We have a solar power system for two reasons.

1 - The cost of getting the property connected to the electricity grid would have been more expensive than the solar unit and the costs would have been ongoing. You know the story, increases in the cost of electricity, increases in the cost of supply, power outages in the winter as well as the summer, more holes in the ground to get the coal, more pollution and always some moron in the background wanting to go nuclear to help maintain supply instead of looking at renewable energy sources.

2 - We lived with gas lamps and a generator for long enough to know that a reliable supply of 240 volt power was essential to maintain a more reasonable and comfortable life style.

Making the decision to go solar was easy. Getting an installer to provide us with what we needed was not so easy. You should be able to walk into a solar power retailer and choose an option from 1 to 10 and the option you choose should have all that you want. But no, you have to fill in forms detailing your daily usage from which the installer then tells you what you want.

We found that what you need and what the installer wants you to have are totally different.

In fact getting an installer to do the right thing at the right time was damn near impossible. To get one to follow up on the installation - forget it!

Anyway, we have been there and done that.

We have a 24 volt battery system that supplies us with plenty of power on sunny days. Thats almost almost the greatest part of the year, but put a couple of dull days together and we have to start the generator.

Our house faces slightly to the north of west making it unsuitable to mount the panels on the roof. Tall trees in the vicinity of the house meant that we had to mount the eight BP 150w panels on a purpose built shed 30 metres from where the underground cable enters the house. The shed contains the complete solar power unit including the generator and there is also enough room to store other items if need be.

The solar system converts the energy from the sun via the panels to an electrical current which is then fed into batteries. Ours is a 24 volt system so we have twelve two volt cells. From the batteries it goes through an inverter where it is converted into 240 volts and then to the house or workshop. Our batteries have a storage capacity of 840 amp hours which appears to be enough for us.

We have a Plasmatronics PL60 regulator which controls the charge generated by the panels. This has a connection that allows us to control the unit from a computer in the house. We have the ability to see what the battery voltage is at any given time from the house as long as we have the computer on. The PL60 can save 30 days of history which can be downloaded and converted into a chart.

As we have our complete system at the same location as the panels it means that the cable that runs from the shed to the house is 240 volt and relatively inexpensive. If the panels been in one location and the inverter etc in another the size of the cable would have had to have increased and the cost would have been several, if not many times that of the 240 volt cable.

We have a 4kva generator that can be started from inside the house or from the control box beside the generator. The generator can also be set up to start automatically when the voltage in the batteries falls below a preset level. We have not gone for this option as we like the idea of being around when the generator starts if something goes wrong. The generator is set to automatically shut down when the voltage in the batteries reaches 29 volts.

When the generator is started the power it generates is directed to either the batteries or where there is a load requirement by means of a battery charger. The battery charger has indicators that tell us if the generator is running at the right speed, what the load is and also when the batteries have a full charge. On the automatic setting it is the battery charger that controls the stop mode of the generator. Having automatic stop control on the generator saves fuel as well as running time and also the need to check the battery voltage to see when it would have to be shut down as in a manual system. The automatic start allows us to start the generator and go to bed or town with out the need to trudge back and forth to the generator to check when we need to stop it.

Battery power to start the generator has been an issue. Initially we had a small car battery to start the generator, this was kept charged with a standard car battery charger plugged into a 240 volt outlet and ran 24 hours of the day regardless of the charge in the battery. The idea of having a car battery to maintain and the amount of power the charger used did not inspire us as it was another battery to maintain.

After some discussion with the electrician who installed the solar system he suggested that he could run suitable cables from the main batteries to enable the generator to start without the need for the car battery. As we have a 24 volt system he ran the positive cable from the central battery connector giving us a 12 volt supply for the generator. A cutout switch was incorporated in the cabling in case any problems arose so that the main batteries would be protected.

After about two months the cutout switch tripped while the generator was starting and in the process destroyed itself. Gone was our ability to start the generator and charge the batteries. Although the situation at the time was not desperate we recieved no joy in the fact that our installer did not respond to an email outlining the situation.

We had an automotive engineer look at the system he said that we should have a separate battery to start the generator as the load required to start the diesel motor would eventually assist in breaking down the half of the main battery bank that had been used to supply power to start the generator.

We now have a 12 volt, 16 plate battery to start the generator. We would like to use the battery charger in the generators control box to charge the battery but when Lister Australia closed down the appropriate wiring diagrams went with them. We have gone back to using the car battery charger that we used initially which in the long term may be a positive as it keeps the battery fully charged throughout the year even when the generator is not run for days at a time in the summer. We also have a small solar panel connected to the battery and this supplies a trickle charge that assists in keeping the battery at full or near to full charge most of the time.

Power to start the generator is an issue that we now know we should have looked at when the initial system was set up. We have learned by our mistake, fortunately the final cost was only a decent sized battery.

Another feature that we should have had installed was the ability to connect another generator into the system on a temporary basis if ever the need arose. We have a petrol driven 2.2 kva generator that would get us out of trouble if we could plug it in to the system. We will get around to it if ever some bright person tells us how.

The batteries are one of the largest cost items in a solar system and hopefully are the only items that could be called consumables. Because of this they must be kept in good condition and fully charged as often as possible.

The cost of batteries alone taken over the five year warranty period work out to $16.08 cents per week. It is alright to hear manufactures, installers and others say that the batteries will last up to twenty years but if they are so confident why do they not increase the warranty period.

Good refrigeration is what makes life here easier that any other electrical item but it is the largest single user of our electricity. We looked at gas, 12 and 24 volt refrigerators and lights to try and cut the cost of the solar system but the capital outlay of the items was up to three times as much as those that use 240 volts. Several installers would have liked us to have dual systems but in our opinion the cost would not have been worth it. We ended up by having the house wired for 240 volts. Our refrigerator/freezer cost us about $899.00 compared to about $2,450.00 for a 12 or 24 volt one of the same size.

Gas refrigeration for us was not an option for two main reasons other than the initial cost of the refrigerator/freezers. The cost of repairs to gas refrigeration units can be prohibitive and there are not that many tradespeople who appear to be competant to carry them out. A gas refrigerator in this climate uses at least four bottles of gas a year which go up in price on a regular basis. November of 2004 we paid $77.50 for a 45 kilogram bottle to be refilled. In 2005/2006 the cost per bottle is nearer $94.00 Like many people the idea of having to go to town four or five times a year to change bottles is an added cost and as we get older it is another chore we can do without. We have also spoken to a number of people who have problems getting gas units to keep and maintain low temperatures in the hot summer months and in several cases have heard of food being spoiled.

We estimate that it takes about an additional two panels to help run our refrigerator and freezer and in the cost of those panels far outweighs the cost and associated problems of having any other than 240 volt refrigeration.

During the summer months when temperatures reach 37° to 40° plus for several days in a row refrigeration does become a burden on the solar system. We have a two door fridge/freezer as well as a 150 litre chest freezer both of which work hard when the air temperature becomes hot. During the hotter months we may have to start the generator daily to give the batteries an extra boost even though there are plenty of sunlight hours. During the winter months, regardless of the daytime temperatures as long as the sky is clear of clouds the amount of sunlight hours are enough to keep the batteries charged as the refrigeration units work a lot less than in the summer.

We purchased a front loader washing machine to save on water and the second issue, or so we thought was power consumption. Front loaders if set on any other setting but cold water use a heater element to keep the wash water and the temperature setting that has been selected for a particular wash. If we set ours to a wash cycle that requires the water to be 50°C and the water out of the hot tap is 65°C, the heater element will come on during the wash cycle to maintain the 50°C as per the setting. If we select a wash cycle where the water temperature is to be 40°C the machine fills from the cold tap and uses the heater element to heat the water and maintain that heat during the wash cycle.

I contacted the manufacturer of the washing machine and asked them for a wiring diagram of the machine so that we could disconnect the heater element. Wrong move. All they want to quote is a safety standard and that they are not in the business of making a machine only to have someone make modifications to it.

Make sure you get all of the facts about any electrically operated appliance you purchase and number one is..... do you really need it?

At our place vacuuming, washing and other high power use items get used in the main when either the sun is shining on the panels or the generator is going.

If you are contemplating going solar have a talk to as many people as possible who already have a solar installation and also to as many installers as you can. It will be amazing how many different stories you will get. For every person that has paid many thousands on a system there is someone else running one panel and a couple of good sized car batteries and still maintaing a good lifestyle.

The main thing to remember is that you must adapt your lifestyle to your system, do not try and make the system adapt to your lifestyle. Basically what this means is that when it is sunny you will have the means to run more electrical appliances than you would on a day with little or no sun.

Many electrical appliances have a standby mode that uses electricity even though they are not actually being used. Any appliance that has an electronic display such as a microwave or video player or a standby mode as in computers, televisions, some washing machines and many other items use power every minute of the year. We turn our television and computer equipment off at their wall switches when we have finished using them. This is just one of the ways we have adapted to our system.

I must admit that having solar power gives us a feeling of being somehow a little more superior compared to those connected to the national grid, but if the grid had have been available we may have chosen that option as the cost of setting up a solar power system can be very expensive in the short term.

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