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This is good news for Queenslanders who want to install batteries or larger solar inverters.

This is great news for Queenslanders looking to install rooftop solar and anyone considering installing AC-coupled battery systems (such as Powerwall 2).

Two Distributed Network Service Providers (DNSP) in Queensland 1 Energex and Ergon have issued installation warnings stating that the state’s micro-embedded generator set connection standards have been revised and approved2.

This is an important and positive change for people who have single-phase power and use the main grid (most Queenslanders). In the past, rooftop solar energy had to be automatically approved, and inverters below 5 kW had to be installed, but now inverters above 5 kW to 10 kW can also be automatically approved. The condition is that the export is restricted, so it will never provide more than power to the grid. 5 kilowatts of electricity 3

This allows single-phase power users who are installing a new rooftop solar system in Queensland to choose to install a larger system than before. They can now install up to 10 kW inverters (restricted exports) and 13.33 kW solar panels, instead of being limited to 5 kW inverters and up to 6.66 kW solar panels, provided that the local council allows and is possible Install a lot on the roof.

This also means that households with rooftop solar can install AC-coupled batteries. For example, a home with a single-phase power supply and a 5-kilowatt solar inverter can install an AC-coupled battery system with a 5-kilowatt battery inverter, such as Powerwall 2.

Unfortunately, if people take any measures to increase the total capacity of the inverter, including adding AC-coupled battery inverters, those who currently accept the old 44 cents solar feed-in tariff will lose it.

Since DNSPs such as Energex and Ergon allow exceptions, this means that Queenslanders are not subject to Section 2.3: Paragraph 2 of the revised and jaw-droppingly expensive Australian inverter grid connection standard, which only allows A total of 5 kW inverters per phase.

The AS4777.1 terms and the Batman credit card I use, so I can afford the ridiculous $204 of the Australian standard pdf.

Energex covers only a small part of the southeastern part of the state, but it is where most Queenslanders live because they gather to protect each other from falling bears. Ergon covers the part of the population that is forced to adopt a philosophical approach to solve whether God can make spiders large enough to frighten God.

This map I stole from Energex shows the area they cover:

Energex is the dark shaded part inside the circle. Everything else is Ergon.

If you are in or near a city or major town, then you may be on the main grid.

If you are in a rural area with low population density, you are most likely to use single-wire ground return (SWER) transmission, which is a low-cost method of transmitting moderate amounts of electricity over long distances. If your inverter has a total capacity of 2 kW or less, or the export limit is 2 kW, you will face stricter requirements and only get automatic approval.

If you live in a remote place, then you are likely to be off the grid, but you may be part of a small isolated network where you cannot do anything unless you first obtain permission through "manual evaluation" instead of "automatic evaluation" . evaluate".

Under normal circumstances, the electricity generated by rooftop solar energy is not used by the building on which it is fixed, but is sent to the grid for other people to use, which reduces the consumption of fossil fuels for power generation.

But the person in charge of the grid does not necessarily like to send electricity into the grid, which sounds a bit ridiculous. More specifically, they don't necessarily like to send electricity from rooftop solar to the grid, because this may cause them to have to update some equipment. Now I can see how annoying this is, but I really don't understand how it compares to "melting ice caps" on the scale of inconvenience.

But because distributors don't like it, they can ask for restrictions on the export of solar systems. This is already happening in rural areas and Queensland, where quite a few businesses, churches and other buildings are restricted to zero exports, which leads to wasted clean, green solar power.

A fairly obvious disadvantage of export restrictions is that no feed-in tariff is charged for wasted electricity.

There are two main ways to connect or couple the battery to the house. They are DC coupled and AC coupled.

With DC coupling, solar panels and batteries share the same inverter, so this method allows for adding batteries without increasing the total inverter capacity. But this requires special multi-mode inverters, also called hybrid inverters, which are much more expensive to purchase and install than standard solar inverters.

To avoid throwing away old inverters and installing expensive new multimode inverters, batteries can be added to homes with existing solar systems through AC coupling. This involves them having their own battery inverter.

If Queensland insists on the revised Australian standard and its total inverter capacity is limited to 5 kilowatts, it is impossible for households with single-phase power to install Powerwall 2, because it has a 5 kilowatt battery inverter.

Well, they could have installed it by removing any existing solar inverter, but that would defeat the purpose.

If electric vehicles only take electricity and never supply power to the grid, then they are considered to be just a very large electrical appliance with wheels, and the inverter capacity rule does not apply to them. But if they do supply power to the grid, inverter restrictions do apply. Therefore, Energex and Ergon discourage what might become a very useful grid management tool in the future.

I look forward to the day when they begin to look at at least the late 20th century.

If you want to install a system that does not comply with the automatic approval, you can choose "Manual Evaluation". This process involves Energex or Ergon using real people to decide whether they will let you do what you want. I am sure that the manual evaluation process is as fun as it sounds, and if you decide to follow this route, good luck. I believe you will need it.

Note, however, that it seems obvious that the only way to allow a single-phase household to output more than 5 kW is to upgrade to a three-phase power supply, which is not a cheap thing.

Ronald Brakels was born in Toowoomba many years ago. When his township collected a collection and sent him to Japan, he became famous internationally for the first time. This was the furthest place they could manage with the funds raised. When the local mayor greeted him at the airport and explained that it was too dangerous for him to return to Toowoomba due to climate change and mutations attacking goats. After returning to Australia, he developed a keen interest in environmental issues. Ronald then moved to a property in Adelaide Hills, where he now lives with his horse Tonto 23.

If your system's PV + battery exceeds 5 kW on a single phase, they have any changes to the Feed in [Export], which is currently 0.07448 kWh. Is this really good news?

Your feed-in tariff of 7.448 cents will remain unchanged. As the wholesale price of electricity rises, it should actually increase.

What a great website, this is the only way to understand the complex problems of solar energy, keep working hard

This gave me some hope. I really hope that Victoria will adopt a similar increase in single-phase residences. In fact, I insist on using a 3 kW system, and it would not be too cost-effective to upgrade the system 3 years ago to 5 kW.

You mean in the ergon area

Single-phase customers can install 10kw inverter and 3 or 5kw export limiter, can the rest be stored in the battery?

Hello Vivi. If you are on the main grid, ie in or near a city or medium-sized town, and you have a single-phase power supply, you can install inverters with a total power of up to 10 kilowatts, provided that your system's output power is limited to 5 kilowatt. This means you can install a 5 kW solar inverter and a 5 kW battery inverter, such as the inverter in Powerwall 2.

Or, if someone wants, they can install a 10 kW solar inverter. They will not be able to AC-couple batteries because they cannot add battery inverters without exceeding the limit, but they can use multi-mode inverters with DC-coupled batteries. (Also called hybrid inverter.)

If you live in a very remote rural area, you may use the SWER network. In this case, you can still install inverters up to 10 kW, but if you install inverters that exceed 2 kW, you must limit the export to 2 kW.

This applies whether you are in the Ergon or Energex area. (Although there are very few SWER transmissions in the Energex area.)

Thanks for your quick reply.

I am glad to know if the customer has installed a 5kw inverter. Is it possible to upgrade another 5kw hybrid power system and use battery backup when the output is zero?

If a household with a single-phase power supply currently has a 5 kW solar inverter, then they can install another 5 kW inverter, provided that the household’s export limit is 5 kW. Setting the new inverter to zero output will (should) meet this requirement.

Hi Ronald, why does Powerwall 2 have such a problem, because I think it can be set to completely disconnect from the grid, for example, even if it wants to output, it is still connected to the solar inverter, and it can't even output. Why does this affect the total grid connection in kW?

In my opinion, the advantages of household batteries for the grid far outweigh any potential disadvantages, and if people want to spend money to install them, grid operators should not hinder them. But the distributed service network provider and I currently have different views on this.

In Australia, DC Powerwall 2 has been cancelled, leaving only AC Powerwall 2. If the house used is connected to the grid, AC Powerwall 2 will be connected to the grid. Therefore, as far as Energex and Ergon and other distributed service network providers are concerned, their inverter capacity is part of the total capacity of household inverters.

DC Powerwall 2 can be DC-coupled to a multi-mode (hybrid) inverter and use its inverter capacity. Since it does not have its own inverter, it will not increase the inverter capacity of the family. But it has been cancelled in Australia:

https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/tesla-kills-off-dc-powerwall-2-ac-version-delayed/

Hi Ronald, I think this Batman credit card is fake...I don't believe this is Tonto's signature,,,, and you told me 3 years ago that he is 23 years old, so he must be at least 26 years old so far. Cheers John Nelson,

Ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah Don't tell the Australian standard about the bat card!

In any case, I got a new horse: Tonto is not 23 years old. He is the 23rd horse I own called Tonto! He is actually 9 years old. As you might guess, he did a great job for himself in the survival bet.

I read last year that the Qld inverter size limit will increase from 5 to 30 kW, sometime in mid-2017. Please refer to this link: https://www.dews.qld.gov.au/electricity/solar/installing/benefits/ After understanding what additional rules Ergon will apply to make it as difficult as possible for Ergon customers, I The solar installation that prevented my plan may become larger. Do you have more information about this? ?

If exports are restricted, people in rural areas can already install solar inverters up to 30 kilowatts. But they may be required to export zero. These large systems must usually be installed on the ground. In construction areas, people using 3-phase power can install inverters of more than 10 kilowatts, but usually the roof space is used up long before the inverter limit is reached.

If I can make a suggestion to help answer what might be the best PV + battery kW selection solution, it is the upcoming [my understanding] fixed fee for seasonal demand. I have been trying to model Momentum Energy Pty Ltd’s electricity pricing information (RESKWTOU), which was released on August 1, 2016, and the fixed demand fee for summer from December 1 to May 31 is per kilowatt-day 31.665, non-summer period is from April 1st to November 30th to November 14.1712 cents per kilowatt per day. The demand fee is calculated based on the maximum half-hour interval kW that occurs between 3 pm and 9 pm (local time) from Monday to Sunday of the month. Our unseasonally adjusted maximum 3:00 – 9:00 pm is a 30-minute timed interval, the maximum is approximately 2.09 kWh, and our average daylight consumption is 5.73 kWh.

This may be a stupid question and may have been answered, but is the daily export limit of 5 kilowatts?

Hello Rico. The limit is 5 kilowatts of continuous power. Therefore, if this maximum value is output for one hour, 5 kWh of electricity will be delivered to the grid. Therefore, a family with a 5 kW inverter can output all the electricity generated by its system without any problems.

Don't take away what Ronald said. In the case of our Enphase 7.99 kW micro-inverter system, photovoltaic production is first allocated to household consumption, then stored [if not fully charged], and then exported [feed in]. When photovoltaic production is insufficient to meet consumption, the balance comes first from storage and then from the grid. If there is no photovoltaic production to cover consumption, then it first comes from batteries and then storage. It should be noted that the charge and discharge rate of the battery is 240 watt-hours in our example. Therefore, if the consumption exceeds 240 watt-hours, the balance comes from the grid. We have a 7.99 kW system, and there has never been a situation where the remaining continuous power exceeds 5 kW. These are our performance data from yesterday [Midnight to Midnight] Consumption 20.58 kWh Production 32.66 kWh Import 5.84 kWh Export 17.65 kWh Storage 1.49 kWh Discharge 1.26 kWh [You can never recover the same amount of stored energy] No PV The daily cost of 7.0 USD, including the fixed fee PV 1.04 USD. For zero bills, our import and export ratio is about 4-5 to 1. Import 0.28479 c kWh and export [Feed in] 0.10102 kWh. Enphase batteries currently cost US$2,200 per installation of 1.2 kW. If calculated according to the numbers, it would be cheaper to produce credit-generating solar production, because the current cost of producing [panels] is more expensive than charging storage [if it makes sense]] In North Queensland, you can have 10 kW per phase single phase and 30 kW three phase [10 kW] per phase. There are basically two types of rooftop DC systems that consist of a single inverter and rooftop AC conversion, each panel has a separate inverter. We choose micro inverters because we do not have a situation where all panels can be installed facing north. Micro-inverters are usually not affected by the shadow problem that affects production [clouds, trees] Any number of panels in the array, each panel has the ability to produce to their maximum capacity. In the DC setting, the production capacity of any panel can be set to the maximum production capacity of other panels. In short, compared with a DC single inverter system, a 5 kW micro-inverter system should perform better than generating more kWh in the same position and direction. Not only that, they are easier to upgrade, because each panel has its own inverter, and any upgrade with other systems may require an inverter upgrade. I am a user, except that we upgraded the Enphase 5.75 kW system to 7.99 kW [30 panels] since April 2015 and June 2017, and we are expected to reduce our annual fee from approximately US$3,700 to less. I will not promote Solar to any specifications that exceed $1,000. Our daily consumption is between 24 and 35 kWh, but we have a pool and pool heater, 4 bedrooms, and a 1 bedroom apartment under the same roof.

What a great blog post, I like the tongue on the tip of the tongue.

I am currently upgrading my existing system to 11.6kw on the roof (adding a 6.6kw panel and another 5kw inverter).

One day it will pave the way for batteries. So far, a simple process and automatic approval by Energex. The only additional requirement is the output limiter, which is also installed on the same day.

Skipping them will never help your power company...put in the battery and inverter and switch the switch...just use them as a backup, that's their full benefit.

Please keep the SolarQuotes blog constructive and useful through the following 4 rules:

1. Preferred real name-you should be happy to add your name to your comment. 2. Put down the weapon. 3. Assume positive intentions. 4. If you are in the solar industry-try to understand the truth, not to sell. 5. Please keep the theme.

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