See discussion over in this UK Subreddit, as well as this additional source

https://www.pluginsolarhub.co.uk/uk-plug-in-solar-legal-27-august-2026.html

800W backfeed to the house is typical of most countries that allow this, I believe only Utah in the USA allows 1200W.

They also allow 2000W of panels which is also fairly common to allow for over panelling for generation in lower light.

But the big flaw is not allowing batteries. That means a lot of flexibility goes away, aside from allowing flexible time of use shifting to evening peaks, it gives a buffer to handle greater than 800W loads that you can directly connect to some Plug in Solar inverters instead of via the wall socket - the same way you'd connect to a power station / generator equivalent, eg loads up to 2400W.

Here's a demo of one of these at the 18 minute mark, which is an example of a more premium system.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=hvtihZMB-GM&t=18m15s

Yes batteries are more expensive but the standard should allow certified systems with appropriate protection, and let consumers decide what works for them.

Is it better to schlep around multiple installers or use a broker to get a range of quotes?

I’m just starting down the road of working out feasibility, and while I don’t want to waste anyone’s time I want to get a comprehensive understanding of my options before diving deep.

hi team, just got a quote from local installer

cost is $24,844, option to add more battery 5kwh for 3,000. i wonder if this is a good value? we're currently on old contact energy good nights, still free 9-12 both weekdays and weekend. we work from home runs heatpump pretty much whole day. family of 4, annual consumption is 11,800kwh.

opinion and experience appreciated!

Hi all, apologies for the long read. We, like many, are looking at solar to take the sting out of our electricity bills. We're in Auckland, a family of three but with a granny flat on our garage, that we Airbnb much of the time. Therefore we can be 3 people one day, 6 another, and that might mean people in the flat hammering the heatpump or whatever else. We're all electric - two hot water cylinders, electric cooking etc. We have a Nissan Leaf and one day would like to add a second EV.

Result is we can use a lot of power. 1400Kwh at our last bill(!). Winter, ducted heat pump, the car etc. and people in the flat also for that period. Like I said - high. Sparky mate has come to make sure no faulty thermostats or elements etc. and all clear. We just use a lot of power!

So, to solar.

The best proposed solution do far (at least in my view) is to have panels on both roofs with an inverter (and battery in future) on the house, and a slave inverter in the garage/flat. Therefore allowing more panels and also enabling power in an outage (nice to have) as the battery is on the house and not sending power back toward the grid in an outage. To me, this makes a lot of sense.

The house roof is 45 degrees I'd guess - quite steep in parts and a bit complicated in shape. Garage is a comparably shallow angle (maybe 20degrees?). In the image the panels are on East & West facing panels of roof. North is the top of the image.

Firstly...is there any reason this might be a poor idea?! Or is it as sensible as it sounds?

Secondly...how do I calculate what kind of generation capacity we would want (the 28 panels here supposedly generate about 16,000kwh per year which should cover about what we're using, if I understand correctly?).

Thirdly, some proposals have had 10kwh inverters, the above suggestion uses 2 x 8wk. Would the 2 x 8 combined give the best performance or are they being throttled by the fact they are split in two?

Thank you in advance for any answers or guidance...I'm feeling a little bamboozled by it and the need to compare apples with oranges with each quote.

We are about to install our solar setup, 21kw panels, 20kw inverter, and 20kwh batteries. Navigating the power company info regarding pricing is always a challenge, and adding the buyback rates, etc only makes it more complicated. We are planning on going open contract to start with until we have some info on our usage. Which companies and plans are you all liking? Cheers for the info from this group so far too.

I’ve been trying to use solar to charge my EV (VW iD4). I have a 3 phase grid-tied 10 kw PV system.

I have tried using Home Assistant to monitor export on each phase and trigger a smart plug to turn on the 8A charger that came with the car.

It’s not fast (1.8 kw) but I can only get about 3kw being exported on each phase, so I’m limited anyway.

All of this works as I’d hoped EXCEPT every time the charger is switched off by Home Assistant it will not charge the car when it’s switched back on again UNLESS I unplug the CS2 plug from the car and plug it back in again (this action causes some relay switch type sounds from the car). Then it’s all ok again. So I have a semi- automation, and that’s not really an automation at all 😬.

Any ideas much appreciated! I’m open to just buying a solar smart EV charger but I had hoped to DIY it.

Hi I see these are being installed around nz, three in Wellington where I live.

Does anyone know what's involved in connecting them to the grid or can they be treated like balcony solar?

Cheers

I know it's not solar but high chance someone here has them to compliment their solar

I’m getting my new Sigen system in the next couple of weeks (exact date TBC). If you have a referral code (and haven’t used it more than 10 times) let me know if you’d like me to enter it in my app. Then we both get a $200 Amazon voucher.

has anyone gone down the route of a trade depot system? there prices seem great, are they actually decent quality like the claim? and how much of a mission is it getting a solar installer to install without supplying? does it just end up costing heaps to install and therefore not even worth going for it?

would love to hear anyone else's opinions on if its even worth going down this route or best to just stick to a company that does supply and install

Cheers

Has anyone done these numbers? Probably a long shot.

Kia ora,

Signed on with Harrisons and after seeing what others have posted about their system costs, not sure i made the right decision.

18 panels - aiko neostar 3rd gen

8.82 kw

Fronius gen24

Catch power solar controller

$20k

Family of 5 with an electric car, so I felt like going solar was the right choice. My understanding is that the products are reputable and Harrisons is a company that should be around for a while so I knew I was paying a premium.

I'm planning on adding a battery in tbe future (2-3 years)

Is it that bad or am I being paranoid?

Going to go with a mono pitch roof in a high wind zone so looking to run a set of 20 odd panels of the front of the deck that is north facing. Is this a better plan than brackets on the roof? Foreseeable issues? Must be easier to clean for one thing 😎

Looking for advice for install options for high-energy consumption house in Chch (2A, 2children; lovers of warm rooms and hot showers! Someone home most of time).

Currently using at least 12K kWh/yr, excluding gas for hot water/ cooking (at a rate of ~9-10x 45kg cylinders/ year). Includes single (main vehicle) EV which we trickle charge overnight. Looking to (a) get solar installed and (b) move towards getting rid of gas. Any future vehicle purchases would be EV or PHEV.

Keen to know thoughts on

• a) recommended companies to get quotes from/ avoid
• b) experience (in the South) with external HWC. I'm thinking it prob makes most financial sense to spend $ on maximising solar generation and install a standard external HWC over the additional cost of heat pump HWC. I don't necessarily see this as our forever home, I suspect minimum 5+years here though.
• c) again advice for +/- battery install. I'm thinking with the right inverter/ smart system could use to offset peak consumption outside generating hours, vs additional cost when we are not sure we will def be here >7 years.
• d) would be nice to have a smart EV charger as part of set up but we've coped fine w trickle charging so not a deal breaker

Appreciate any advice and recommendations!!

Display from Fronius Solarweb just now. Cracked 10,000 kWh so far this year. Ignore earnings stat as Fronius can't see our other SMA inverter's feed properly and besides I haven't bothered to input actual FITs and supply rates. (15.5 kW of panels feeding 13.2 kW of inverters, no battery)

We've got a rural property with no mobile coverage and conseqently our smart meter doesn't communicate.

Which means that with retailers I've tried we can't get time-of-use, only interruptible hot water.

Is anyone in the same boat and had any luck with either:

• finding a retailer who can do TOU and manual reads
• getting a retailer to get them a smart meter upgrade to satellite-capable IoT modules (CAT-M1 or CAT-1).
• getting a system (Sigenergy or Tesla) configured to work with continuous and interruptible power

I am getting a 20 panel 10kw system installed next month. My budget currently doesn't extend to a battery. Is it true that only the initial installer can then install the battery at a later date? I have been told this by others as the CoC would cover both the PV/inverter system, and the batteries. That doesn't sound right to me. Has anyone got clarity on this matter?

Dear Hive-mind.

Can I eventually add a battery in parallel with an existing battery? -- that's it mostly.

I will have a household rooftop solar installation with a 15kWh battery. If I discover I need more capacity, can I just add another, say, 5kWh alongside the existing battery and get them wired in parallel?

(Heating is a big heat pump; car is electric, water heating is electric.)

So we're at the very beginning stages for designing a house build. We have decided that we are going solar, very likely off grid as well given that we are rural.

If we have excess power on a sunny day, if the battery is full, are we able to have that power automatically routed into something? For example something like a sauna, which could be turned on at any point.

In a perfect world, (depending on price) I want to install underground heating in the whole house via a hot water bore. I have a quote from a local drilling company, it's shockingly expensive (100k+) but it's our forever house and if I can make the numbers work then I'll go for it. This should cut down our energy needs dramatically to the point that the solar system can be a lot smaller as we won't need to heat the house or heat the hot water cylinder. Has anyone gone down this route before?

As soon as I have the money, or wait until after the election, or wait for tech to continue to improve? I have no idea

This is probably not the best sub for this - but this sub is probably the largest collection of people that actually monitor their power usage.

I’ve had a heat pump dryer for a few years now and I’ve not been impressed with its performance. I have energy monitoring on almost high drain devices and the dryer is no exception. I found when running, it pulls 4-600W and takes roughly 3-4 hours to complete a load. It can be longer for bulky items like bedding and towels. So, at average draw of 500 W for 3.5 hours, that’s a total of 1.75 kWh per load.

Before this, I had an old nasty element dryer (some Electrolux thing) which was ducted outside so all the humid air goes outside the house. This thing got crazy hot, pulled ~1800W and was done drying in 45 minutes to an hour. Additionally it had no problems with bulky items like sheets and towels. So that’s a total of 1.8 kWh per load.

As you can see, the difference in energy usage is virtually zero in practical terms.

Except the heat pump dryer seems to use the same amount of power, costs twice as much if not more, takes 3-4x as long to do a load.

That last bit becomes a real paint point on days when we have to run multiple loads at once (eg if the dog had an accident, or just bedding wash days) - something that would’ve been wrapped up in 3 hours for two loads becomes a full day job if not more because I have other things going on in life, I’m not just sitting there watching this thing to complete so I can put another load in it.

The only real “benefit” of heat pump dryers is that they don’t seem to get as hot as element types. This makes them a little bit better for your clothes. Although - I’m not out here shopping designer labels, I don’t mind a little extra wear and tear.

So in other words, heat pump dryers are expensive to buy, offer nearly no power savings and actually cost you money once you factor in the time costs.

I’ve spoken to a few people who also have heat pump dryers and their experiences largely mirror mine.

I’m thinking of getting rid of this thing and just getting another kind of dryer altogether. Personally I’d rather have it pull 1.8 kW for an hour and be done and ready for the next load, rather than 0.5 kW for 3 hours.

This isn’t a hit piece on heat pump tech. I know it works great, I have a full house ducted aircon that keeps my house comfortable all year round but it feels like there’s no real benefit to heat pump dryers whatsoever.

Anyone else have any data or comments to add?