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! 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. No-one seems to have replied Dirk, so I will try. Powercor says it has contacted all solar customers within the previously impacted areas to let them know about the companys progress and to encourage them to consider reapplying for exports. Queenslands Ergon network area: All of Queensland on the main grid outside of South East Queensland. 0000011077 00000 n Victorias CitiPower area: The Melbourne Central Business District. It is critical that you install an approved smart inverter and set it correctly. And Set Power Limit to 100%. Please keep the SolarQuotes blog constructive and useful with these 5 rules: 1. NSWs Ausgrid Network Area: This covers East Sydney, Newcastle, and out to Merriwa. Victorias United Energy Network Area: A large chunk of Melbourne on the east side Port Phillip Bay and the Bayside Peninsula. With permission export limiting can be used to install larger systems. Its moderately cheaper and the solar feed-in tariff youll receive will lower your electricity bills and increase the amount of clean energy available for others to use. March 2022 6 Powercor means Powercor Australia Limited, ABN 89 064 651 109. portal means the eConnect portal for CitiPower and . The solar installer or customer must have sought and received pre-approval from us for the requested capacity of the generator. Store it and use it later (this requires solar battery storage), or it disappears into thin air via a heat sink. IE if Im producing 8KW, the house is using 2KW it will still export 5kw? And yes 5kW export limit applies May I suggest an extra fact check to polish the valuable story above? So if your home isnt currently drawing power you wont know from looking at the display if its capable of producing the maximum 5 kilowatts or if it cant provide more than 3 kilowatts. Solar Analytics confirms in this scenario its only exporting up to the limit; 3kw. What is the go generally with adding an additional solar system to your home? If you dont get under the covers and look carefully at the logs you might miss this, or think it is a cloud coming over, rather than voltage triggered throttling. essential enrgy in central west nsw (Orange) are generally restricting to max 5kw export limit regardless of 1ph or 3ph: 2 x 3ph residential applications approvals cutnpaste below only difference was one specifically stated APPROVAL/SITE SPECIFIC CONDITION(s): Total Site to be export limited to 5kW 3 phase 1.66kW/per phase (and the padmount sub for the subdivision in on the property boundary) at night or not enough at day time ? just wondering if anybody can shed some light on the following, The battery is charging from the DC current which is before the inverter. It seems so strange that it is clear government policy to get more solar going and yet the network operators are effectively blocking it now. 0000006578 00000 n Solar Export Limiting or Zero Export. What Does it Mean? If you are in the solar industry - try to get to the truth, not the sale.5. My guess is that when the Envoy-S sees it needs to throttle due to export limits, it does this by sending the same instruction to all micros to throttle the same amount (but dont know for sure). 11kW panels with 10kW 3-phase inverter (Fronius Symo + Fronius 3-phase meter). Households and small businesses that generate electricity using solar panels, wind turbines, or other small-scale generators, can feed back any unused electricity into the electricity grid for other customers to use. Contracts and resources for connection agreement, Vegetation clearing requirements for new powerlines, Registered Electrical Contractor resources, Rapid Earth Fault Current Limiters (REFCL), Endorsement for wholesale demand response. There are two options: 1. 260 Or is there a build up of voltage in the system? And, if a street full of these, plugs their cars into the grid, for recharging, starting the recharging between 1700 and 1800, lots of entertaining fireworks, along the street powerlines exploding. I think I was partially wrong about how my PV is connected to the home and the meter. 0000037764 00000 n Just last week, Powercor (Western Victoria) advised that they now have more room in the grid for export. But still the solar companies keep trying to sell it to me.. Below is the email response I received from Powercor. How is export limited for micro-inverters? I think it is illegal in WA to rewire your inverter or modify any parameters, as it may result in more than 5kW being sent to the grid, so I will just bite the bullet and see that I use as much solar as possible. When it comes to the limiting imposed by the electricity companies feed-in regulations, it means that, at any one time, not more than 5kW (100L) maybe be output to the grid (hose), it has nothing to do with the total over a certain period of time. Zero-sum game: The rise of solar export limits, and what can be done Heres the Fronius Smart Meter that you need if you want to export limit a Fronius inverter it will add about $500 to the cost of the system: An example of how export limiting works You have an inverter thats exported limited to 5 kilowatts. 0000007554 00000 n We are in an area where only about 20% of the homes have solar. Weve got a system that can be left alone in my opinion, so adding say 6.6kw and a 10kw battery makes good sense but what a task. I believe it must have been set up during installation, but the installer company claims that this is handled by Growatt themselves. Powercor households stand to save even more with solar (Note: it is possible to install a larger system, say 10kW on a single phase property and meet the Powercor rules by export limiting the system . 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. It appears the wire from the inverter is directly connected to my main fuse for the house circuits. I could easily share my excess power for the time I am not irrigating my crops. Origin offers 8 cents per kWh until a daily export limit of 14 kWh is reached. Metered and a non metered version. Im on a swer line in rural south Australia. Powercor is telling increasing numbers of households looking to install new systems in this area they will have a zero export limit. But I will warn you, even with the high cost of grid electricity and the low solar feed-in tariff in Western Australia, batteries normally wont pay for themselves. So, I am pretty much left in the dark about whether all the energy my panels are theoretically producing is being utilised, or (which is my fearful assumption) up to 1.6kW are wasted whenever the panels produce more than 5kW AC. The percentage var/VA level leading is the inverter sourcing vars to the grid, whereas the percentage var/VA level lagging is the inverter sinking vars from the grid. In future, will powercor allow export limit if they upgrade transformer? For any amount above the daily export, you will receive our standard retailer feed-in tariff of 5 . On a related note, we mentioned yesterday that over the border in South Australia, SA Power Networks is readying to ramp up flexible solar exports in an effort to support more solar installations and its pretty clever stuff. This could be important, given that we have a state parliamentary election due in a couple of months. Off the main grid, rural properties can have 3 kilowatts of inverter capacity. I am a bit confused about export. sonnenBatterie Evo. If you can go outside and scream at the top of your lungs with no chance your neighbours will hear you, then theres a good chance you are off the main grid and face much stricter limits on exports. In most cases, if you had your envoy shut off, the micros would start and work on their own and independently of the envoy, and in fact of each other. Nobody wants to see solar energy . My assumption is (and I may be wrong after all) that the idea of using my own energy first before buying from the grid is an illusion, and in fact it only appears like that because all the energy from the inverter (up to 5kW) is measured as exported, all energy required by the house is actually imported from the grid (as if there was no solar system at all), and it is just because the exports are offset against the imports for billing, why it appears that my PV system is reducing the imports. Victorias AusNet network area: The eastern third of Victoria, not including Melbourne or French Island. I do NOT have a device in my meter box that could tell the inverter anything about consumption and feed in energy. ), converting to up to 10kW of AC power, and, the GW5048D-ES provides for up to 6.65kW of panels generating capacity, converting to up to 4.95 kW of AC power, and, acting as a battery management system and UPS, when a battery system (of up to two approved, low voltage, batteries) is connected. Solar connections for industry | CitiPower & Powercor I think is is utter madness that the VIC government is handing out generous rebates of $1850.00 and 4 year interest free loans of up to $1850.00 and Powercor has zero feed in capacity for excess solar power. But youll need to be confident you wont be hit with high demand charges during the evening peak that will wipe out any advantage. The new inverter standard AS/NZS 4777.2:2020 has new inclusions to address grid stability issues - a new feature that is necessary to further enhance the hosting capacity to accommodate more solar and renewable energy systems. Please keep the SolarQuotes blog constructive and useful with these 5 rules: 1. 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. Hi All. I think that the limiter can connect only to one inverter and not two at the same time. Solar export limiting, or 'export limiting', occurs most often when there is more power being pushed into the grid than it can handle. Though endless quibbling over unnecessary details might keep the presses churning, a FACT remains that Ive been using ever-more-cost-effective batteries since 1980. 0000005359 00000 n If so, it would make replacing the whole system more viable which is exactly what I wanted to avoid (and such a waste!). Am I wrong? Talking of which, the fact often gets dropped under the table that neither batteries nor panels and inverters (being mechano-electronic devices) have a limited life span, and their efficiency deteriorates gradually after only a few years. 0000008571 00000 n 0000001575 00000 n My solar installer applied to Powercor to install a 5.4kw system at my Point Cook address. Voltage (V) measured at inverter terminals What am I missing? Reminder: In Australia, you are allowed to install 33% more panel capacity than the inverter capacity for example, a 10 kW inverter can have up to 13.33 kW of panels attached. See image at http://www.johnrogers.com.au/battery_charging_noon.jpg, CORRECTION: My 13.25 kW system will not go above the 10 kW inverter limit unless my house battery is charging and then it can go to 13.25 kW. Unfortunately, the meter companies and inverter manufacturers cant get their shit together, and the utility meters refuse to talk to the inverters. We respect your privacy and you can opt out from the newsletter at any time. So if an inverter that is export limited to 5 kilowatts is providing 8 kilowatts of power, none of it will go to waste provided the home is consuming at least 3 kilowatts at the time. Website link shows system producing well over 10 kW. I still dont know if they have programmed the inverter to reduce the overall output by a percentage or not. ) It is just the placement of the meter and the current sensor that controls the limiting. SAPN has told me I cant have more than a 5 kw inverter , but thats just not enough. Allows installation but has a zero export limit. Thank you. MPPT2 always shows better performance than MPPT, usually quite significantly better. In an Enphase system, that is with the Envoy-S with consumption monitoring. I have a new residential PV system in Perth WA, 6.6kW total panel capacity and a 5kW inverter (Growatt Min 5000TL-X). Shane, you appear to be mixing up kW and kWh easily done! 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. Instead the home can benefit from a small system, as I explain here: Ah yes I see. 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. We are on a zero limited export. If you can export 3kva that means you can have a solar system with up to 4 kilowatts of panels. We installed solar power in November last year and were refused export (zero export). Your dedicated meter will inform the inverter, and it will immediately reduce the power, so it doesnt exceed 5 kilowatts1. Energex doesnt automatically allow inverters over 5 kilowatts to be installed with export limiting, but currently regularly grants permission for single-phase homes on the main grid to install up to 10 kilowatts of inverter capacity with export limiting. given that we are working from home all the time these days. 0000027694 00000 n reliable export limit control function as per AS4777.2 to limit the export output where the . Generally however, I can advise that Powercor intends to upgrade the network over the next 5 years, starting in January, however, the specifics of where upgrades are happening and the order has not been decided. Plus a Tesla Powerwall 2. I think of it like the rate at which water is flowing out of a hose. 0000010603 00000 n But depending on our network capacity, export constraints may influence the size of the unit they install. Theyd be higher for a sunnier location such as Perth and lower for cloudier places such as Melbourne or Hobart. The good news is, even in a worst-case situation, the amount will be fairly minor. P/Prated (%) Ready for some quotes? Most systems have mostly N facing panels, so really only generate peak power for a few hours a day (often 10am>2pm approx)
