Posts By Ronald Brakels, Author & Fact-Checker At SolarQuotes

One Month: Time Between Tesla Lowering EV Prices & Raising Them

one month on a calendar

One month after lowering their EV prices in Australia, Tesla has bounced them up again and added $400 to all Model 3 and Model Y electric vehicles.  [Read more…]

Federal Energy Rebates: Solar Households May Come Out Ahead

piggy bank house with solar

Electricity Price Hikes Incoming…

If you live in an eastern state —  or that middle state called South Australia strapped to them by a couple of transmission lines — then in July, you’ll be hit with hefty electricity price increases. [Read more…]

Solar Analytics Ditches 3G Lifetime Subscriptions – Discover Your Rights and Next Steps

sad solar analytics

Solar Analytics Is Taking Away My Lifetime Subscription — What Can I Do?

Solar Analytics provides a solar monitoring service for households.  It’s one of the better ones available and it’s not difficult to find people who say it is the best.  It requires a subscription and, currently, you can pay for it by the month, the year, or five years.  In the past, Solar Analytics sold lifetime subscriptions but they have decided people with older 3G monitoring hardware with lifetime subscriptions will lose them.  This will occur before either these people or the solar systems being monitored are dead. [Read more…]

We Want More Women Working In Solar: Here’s The Plan.

female solar installer Australia

Image Credit: Finn Peacock and his AI helper

The solar industry’s getting serious about gender balance. The Smart Energy Council’s Gender Action Plan (GAP) sets the stage for an estrogen-fueled transformation and was unveiled in a webinar last week.

I mean, come on, a measly one-third of the solar workforce are women, and the Smart Energy Council says they’re mostly in admin, with a smaller number in sales and very few up on roofs installing systems. [Read more…]

The Net Zero Australia Report & The $7-9 Trillion Panic

The Net Zero Australia Report came out on Friday, and I gotta tell ya, it’s a doozy!  It’s so enormous the report’s summary report is 95 pages.  It would take me a month of Sundays to get through the whole thing, but I have exactly one Sunday, so I’ll quickly say what it’s about and describe how you’re likely to see its results abused online and in the media. [Read more…]

CATL Condensed Battery Promises 1,000km Range EVs

slide from CATL condensed battery launch

Have CATL Won The Battle For High Specific Energy?

Last week the world’s largest battery manufacturer — CATL — launched a new high-specific-energy battery.  If used in a typical EV today, it would improve its range by over 80% with no increase in battery pack weight.  It may also have applications in shipping and aviation.  CATL call it a condensed battery — or at least they do in their English media release.  It may sound less stupid in Chinese. [Read more…]

$6,000 QLD EV Rebate: You May Be Better Off Without It

a car made from $100 bills on top of a map of queensland

Crikey! $6,000 Off EVs In QLD!

Good news for banana benders wanting to own an EV.  The Queensland Government has increased their state’s rebate for new electric vehicles from $3,000 to $6,000.  But that’s not the only good news.  Their announcement contains three juicy bursts of electric mobility goodness: [Read more…]

A Deep Dive Into The Tesla Powerwall Warranty

The Tesla Powerwall is by far the most famous home battery on the market.  The major drawback is that they don’t come cheap.

Most people would probably expect such a well-known and well-reputed bit of kit to have an excellent warranty.  And as it happens, that’s a fairly accurate conclusion — at least relative to many other home battery warranties — and it should last most households a full 10 years. However, as always, there are some caveats. [Read more…]

Australians Pay $4,000 Less Than Americans For Tesla Model 3 RWD

An AI generated Model3 in the Aussie Outback

Image Credit: MidJourney/Finn

In good news for Americans: Tesla cut electric car prices yesterday. In good news for Australians, we’re still paying less than Americans for the cheapest Model 3 (excluding government charges or incentives).

[Read more…]

Sungrow Warranty: Inverter = Good. Internet Dongle = Crap.

Sungrow warranty analysis

Sungrow is a giant manufacturer of solar inverters.  A huge number are installed on and in homes across the country, so it’s a good thing their written warranty is among the best in the industry.  Unfortunately, the warranty is still far from perfect. [Read more…]

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