Posts By Anthony Bennett On SolarQuotes

Bound in Red Tape: NSW Tries to Fix Its Battery Rebate

The NSW Government has been seeking advice on improving the Peak Demand Reduction Scheme, as it works to harmonise the state battery incentive in anticipation of a federal rebate. Here’s how the bureaucrats are working to fix a myriad of problems, and what installers want to see changed.

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How To Get Off Ducted Gas Before It Sucks Up All Your Money

thermal image of wall insulation

Winter is coming and the glorified tents that we call houses in Australia are getting cold, which means people with ducted gas heating are basically setting fire to money to keep warm. But ducted gas systems don’t only suck up your cash: they suck at heating efficiently too. Here’s how to replace them.

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Do You Really Need To Bin Your Solar To Get The Battery Rebate?

Old solar panel test resultsMillions of solar panels are expected to be chucked out as a result of the federal government’s home battery rebate. But do you really need to throw your system in the bin, and if so, what should you replace it with?

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Rushing Into The Battery Rebate: Careful, We Haven’t Seen The Fine Print

A home battery with warning labelsLabor’s Cheaper Home Batteries Program only begins in July, but a promise that Australians can get a battery now and claim the rebate later has triggered a rush on installers. There’s just one problem: the rebate technically doesn’t exist yet, and neither does the fine print. Here’s why you should tread carefully.
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Shade Happens: When Autumn Shadows Creep Across Your Solar

palm tree shading solar panels on a roof
As we get deeper into autumn, the days are growing short and the shadows are growing longer — which is bad news for your solar if a massive palm tree happens to be positioned in the wrong spot. Here’s how an array set up in one season can be set up to fail for another.

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Wiring Wrangles: How Power And Data Make Electricians Bicker

data cable and EVSE supply wiring

SolarQuotes recently detailed the fairly difficult installation of a home EV charger and sure enough, the electricians turned up in the comments section to start arguing about it.

Read on while we explain that you don’t always have to put data cable in its own pipe.

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We Can’t Let Labor’s Battery Cash Cause A Grid Crash

An average Australian suburban house belching black smoke from an industrial stack

There’s plenty of understandable excitement about Labor’s Cheaper Home Batteries Program election pitch. What I’m not so excited about is subsidising a wave of suburban survival-of-the-fittest types to disconnect from a grid that urgently needs more storage.

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Solar Analytics Users Plagued By Dropouts

telecommunication signal strength graph

Solar Analytics has long offered some of the best energy monitoring software on the market, but some customers recently have been plagued by dropouts and poor customer support. We’ve investigated to see what’s going on.

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Off Grid in the ‘Burbs? That’s FreeDumb

Man triumphantly cutting down a utility power pole

Every week without fail we see multiple comments, quotes or exasperated exclamations along these lines;

“BUGGER THIS; I’M GOING OFF GRID..!”

It’s a natural reaction to a nasty power bill and expresses a desire to be independent and free of obligation. But becoming your own power company is expensive, fraught with risk and really doesn’t make sense.

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Brand Name, Botched Game: Cheap Installs Of Quality Solar

Solar panel installers working at night

Solar panels don’t keep working into the night, and neither should solar installers.

Ever heard an installer promise a premium brand of solar panel, battery or inverter for an absolute bargain? As the old saying goes: if something seems too good to be true, it probably is. Here’s why good quality gear doesn’t always mean a good quality job.

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