The Victorian Energy and Water Ombudsman, Fiona McLeod, said that six months ago there were 17 complaints a month but they had now reached 141 a month....There are issues with the safety of some of the installations, but apart from that, there is the economic issue:
In November the state government lifted the rate Victorian households are paid for power they put back into the grid to 66 cents a kilowatt. But in switching to solar, many households have lost the discount rates they had for using off-peak power to run hot-water systems, reverse-cycle air-conditioners and in-floor heating.Yes, I would be mighty annoyed too if spending $5000 or more on solar resulted in higher electricity bills.
The loss of those discounts has resulted in thousands of Victorian households being hit with higher power bills after switching to solar.
Apart from the link above, here's a longer article detailing the practical problems with installing solar. It includes this bit concerning the size of solar systems, about which I had been curious, because it seems that many companies lately have been advertising smaller systems, many just barely over one kilowatt:
Consumer Affairs Victoria and Energy Safe Victoria have been made aware of supposedly dodgy private operators who are either bringing in inferior panels from countries such as China, or installing the panels without adhering to the AS3000 standard for wiring.Lots of problems yet to be sorted out.These systems are not capable of generating the claimed one-kilowatt output.
A source at one power distributor told The Age homes with a standard one-kilowatt solar system, as recommended under Canberra's scheme, would ''very rarely'' contribute any power back to the grid and earn money for a household.
''Unless it's a sunny day, and a good quality panel, and not one of the cheap imports, a one-kilowatt system can barely power the fridge and hot water system, let alone feed any meaningful power back.''
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