Hi BB, I live about 400km North of Perth on the coast in WA which gets plenty of sunshine normally, even in winter.
The panels are on my shed which faces North (10deg West of North) and is in complete full sun all year. The best output I've had so far is 41 units in a day. Our normal usage has been about 40 units per day over 24hrs. Although with the changes below we've got it down to about 33 a day. With our net feed-in tariff of 47c per unit I'm well in front on those days I get close to 40. I've shifted our pool pump to come on outside of daylight hours. We also now use the dishwasher and washing machine at night time as much as possible.
I've changed all of our R80 light bulbs over to the compact fluorescent type, my next project is to change the 50 Watt halogen downlights in the kitchen (17 of the blighters on 3 switches) to the new LED type. That will be quite expensive but should be worth it in the long run. When they're all on, they draw 850 Watts but the LEDs will only use about 120 Watts. All of these measures help reduce our daytime usage and maximise our feed-in tariff earnings.
I've also installed an electric boosted 3 panel split level solar hot water system about 3 months ago (No gas where we are unfortunately). During this summer we haven't had to turn on the booster once. Will be interested to see how the HWS performs in winter.
Everyone can make small changes to reduce their energy consumption and save money. I've made some pretty heavy investments in my place (Solar power system ~$20,000 & Solar hot water system ~$4,000) but in a reasonably short timeframe of about 6 years this investment will have paid for itself.
Anything after that will be a bonus until eventually the inverter or the hot water tank will need replacing.
The suntech panels have a 85% power rating after 25 years so they'll outlast me I reckon.
