How to sell power back to the grid
PV-TV EPISODE 4: How much solar power can a home sell back to the grid?
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How to sell power back to the grid?
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welcome to episode 4 of PV TV which is
the solar TV show yeah yeah it's like a
TV show we answer all your solar
questions and today's question comes
again from Claire who's one of the
lovely ladies who works here upstairs
who said to me today she said Sam just a
second question on the show four
episodes in Claire you're a gun so
today's question comes from Claire who
asked me how much power can you sell
back to the grid on to the power lines
from your solar system like if you have
a solar system when your house and
you're selling power back to the grid
what's the limit on that well the short
answer is there is no limit on how much
you can sell back to the grid it's great
don't put a limit on you insane thank
you for watching
they don't say well you know we'll cap
you with ten killer hours a day yeah so
that's great yeah but what they do limit
is at what rate you're gonna push power
back into the power lines is shot so to
expand on that a little bit yeah is that
different distributors owning the power
lines across the country mm-hmm and
they've got their infrastructure set up
and it's only set up to handle a certain
amount of power running through it at a
certain time yeah so they so that's why
I don't mind how much power you put in
total in cities like over the whole day
a whole day yeah but at any given time
and if they put a limit on that yeah
it's generally about five kilowatts yeah
yes that's for to protect the
infrastructure I'll protect them as a
child cuz I've always everyone put huge
systems on their houses yeah so all that
as much power as they could transformers
would explode yeah and it would be good
that wouldn't be negative so the the
guys who are in the Palance and that
they're different to the people selling
you the power they're the retailers they
are the ones that change the money hmm
the people we're talking about actually
build the lines and take care of it and
maintain our great systems that we have
they are the ones who say how much you
can sell it one by the other ones who
say it yeah now in Victoria I know the
most the most common amount we have here
where we are is about five kilowatts to
ten kilowatt gets at any one moment go
solar system it's pretty much
the same across Australia will range
from about five to ten kilowatts in a
moment yeah it's pretty that's correct
yeah now if we do some simple maths and
say that on average you'll sell it for
about ten cents back back to the power
lines we're talking about the average is
about five kilowatts you can sell an
hour yeah climbs up by average sunlight
conservatively let's say four hours per
state in Australia so you get four hours
average sunlight a day the average
system size is five kilowatts yep so the
average system size is 20 kilowatts if
you were to sell all your power each day
yeah
for the current rate of 10 cents at five
kilowatts now which are allowed to do
sherrilyn to do you how much money would
you make two bucks all right
is that right an hour are they a day
yeah it's like 600 bucks a year it's not
amazing yeah and that's saying that
we're exporting all of the whole five
kilowatt every an average four hours
yeah so that's why I mean this doesn't
mean that you can't put a bigger system
on then 10 kilowatts it's just there's
it just means all you can there's export
or send five kilowatts back into the
lines so there's little computers and
monitors that can what's called export
women yeah a system so you can have a
nice big 10 15 kilowatt system on there
takes care of your pool pumps and all
your usage during the day and the little
controller and just monitors the whole
system it only ever since five kilowatts
apps of greedy social situation we do
get people who are just sending five
cards and consistently making capital
bucks off of their export yeah that's
also taking care of their usage yeah
which is great and something I've always
said to people when sizing up a solar
system is to put a few extra panels or
an extra kilowatt or if you've seen our
other videos over size your inverter so
pull a couple more panels on the
inverter then it's rated for what you're
allowed to do and in doing that it's
gonna mean that you're more likely to be
selling power more often yes still
within your limit and that extra power
you sell what we said it's two bucks a
day if you sell it to the general
average Lynn
of your average size system you make
about 2 bucks today sorry if you have
that and so you're only going to sell
half which is more realistic you make
about a dollar a day yeah and now I'm a
big campaigner for this because the
dollar a day you make while it's not
huge it's enough to cover your
connection fee which is which is you
tell us a bit more about the connection
fee the connection piece is basically
just a daily charge everyone has to pay
yeah just to have them made a connected
and on and functioning on that home yeah
doesn't that doesn't mean doesn't
include any power yeah it's just to have
the major sitting there and turned on
yeah and so there's nothing you can do
about that fee
aside from selling a dollars worth of
electricity back to the powerlines each
day and using that potentially to offset
your meter charge it's just a dollar you
have to pay each day just to have the
meter stuck to your house yes and this
is good because they get a lot of people
ask the question whether it's on
pictures that we put up on our pages on
Facebook and stuff or videos and people
say yeah well it's all well and good to
get a solar system and it's all well and
good to get a battery but I'm still
going to be paying my connection charge
on my daily connection fee yeah so how
does that work and that's the answer you
can actually sell your excess power each
day and that's generally enough to come
out that dollar so your battery plus
your solar prop lasts a bit extra you
sell which pays your connection fee is a
potential scenarios to get you to $0
electricity bills or even into credit a
little bit with your power company and
we do have people like this we have yeah
we'd have many many customers who have
batteries solar they export the extra
are they pay the connection charged with
it and with the leftover they start
building a credit yeah with the power
company which is unbelievable yeah what
people pay for a power these days yep
anything else I really I mean if you've
got three-phase there's a good this is a
good one it's kind of funny they jump
from five kilowatts per phase on a
single phase to some distributors will
give you ten kilowatts per phase on
every date
yeah so it goes from 5 to 30 kilowatts a
late push back in yeah which is is
awesome but yeah just good to keep in
mind doesn't mean you can't get a bigger
system than five yeah
you can't sell it just means you can't
sell more than the art kill it at a time
to get it to the bow lines that's a
really good point because we have heard
the people say before I've been told I
can only have this size system well it's
not always the case sometimes the
distributor will say you can only have
this size system but generally what
they're saying at least here in
Australia is you can only have this size
system to sell back but you can actually
put more or a bigger system to help
supply a house as long as you're not
selling more than the limit and like you
were saying earlier you can limit that
with computers and devices that will
make sure you're always within the
distributors regulation of what you're
selling
but you've got a huge solar system on
your house you're not paying any bills
and you're selling all the extra so some
people do do that yeah it's the way
around it now just to recap you
mentioned three-phase power and that's
for people who have most people have one
power line coming to the home off the
street some people have three power
lines coming to their home off the
street now yeah it's not coming if you
haven't you probably know about it and
what you were just saying is if you have
that sort of setup it means you can
sometimes sell even more so yeah back to
the power lines then most people would
be able to and more likely to go into
credit
yeah also thank you so much for watching
episode 4 episode 4 episode 4 of PV TV
where we answer all your solar questions
get any questions about solar and
batteries leave them in the comments
below and we look forward to answering
them for you soon take care
