Yatai Restaurant

Project Goals

The owners (Atsushi & Barbara Taniyama) believe that installing a solar PV system was a good way to reduce their power bill. The restaurant uses a large amount of power every day running a variety of fridges and freezers. The production of electricity via the solar system closely matches their average daytime consumption; therefore the Taniyama's assumed 85% of the power generated would be used rather than fed back to the grid.

Project Design

The solar arrays were installed on two separate roof spaces: the restaurant and the adjoining shed with a total combined system capacity of 9.54kW. The roof is facing North West 10º which is ideal for the yield.

The 36 Mitsubishi 265W panels were installed in two equal arrays, 18 panels on the shed and 18 on the restaurant. The panels are connected into 4 strings and each string has 9 panels. The panels on the shed are tilted 5 degrees and on the restaurant 20 degrees.

The panels were connected to a 15kW Goodwee inverter which converts the DC power to AC power and sends electricity to the sub-board of the switch box.

Project Outcome

Over the last 12 months the system has produced 11710 kWh. The expected savings, based on the retail rate of 24.81c/kWh and export rate of 10c/kWh in winter and 7c/kWh in summer are around $2600/year.