Don’t Bet The House On Cheap Batteries – We’ll All Pay Twice

After 17+ years experiencing the ebb and flow of the solar industry, the sheer number of new battery brands available right now is mind boggling.

To me the only thing more confusing is this; why do people peg their expectations so low when they see a rock bottom price?

If you’re happy to buy a top quality Toyota, because it’s established, reputable, reliable and has better resale value, you’d probably sneer at a “Calcutta Cruiser” as being a poor substitute, even if it had a great warranty.

So when it comes to your house, why on earth would you screw down the cheapest cladding or slap the tackiest paint onto your most expensive asset? Saving a few bucks up front on some brand nobody’s heard of, installed by a pop up sales company, with potential for damage and roof leaks thrown in; it just seems crazy.

OH? What a Feeling.

Especially while fretting about the return on investment, which never enters the conversation when buying a car, couch or companion animal.

Keeping Up With The Joneses

While I’ve never really understood the desire for haute couture handbags, fashionable shoes or designer dogs, I’ve seen first hand the big tough tradies surveying their mates on social media, to get advice on buying a dual cab ute. The major decision seems to be balancing budget against whether they’ll be laughed at on site.

Basically it was all about making sure your choice of vehicle didn’t open you up to jokes about oppressed minorities, loosing footy teams or hairdressers.

So why then are people proud to skimp on their energy infrastructure? I’ve even seen a non-solar electrician bragging about diddling a sales company. His significant other photoshopped an advert and presented it as proof to a retailer, who matched the bogus price. They’re all getting what they deserve, I guess.

Cheap junk covered in irrelevant labels and bad conduit work. I’d hate to see what it’s like behind the covers.

Do You Have $15 Grand Down The Back Of The Couch?

Before you blow thousands of my tax dollars on a novelty oversized battery, you must ask yourself a pretty simple question.

Can you afford an additional $30,000 from your own pocket to replace it?

Remember this is a one off incentive, you don’t get a second chance. Think about what happens if the no name hardware stops working, the seller stops answering the phone and the importer no longer exists. There’s $20,000 down the drain.

You’ll need more money to replace it, plus having close to half a tonne of liability on your hands. At $7/kilo to dispose of that’s an eye watering $3300 for a 50kWh/ battery.

And all of us will be poorer as billions of dollars worth of government-subsidised gear suddenly becomes scrap.

This Aussie Solar Junk was recently submitted to us as an example of “best quality work”. With incorrect labels, pointless bollards and non-compliant wiring, this is an example of the installers we reject at SolarQuotes.

What’s a Reasonable Price Then?

If you’d have asked me early last year what is a reasonable price to pay for solar and energy storage I would have said I don’t know, I’m just a semi-retired installer. Though I’m not much good for carrying panels aloft these days, it means I’m lucky to enough stretch my own beer budget to champagne equipment.

For a ballpark, the general advice on solar was this; out of pocket cost is a dollar per watt.

In other words, you want to pay $1000 per kilowatt of capacity on your roof, installed by a reputable company with track history, a little more or less could vary on the difficulty or equipment chosen.

Fifty cents per watt spent with a used sports star on TV would likely buy you nothing but pain.

This advice stood for a few years straight, as the annual reduction in the STC incentives roughly tracked the declining price of solar panels. Effectively the glass on your roof was “free” because the rebate still covered the cost, it was the inverter, framing and balance of system you were buying.

More junk submitted as “best workmanship”. If I can find three basic defects from this distance, what chance is there the rest is complaint?

Batteries Were Just As Expensive

While the arguments raged about remote area power using lead or lithium, storing electricity was always a bit expensive. However the rule of thumb held true, a compliant battery with an inverter installed on your wall was about $1000 per kilowatt hour.

However the Cheaper Home Battery Program has arrived. Initially offering around $350/kWh, there’s a reason the scheme aims to make batteries 30% cheaper.

Cheaper Home Batteries must not be confused with CHEAPEST system, which is poorly designed & badly installed.

Of course this is the solar coaster and nobody saw what was coming. Competition brought more competitors and drove prices lower in short order. Thankfully the CHBP was designed to ramp down like the STC scheme for solar and further curtailment has been announced this year.

Here we see a cheap battery which is sitting on an even cheaper plastic base. 370kg is settling into the sand, opening up a gap (arrowed) which lets moisture in and separates the internal connections of the stackable battery.

Of Course You Would Say That!

I’m a little tired of the anonymous posters who tell me the whole solar industry is just gouging customers. I recently had a punter tell me:

“Top notch LFP cells come to below $150 per kWh. Yes, that’s cells only and we need BMS, housing, inverter. If a system retails for $400/kWh that’s about where they should be. The $1000+ / kWh retail prices of 2024 were a major rip off, doesn’t matter what brand. And the subsidy was based on that. What was designed as a 30% subsidy on rip-off prices now turns into 70% or more subsidy for fair prices.”

It all sounds so simple when you say it quick. Build a battery, write the software, do the testing, get it through laboratory assessment; and then spend months paying the CEC to give you the tick of approval.

Now offer a ten year warranty.

Freshly minted ABN – check. Inexperienced sales- check. Subcontract installer – check. Tiny company that can’t even front enough cash to buy stock – check. So will they be able to honour or even aware of their Australian Consumer Law Warranty obligations as an importer?

And lastly, you’ll need to staff the support lines for a demanding customer base, who need guidance on the best use of their asset, and want the router reconnected when they change telco. All of a sudden it’s not so cheap, especially when even a company the size of Tesla or LG make mistakes that require a formal recall.

The price of raw latex has basically nothing to do with the tyres on your car, and everything to do with the design, delivery, compliance, installation & consumer law obligations.

Well they’ve applied sealant to this flashing but it’s not actually doing anything when the water can just go around it. Roof leaks created by poor wiing penetrations is something that can make your ceiling collapse.

Good Installers Offer Support

When I’ve spoken to well regarded installers in my area, they’re telling me that perhaps 20% of their trained workforce are tied up with mostly unchargeable hours.

To maintain good customer service and meet consumer law, good companies pour a lot of petrol and perspiration into site visits that can’t be charged to the customer, and may only attract miserly payments for warranty failures.

A business that has 5 vehicles, with an electrician and apprentice in each, will generally have one van dedicated to repairs, warranty, commissioning and problem solving, like setting up WiFi or programming schedules to charge batteries.

Here we see black DC cables, with potential 1000 volts DC available, draped over a roof purlin ready to have a screw driven through them. The conduit is incomplete, it should go under the timber and all the way to the inverter, but -any- wiring placed straight under the roof cladding is a basic AS3000 wiring defect. It’s dangerous and illegal.

The Upshot Is This

Put simply, if the federal government incentives are paying for more than half of your solar and battery system, you’re buying crap, from shonks, who won’t be there to cover the warranty.

There are tell tale signs, a serviced office is often a red flag to begin with. Phone consultations and zero site visits saves on their sales costs, but risks install day delays and disasters for you.

They’ll be trying to shirk responsibility for legally required switchboard upgrades. Or stiff the subcontractors with fixed rates on installation and then fail to offer proper handover documentation.

Remember you will get what you pay for, but if you’re in any doubt, click here and filter for the one star reviews. The buyers remorse would be funny if it weren’t so sad.