About Finn PeacockI'm a Chartered Electrical Engineer, Solar and Energy Efficiency nut, dad, and the founder of SolarQuotes.com.au. I started SolarQuotes in 2009 and the SolarQuotes blog in 2013 with the belief that it’s more important to be truthful and objective than popular. My last "real job" was working for the CSIRO in their renewable energy division. Since 2009, I’ve helped over 800,000 Aussies get quotes for solar from installers I trust. Read my full bio.
There’s a certain kind of energy advice that just won’t die. You’ve probably heard it:
Switch off appliances at the wall. Phantom loads are stealing your electricity!
That made sense twenty years ago. Back when power bricks got properly hot. Back when standby meant drawing tens of watts. These days? Not so much.
Last week, I got 30 kWh of batteries, 14 kW of solar, an EV charger and a few new power points installed at my commercial property. The job took five days. The owner of the solar business and his apprentice turned up every day and absolutely worked their guts out: in the cold, on ladders, heads down, doing careful, beautiful, and at times dangerous work.
I was in awe of the effort, precision, and professionalism required to do this work well – especially right now, with installers flat out trying to keep up with the surge in demand driven by the July 1 start date of the federal battery rebate.
Today is the winter solstice. The darkest day of the year. If you’ve got solar on your roof, this is about as bad as it gets.
Which makes it the perfect time to ask: Is your system pulling its weight when you need it most?
With the federal battery rebate kicking in from July 1, demand for home battery quotes has gone ballistic.
It’s not hard to see why. Thousands of dollars in subsidies. Rising grid prices. More households with solar. And batteries finally starting to feel like part of the modern home, not a science experiment bolted to the garage wall.
A little while back, SolarQuotes’ in-house installer Anthony Bennett wrote a solid post on a niche issue: whether power and data cables can run in the same conduit.
It’s okay to boycott Tesla products.
If Elon Musk’s tweets make your teeth itch, if his politics repulse you, or if his general vibe just gives you the ick, fair enough. Buying something is emotional and if seeing a Tesla logo in your garage would make you miserable, you shouldn’t buy one. [Read more…]
Every now and then, someone pops up on Facebook with a gripe:
“SolarQuotes lets installers in their network who work from home!!! 🤬”
The sun appears to be setting on the premium offerings from high-end solar brands.
I’ve got top-of-the-range REC Alpha panels on my roof. I’m a solar snob.
Or at least, I was.
Labor’s back in power, and now the battery rebate is locked in.
From July 1, Australians will be able to knock about $4,000 off a home battery. The goal? A million new batteries by 2030. Based on the number of quote requests we’ve seen at SolarQuotes, up 5x since election night, this is going to move the needle fast.
As an ex-pommie, compulsory voting still feels a bit odd to me.
Skip it and you’ll cop a $20 fine — more than it costs to fill your EV on off-peak electricity.
What’s really strange, though, isn’t the voting. It’s the energy policies on offer — and how little they match what the major parties claim to believe.
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