I reside in a three-bedroom home in Fitzroy, which was designed by Kennedy Nolan, and constructed round eight years in the past. I need to admit, on the time of constructing, I wasn’t anyplace close to as aware of sustainable design as I’m now.

On the time, the architects did suggest putting in photo voltaic on our roof — however as is so usually the case, this was one of many first parts we scrapped in a bid to get the construct over the road inside finances.

So, quick ahead to 2023, and it’s lastly time to revisit the solar energy query.

I began the journey by researching photo voltaic suppliers. I’ve obtained to say, there are some cowboys on the market! As a common rule, I’d say go together with a photo voltaic supplier who’s personally advisable by somebody . In my case, I reached out to architect Jeremy McLeod (of Nightingale / Breathe Structure) and he was unequivocal in his recommendation — ‘You want to converse to BREC‘.

BREC is a small-ish Melbourne based mostly photo voltaic supplier, who’re actually obsessed with what they do. I obtained in contact through e mail, and we organised a time for photo voltaic specialist Luke Serdar to come back out to my place and suss my rooftop.

First although, Luke requested me for a bit of information. To be able to do his homework earlier than our first assembly, he wished to see 12 months of our family electrical energy payments, so he may get a very good image of our power utilization throughout totally different seasons. These payments have been simple to obtain from my power supplier’s web site.

Luke additionally requested to see our ‘interval knowledge’ which was slightly more durable to get. It is a extra detailed report (it seems like a loopy excel spreadsheet) and I needed to particularly request it from my power supplier. Luke wanted this knowledge to get a very detailed image of our power use throughout a typical 24 hour interval. This, I learnt, is essential — as a result of to get essentially the most about of any photo voltaic system, ideally you need your energy to be generated on the precise time of day that it’s worthwhile to use it.

I collected and handed on all the information Luke wanted, and a few weeks later, he got here spherical for a chat!

Luke is aware of a LOT about photo voltaic. Assembly him was like a crash-course in renewable power! After analysing our energy payments, he had a superb understanding of how a lot energy our house wanted to run, each in summer season and winter. He confirmed me some graphs of our power consumption and I used to be quietly fairly happy to be taught that our family power use is sort of low for a household of three! It’s because our home has good pure gentle, and is fairly nicely oriented and insulated, so we’re fairly frugal in our use of heating and cooling.

Luke additionally confirmed us a graph of a ‘typical day’ of power use at our place. It was attention-grabbing to see how our power use spikes from about 7am to 9am once we all get up and prepare for varsity and work, then we have now very minimal power wants through the center of the day (sadly that’s precisely when the solar is shining!) and all of it gears again up once more from 6pm to about 11pm once we’re at house utilizing lights and cooking dinner. It was actually helpful to begin to perceive this, as a result of that is what informs Luke’s suggestion for our photo voltaic system — together with the sort and amount of panels we’ll want, and what course/s they need to ideally face to maximise the power captured, on the occasions we’d like it.

After one assembly with Luke I undoubtedly felt much more knowledgeable and extra conscious of the particular power my family wants, and what I can realistically count on from photo voltaic. In a number of weeks, Luke will share a proposal with me and a few quotes, and we’ll get began putting in photo voltaic on my roof — keep tuned!

Impressed to hitch me by yourself Inexperienced Power Journey? If you wish to play alongside at house (and I hope you do!) I’ve put collectively a to-do record for you! Merely get these duties achieved over the subsequent 4 weeks, and keep tuned for my subsequent instalment, the place we evaluation photo voltaic quotes, resolve on the fitting system and begin the set up course of!

Inexperienced Power Journey, Stage 1 : To-Do Listing

1. Obtain 12 months of electrical energy payments
2. Contact your power supplier and request your electrical energy ‘interval knowledge’ (this will likely take every week or so for them to offer)
3. Contact a photo voltaic supplier, and request a gathering or cellphone dialog to get the method began!

Not prepared for photo voltaic? You possibly can nonetheless play your half in constructing Australia’s renewable future, by selecting renewable power, wherever you may.

Momentum Power are owned by Australia’s largest renewable power generator.  Signal as much as one in every of Australia’s greenest energy corporations.