Solar Power Consultation Process

Powersmart Solar offers all prospective customers a personalised, obligation free quote. The consultation process is designed to determine your requirements and the suitability of your location to adequately advise you of the system that best suits your solar project needs.

The following is an overview of a few questions and points which we will go over with you:

Are you after a grid-connect or an off-grid system?

-    Are you already connected to the grid?
-    Or can you connect to the grid?

If you are already connected to the grid, or can do so at a reasonable cost, then we will recommend a grid connected system.

Grid Connect

A grid connected solar system is a solar photovoltaic system without batteries. Your home is connected to both the national grid and your Powersmart Solar system so you will always have electricity available at the flick of a switch; even at night, or if it is cloudy. With a grid connected solar power system you are free to install the system size that best suits your needs.  Grid connected solar power systems require no changes to your home and place no limitations on your lifestyle or electricity use. They simply integrate directly with your home and generate electricity during the day for use directly inside your home or for export to the grid.

Off-grid

Solar power is commonly used in remote locations where network electricity is not available and/or connecting to network electricity is very expensive.  Being off the grid with solar power requires you to consider many more factors than you would if you were grid connected.  We recommend our customers fill out a simple energy audit in order to understand their likely electrical loads and consumption patterns.  This helps us recommend which off grid solar power system is the best fit for the application.

Generally customers who are off grid are conscious of their electricity consumption patterns and their appliance efficiency as these are key to reducing their off grid system needs and to an affordable off grid system.

The consultation process to quote on an off grid system is more complicated than a grid connect system. It requires the oversight of an engineer to ensure that the sizing of the system will meet your energy requirements during winter months and to ensure proper functioning and life expectancy of your system. It also requires your cooperation to get us the energy consumption patterns for which the system will be built around. We will only recommend systems that will meet your energy requirements and will withstand the test of time.

Grid-Connected system process

Determining an appropriate system size.

There are a number of points to consider with this question:

•    How much electricity you would like to produce
•    Your useable roof space
•    Your budget

Our quotes aim to provide you with enough information to give you a good idea of our system capabilities. One of our sales representatives can provide you with some further insight and advice should you want additional guidance in finding a system that will suit your needs and targets.

How much electricity would you like to produce?

An easy and accurate way to determine your yearly electricity consumption is to look at your power bill and look for your annual electricity consumption (kWh or unit), or you may want to call your electricity provider. Otherwise, feel free to use our Solar Power Savings Calculator tool to assist you with this exercise.

With your yearly electricity consumption (kWh) data in hand, your sales representative will be able to recommend a range of system sizes that will be able to offset more or less all of your electricity consumption. This is where the other two considerations outlined above come into play.

Your useable roof space

If your goal is to offset all of your electricity consumption from a solar power system we will have to ensure that you have the available roof space; ideally directly north facing but any direction with any North is suitable, as can be seen in this table Solar System Performance. Using your roof as a location for the solar system is the most cost effective and practical option as this space is usually unutilised. The alternative is to ground mount the system and this usually requires a non-shaded area, a ground mount (built to specifications) and a cable run which do incur additional costs.

In some instances, the requirement for the solar system may exceed the available roof space or land that you have available. We offer layouts to our customers as a way to easily visualise the physical footprint of the solar array on the roof or at your location.

In other instances, you will have several options to place the array and your sales representative will be able to help you navigate through the pros and cons of the different layout options.

Your budget

Even with the recent pricing drop in systems, solar power systems are still a considerable investment. Your goal may be to offset all of your electricity consumption but you may not be able to budget it all right away. Your sales representative can advise you on smaller system options to offset a portion of your electricity bill and help you plan the next stage of your solar system upgrade.

What type of roof do you have?

Different roof types change the pricing slightly due to the difference in mounting components required and the related installation time. There are three main categories which roof types fit into:

•    Flush mounted system for tin, tin tile, bitumen, butyl membrane, ... roofs that have a slope > 10 degrees;
•    Flush mounted system for tile roofs;
•    Tilt mounted systems for roofs which have a pitch <10 degrees.

To determine the suitability of your roof space for a solar array we use satellite images to view your property. On occasion these pictures will be unclear and we will require some house/roof plans from you so that we can make this assessment or follow up with a site visit.

Tilt mounting systems decrease the amount of maintenance required and usually also increase system performance.

Which system components offered would you like more information about?

We currently offer two system configurations, the difference lies in the solar panel manufacturer.
•    Suntech - is a brand name and is one of the largest manufacturers of solar panels in the world. They are listed on NYSE.
•    SunRise – is a new company that is aggressively looking to expand its customer base; they have manufactured panels on the behalf of Suntech and are backed by insurance firm CHUBB.

Physically and electrically they are practically the same, both are:
•    190W mono crystalline – 24V panels
•    Size: 1580mm x 808mm x 35mm

Both brands have the same length warranties:
•    10 year limited product warranty
•    25 year performance warranties

Solar panels are the most reliable component in the solar system.  We are confident in recommending both solar modules.  The 190W mono crystalline panel is the most common panel on the market today, should anything happen to one of your panels that is not covered by any warranties or insurance it would be easy to source a similar panel to replace it.  There are no moving parts in the panels and as such they will sit on your roof for over 25 years continuously transforming sunlight into electricity.

The most critical component in the system is your inverter. We only offer the best inverter options to ensure system reliability and performance.
•    SMA (www.sma.de/en/ ) are the leading and largest manufacturer of grid-tie inverters in the world. Reliable and leading edge technology made in Germany. We use their inverters on all of our 3kW+ sized grid-tie systems.
•    Enasolar (www.enasolar.net/) are New Zealand based and NZ’s leading inverter manufacturer. They are our inverter manufacturer choice for all of our grid-tie systems up to 3kW.

Should you switch your energy retailer?

When your system produces electricity above and beyond your consumption it is fed back into the grid. The electricity goes through your meter so that your energy retailer keeps track of the total electricity (kWh) that you export back to the grid and credits your account accordingly; this has the potential to substantially reduce or eliminate your power bill. The amount of credit you receive for excess electricity (kWh) fed back into the grid depends on your energy retailer. The table below shows results of research we’ve conducted into which energy retailer provides the best rates:
 

Please note that we are unable to switch energy retailers on your behalf. We can organise the rest of the paperwork for you as outlined in the ‘Why Powersmart Solar’ section.