Quest for the geeks, power geeks....

[DucksNuts]

Our local government is offering a really cool grid interactive Solar Power System rebate, where you can get an $8000 1 kW solar PV system for out of pocket expenses of $1600.

This system will produce approx. 4.0kW hr/day, my useage for the last 91 days was 62 kWh...which is RIDICULOUS!! but we had the really bad heatwave...last year for the same period I was using 11.8 kWh.

So, do any of our resident geeks have any solar power experience? offer any advice?

This system will feed back into the grid during off peak times (at work etc) and my hot water (which is still power at this stage) will still cost me because the PV sytem wont work at nite, but I should be putting enough into the grid to cover this I hope.

Thoughts? Opinions?

My brother set up his whole weekend cabin on solar power, so I will pick his brain, but he's away up in the mountains with no phone coverage.