I live in Shalvey NSW (Endeavour Energy territory i am told). I initially googled solar and found solar101 which i thought was great, it gave me a brief general idea about solar. At the end it asks you if you want to get 3 quotes so of course i did. I received feedback saying there were only two reputable ones in my area. I thought that was odd given i live in Sydney but anyway moving along.
First two quotes were done based on my previous bills from our last house (before buying this one recently) and the area we live in. There was no site visit, just a google earth of my roof. They both recommended 10kw solar systems.
The first quote from Green Solar Energy was 30 x Longi panels and the Fronius Primo 5.0-1 plus Inverter 2 - Fronius Primo. No meter box upgrade required. Single phase quote. All that for $8500 and $8999 (two identical quotes, different price).
The second quote from Green Solar Energy was 28 x Longi panels and Fronius Primo 8.2-1. No meter box upgrade. Single phase for 7.5k
Then I got a quote from Red Giant Solar. 10kw system - Fronius Symo 10kw inverter and 20 x Qcells Mono 330w panels for $11,000.
The second quote from Red Giant Solar was 10kw system - Fronius Symo 10kw inverter and 20 x LG Neon2 350w panels for $13,000.
Red Giant were good for explaining to me what single and three phase meters meant as I had sent them a photo of my meter. They were great at responding to me initially. After looking through the forums here I had more questions and then found there were more solar installation companies that were listed on this site.
I called Western Sydney Solar. He called back and he was a little surprised that i was only given two options for solar quotes and even more surprised that both previous companies were trying to sell me excess products that I can’t have according to the electricity provider in my area ’ Endeavor Energy’. He explained that with a single phase Endeavour Energy we would only be able to benefit from 6.6kw panels and a 5kw inverter. He said companies can sell additional inverter ie 10kw but we would not benefit from it under Endeavour Energy. I was also told there is a limit of how many panels can be put on the roof? He was suggesting Suntek panels and Delta inverter were the better option based on his experience and quoted me roughly $7.5 - 8,000.
I feel a little nuts now. Can anyone please explain to me what all this means… if you can explain it all to me in layman’s terms. Clearly I’m not going to spend $9 - 14k on a product that I can’t use but i still want solar. I just want one that is useful and equally reasonably priced. No one wants to pay for a 5kw inverter or an additional 10 panels that you can use or benefit from.
So to be clear, you definitely only have a single phase connection? For whatever reason, the original companies sounds like they thought you had 3 phase. You said you sent a photo of your meter, and Red Giant explained it was a 3 phase meter. Can you upload that photo for us?
Why did they land on 10kW? How much electricity do you use do you know? per quarter or per day on average?
One we clarify those things it will be easier to give feedback.
Sorry for the confusion. The first company didn’t know if it was single phase or 3 phase but quoted based on our previous electricity bills which were high in our previous house (6-900 per quarter with a pool). We don’t have a pool here. They said we would need a 10kw based on the high usage. I didn’t hear back from them.
I sent Red Giant a photo of the meter box and they acknowledged it was a single phase and said we were limited to 20 panels on the roof and in brackets he wrote 6.6kw. He said if we had a three phase we could have more panels on the roof and higher kw. I didn’t catch that at the time as he still quoted me for a 10kw system. He asked what the first company recommended and what our previous bills were and quoted from that. The photo he sent me of our roof was shaded out with 27 panels. The way i understood it was that we would have a system that allowed us to have enough energy to cover our own needs but I assumed we could benefit from selling the excess back to the grid.
I guess my point was if they know the energy provider in our area will limit our ability to geof anything beyond 6.6kw then why sell it? It is already very complex to understand and negotiate and I can see why people just don’t do anything at all. I really feel it is important to have solar but I don’t want to purchase a system that is expensive when we can’t make full use of it. I went from Quote from Green Solar of around $7,500 to 9,000 and then for Red Giant from $11,000 to 13,000. Those are massive variations for a system that I was never going to be able to use to sell back to the grid.
I am happy to concede my ignorance is likely the bigger issue in my case but I genuinely tried to educate myself but it is a very complicated thing to understand and there needs to be more transparency.
Now I’m back to scratch trying to figure out what systems we should consider. I would really appreciate some feedback on a baseline.
Thank you so much for reaching out.
Jill
It was the third quote that I sourced from your site, Western Sydney Solar who told me about Endeavour and what it meant in practice to have single phase or 3 phase.
I just meant that it sounds confusing for you. I totally get what you are saying, it really can be hard work buying solar unfortunately. But on the plus side, it sounds like you have got through the difficult bit.
It’s true, you will be limited to a 5kW inverter with Endeavour is my understanding, and as you point out, without a pool you’ll probably use a lot less power anyway. I think another couple of quotes from reputable companies around you make sense. Those companies we have listed on the Western Sydney solar page are just ones that I researched on the web that looked quite reputable. We don’t have any affiliation with them or anything to be clear. Some of the companies we list we do know, but not in the western Sydney area.
I hope you aren’t put off the whole thing Jill. Please let us know how you progress.
The sales and quote process with Red Giant Solar was confusing and inaccurate and made me give up and shop elsewhere. I was offered expensive 10kw systems despite not being able to utilise that size in my area and not having a 3 phase meter box. Then emailed quotes would not be the same as discussed on the phone, they would be more expensive with no clear reason. The quote would simply be the size of the system, the inverter, the panels - there was no comprehensive quote to tell you what would be included from beginning to end and post installation/warranty etc. He even asked me to put a deposit in the bank there and then so we wouldn’t miss the deal (it was about 6pm) which would only last for that week, so 2 days - we hadn’t even been sent the quote to read over at that time. He then sent me an angry email saying that I accused Red Giant Solar of attempting to defraud me. He said that RGS had 4 years in the industry. I had never mentioned RGS but in hindsight, 4 years in the industry is not experienced in my view. His manager made him apologise and offered a discount. I went elsewhere because I felt that he did not know enough about the industry or the products to answer my questions. We have since put a deposit down with Solaray Energy who so far provided a much more professional and knowledgeable interaction. We were quoted $5,300 for a 6.6kw SMA SunnyBoy inverter and 20 Trina Honey 330w split panels. The quote detailed exactly what we were purchasing, including all post installation/repairs/warranties etc. I shall update you after installation. Cheers. Jill