed-in wires went highish resistance between the power pole and the house. I get useful graphs and usage data from them. At my request they have occasionally done firmware updates for me. When my installer went bust and then the installer who took over from them went bust, Enphase allowed me to have installer access to my system which has been quite handy. Plus if I have any problems (which I have not) I have a direct conduit to them.

I imagine that a number of inverter suppliers also collect data from systems. I think there is an awful lot of peoples' data stored on remote sites and a lot is worse than solar data!

Just my tuppence worth.......

 

[Vostok]

I think there is an awful lot of peoples' data stored on remote sites and a lot is worse than solar data!

Yeah, like a lifetime of people’s Facebook, Instagram and Twitter posts