I guess you got lucky decrepit, we had an inverter go up in a shower of sparks after about 6 years. All of that to one side though, you want to be able to pay off a tech investment in less than 10 years because you'd have to assume that either the install is a physically stuffed or it's been made redundant by better technology after the 10 years so that's why you'd want to depreciate it over that period for your initial cost/benefit number crunching, maybe it's just me being cautious

Select to expand quote

decrepit said..
Not our experience, our last house, ad a 12 year old system, and the output hadn't deteriorated at all, even though right on the beach.

We've just moved house and had a 3.7Kw unit installed. Things have moved a long way in 12 years. But I'm not comfortable connecting it to the internet and a Chinese cloud, so that I can monitor it's performance on my phone.

I'd guess the reason the inverter lasted was because you were near the beach, not in spite of it. Those things run hot, and would be designed as close to the limit as possible to save manufacturing cost, so they'd last longer in the cooler coastal air than they would roasting in Western Sydney.

a few years ago i bought a recycled 60cell roof panel (i couldn't fit a 72 in the car), new victron blue reg and deep cycle batt to run a bunch of bunnings 12v/7w LED home made garden lights, charge / run laptop and phones etc. the lot was $500 including all the wiring to go around the garden/ sockets/ LEDS .

The garden lights run for 12 hours every day. The driver circuit in the LED lights die after 18 months. I think the heat kills them from running constantly and they smell like magic smoke.

Select to expand quote

Haircut said..
a few years ago i bought a recycled 60cell roof panel (i couldn't fit a 72 in the car), new victron blue reg and deep cycle batt to run a bunch of 12v/7w home made garden lights, charge / run laptop and phones etc. the lot was $500 .

The garden lights run for 12 hours every day. The driver circuit in the LED lights die after 18months. I think the heat kills them and smell like magic smoke.

You've given me a great idea. I searched for second hand solar panels, thanks to your post, and there are heaps available for next to nothing. I'm thinking of tossing a few on top of my icy home office, and just connecting them DC direct to a heating element under my desk.

I forgot to say it runs the pool light too.

yeah it was fun experimenting with it all. heating element would be good to try. The panels to choose from were about $100 each and still gave at least 90% output. Lots of choices.

I looked into a new 6.5kw system and asked if we could leave the existing eight 1.5kw system panels on the roof for me to experiment with, but the vendors said they had to remove them and photograph roof to get the subsidy, but I could put them back up once done. seemed all to hard at the time. We've got loads of NW and NE facing roof to work around the existing panels.

I reckon you're right Harrow, my inverter is out in the shed gathering dust and dead geckos in the heat. It was one of the best electrical failures I've witnessed in real life

Select to expand quote

Harrow said..

decrepit said..
Not our experience, our last house, ad a 12 year old system, and the output hadn't deteriorated at all, even though right on the beach.

We've just moved house and had a 3.7Kw unit installed. Things have moved a long way in 12 years. But I'm not comfortable connecting it to the internet and a Chinese cloud, so that I can monitor it's performance on my phone.

I'd guess the reason the inverter lasted was because you were near the beach, not in spite of it. Those things run hot, and would be designed as close to the limit as possible to save manufacturing cost, so they'd last longer in the cooler coastal air than they would roasting in Western Sydney.

My inverter is mounted on the eastern side of the house, so it gets about 4 hours of sun on it in summer. It failed intermittently after 4 1/2 years, working or not working at random, and got replaced under warranty. Should I be putting a roof over it to reduce the exposure?

Select to expand quote

Mr Milk said..
My inverter is mounted on the eastern side of the house, so it gets about 4 hours of sun on it in summer. It failed intermittently after 4 1/2 years, working or not working at random, and got replaced under warranty. Should I be putting a roof over it to reduce the exposure?

The service life of power electronics is directly impacted by operating temperature. Maybe if your inverter was shaded it would have failed 6 months after the warranty period ended instead of 6 months before. If it's now out of warranty it would be worth shading it....as long as you don't reduce convective cooling airflow. The regularity with which you hear about these things fail is amazing....maybe they are designed with Europe in mind, not Australia.

Chinese capacitors?

Select to expand quote

kk said..
Chinese capacitors?

I would have guessed Chinese everything.

Mine failed after about a year. They all did. We got a replacement inverter with the guilty component(s) exchanged. Now about 7 years, all good, touch wood.

After years of living with stand alone systems, I'm just gobsmacked by the suburban solar arrays, and the stupidly cheap cost, no battery or generator back up required either. Yep I think it's worth it.

Yep woko, compared to a stand alone system, these grid connect setups make very cheap electricity. Unfortunately, they can sometimes generate electricity that costs more per kWh than it costs to just buy it from the grid.