{"id":11965,"date":"2017-06-06T16:41:46","date_gmt":"2017-06-06T06:11:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/?p=11965"},"modified":"2017-06-23T15:44:05","modified_gmt":"2017-06-23T05:14:05","slug":"blended-payback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/blended-payback\/","title":{"rendered":"Beware of Blended Payback: Solar Pays For Itself But Batteries Don’t Yet."},"content":{"rendered":"
\"a

We are seeing a lot of battery companies only quoting the payback of solar and batteries combined. But adding batteries makes payback worse. So always compare the payback of just solar.<\/p><\/div>\n

I want you to know I have a great investment for you.\u00a0 Believe me, it’s great.\u00a0 I have all the best investments.\u00a0 Trust me — it’s yuge!\u00a0 If you invest in the Ronald Trump fund you will get an average return of over 4%.\u00a0 I guarantee it!<\/em>1<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0 Just hand over your money and you’ll start making money!<\/em><\/p>\n

What’s that?\u00a0 You want me to actually explain what I will do with your money?\u00a0 Trust me, you don’t want to worry your pretty little head about that!<\/em><\/p>\n

What?\u00a0 You do want to worry your pretty little head about that?\u00a0 Alright then, what I will do is take your money and invest it in the Australian stock market.\u00a0 Then each year I will take all the dividends and all the capital gains and I will reinvest half and I will take the other half in the form of $50 notes and burn them.\u00a0 It will be great!\u00a0 In 10 years you can have over a 50% return!<\/em><\/p>\n

Wait a minute!\u00a0 Calm down!\u00a0 You say you don’t want me to burn half the money your investment makes?\u00a0 I don’t understand why you are complaining.\u00a0 You will still come out ahead!<\/em><\/p>\n

If someone seriously tried to make you the above deal, you’d have no trouble at all telling them to go and make love to a cactus.\u00a0 But unfortunately for Australian households, including many who may not have much money to spare, there are unscrupulous salespeople more cunning and more convincing than Ronald Trump, who are ripping people off in a similar way by blending the high return from rooftop solar with the zero to negative return from batteries to make it look as though batteries can now pay for themselves.\u00a0 And it’s resulting in a good portion of people’s money going up in smoke.<\/p>\n

I have no problem with people buying batteries that won’t save them money if that is what they want to do, but I am totally against deceiving people into blowing money by buying batteries they would never have bought if they knew they would be losing money on them.<\/p>\n

At the moment no battery pays for itself, not for normal on-grid households, so\u00a0if you see payback claims advertised\u00a0for solar and batteries, make sure\u00a0they also disclose what return you can expect from each independently.\u00a0 If the company can’t or won’t tell you, then you’ll know you are dealing with someone dodgy.<\/p>\n

Batteries Don’t Pay For Themselves Yet<\/h2>\n

Every time I write about batteries I am unfortunately forced to remind people they don’t pay for themselves yet.\u00a0 Not for anyone whose electricity consumption is remotely normal, even in the most favorable locations in Australia.<\/p>\n

I should explain what I mean when I say they don’t pay for themselves.\u00a0 It’s not enough for a $10,000 battery system to save $10,001 on electricity bills in today’s money by the end of its life to be worthwile.\u00a0 It will also have to save at least as much value as the next best use of that $10,000 would have provided.\u00a0 For some people, the next best use may be a term deposit.\u00a0 For others it could be paying off the house, investing in shares, or paying off credit cards.<\/p>\n

In an earlier article I examined if a Powerwall 2 could clear the lowest hurdle of performing better than putting the money into a term deposit and it could not<\/a>.\u00a0 This was the case even though I used the $10,150 figure for full installation provided by Tesla and not the $11,000 to $13,000 it is likely to cost in the real world.<\/p>\n

\"bar<\/p>\n

The Tesla Powerwall 2 is very likely to be the cheapest battery system available per installed kilowatt-hour2<\/a><\/sup> over the short term at least.\u00a0 This means any salesperson who tells you buying batteries now will save you money is almost certainly wrong3<\/a><\/sup>.<\/p>\n

Grid electricity prices are, once again, rising<\/a>.\u00a0 While this will only improve the payback time of rooftop solar it is unlikely to improve the payback time of batteries because solar feed-in tariffs are expected to rise by around the same amount.\u00a0 It is possible the combined price hikes and feed-in tariff increases will make the economics of batteries worse, as I\u00a0 explained here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Rooftop Solar Has The Fastest Payback Of Any Normal Investment<\/h2>\n

While home batteries don’t pay for themselves yet, rooftop solar sure as hell does.\u00a0 It is the best investment most\u00a0 home owners can make.\u00a0 Not only does it save money, it also saves the planet!<\/p>\n

Alternatively, for those whose hearts aren’t filled to the brim with unbridled capitalism — Not only does it save the planet, it also saves money!<\/p>\n

Here in Adelaide, a household that consumes half the electricity produced by a 5 kilowatt system that costs $7,000 can have a payback time of under 5 years.\u00a0 In other words, it can take less than 5 years for the savings on electricity bills to total $7,000.<\/p>\n

If the household instead only consumed 30% of the solar electricity generated, then with a 10 cent feed-in tariff, which is easily available<\/a>, it can have a payback time of 6 years.<\/p>\n

\"Solar<\/p>\n

Since electricity prices are about to go up in July in every state except Victoria, which had an increase at the start of the year, payback times will only improve and rooftop solar will become an even better investment.<\/p>\n

Blending Solar And Battery Payback Makes No Sense (If You’re Ethical)<\/h2>\n

Because batteries don’t yet pay for themselves and currently don’t provide an environmental benefit<\/a>4<\/a><\/sup>, no one who is interested in saving money is going to buy them unless they are deceived.\u00a0 Good salespeople, as in ethically good and not just good at shifting product, understand this and focus on selling batteries to early adopters who are interested in the technology and don’t mind if it doesn’t save them money.<\/p>\n

Bad salespeople, as in ethically bad puppy kickers, use blended payback to lie to people and imply batteries will save money.\u00a0 They know batteries won’t pay for themselves, but intentionally hide this fact by blending the payback time of rooftop solar and batteries together to make a sale.<\/p>\n

And this just isn’t good enough.\u00a0 Sure, provided they are careful with what they say they may not technically be doing anything illegal, but you don’t have to be a criminal to be an arse.<\/p>\n

There are people in Australia who are struggling to get by — people raising kids, pensioners on fixed incomes, those who are trying to pay off their homes\u00a0 — who are looking to save money on their electricity bills and hopefully do the right thing by the environment.\u00a0 They don’t deserve to be ripped off by unscrupulous salespeople.\u00a0 Even the people who have plenty of money don’t deserve to be ripped off.<\/p>\n

As costs fall, home battery storage is likely to become a huge business in Australia.\u00a0 When people can save money by installing batteries the market will boom.\u00a0 But the battery industry is only going to be make things hard for themselves if they allow people to become convinced the industry is full of crooks.\u00a0 One ripped off customer now will cost who-knows-how-many sales in the future.\u00a0 Rather than building up a good reputation that will pay off later when the battery boom begins, current players may be handing the market on a platter to late entrants who haven’t burdened themselves with a bad reputation.\u00a0 These days the internet makes it much harder to sweep a bad rep under the rug and sell to new rubes.\u00a0 This makes it even more important to build a good reputation from day one.<\/p>\n

<\/h2>\n

Australian Consumer Law Protects You<\/h2>\n

Under Australian Consumer Law you are protected by consumer guarantees<\/a>.\u00a0 These apply no matter what the written warranty may say or what salespeople tell you.\u00a0 One of them is:<\/p>\n

Products must be fit for the purpose the business told you it would be fit for and for any purpose that you made known to the business before purchasing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This means a product must do what the seller said it would.\u00a0 If you were told a battery system will save you money and it does not then you are protected by your consumer guarantees and entitled to a remedy, which in this case would be a refund, as a repair or replacement will not solve the problem.\u00a0 It also means if you tell them you want to buy a battery system to save money, then they can only sell you a battery system that will save you money.<\/p>\n

I’m no lawyer, but I do think companies that hide the fact batteries don’t save money by blending their payback with that of rooftop solar are on thin ice.\u00a0 Australian consumer law is based on what a reasonable person would conclude and I don’t think any reasonable person looking to save money would buy a bundled solar and battery system, if they knew the battery part was only likely to lose them money.<\/p>\n

The Final Bad Joke<\/h2>\n

So my final word is, never buy bundled solar and batteries from someone who won’t give you an honest independent breakdown of their payback separate from each other.<\/p>\n

It’s not ethical for salespeople to give pensioners, like my grandmother, who are looking to save a bit of money and leave a better world to their grand kids, blended paybacks for solar and batteries that imply batteries will save them money when they will do no such thing.\u00a0 It’s no more ethical than a surgeon who performs a life saving operation, takes out a kidney while he’s at it, sells it on the black market, and justifies it by saying the patient has come out ahead overall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I want you to know I have a great investment for you.\u00a0 Believe me, it’s great.\u00a0 I have all the best investments.\u00a0 Trust me — it’s yuge!\u00a0 If you invest in the Ronald Trump fund you will get an average return of over 4%.\u00a0 I guarantee it!1\u00a0 Just hand over your money and you’ll start […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[551],"tags":[197],"class_list":["post-11965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-battery-storage","tag-payback","entry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nBeware of Blended Payback: Solar Pays For Itself But Batteries Don't Yet. - SolarQuotes Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"We are seeing a lot of battery companies only quoting the payback of solar and batteries combined. 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Home battery simple payback (how long it takes for electricity bill savings\/credits\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Battery Storage"","block_context":{"text":"Battery Storage","link":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/category\/battery-storage\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Home battery payback","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/home-battery-payback.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/home-battery-payback.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/home-battery-payback.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/home-battery-payback.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/home-battery-payback.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":39466,"url":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/sa-home-battery-scheme-calculator\/","url_meta":{"origin":11965,"position":1},"title":"SA Home Battery Scheme’s New Calculator Gives Dismal Results (If You Can Find It)","author":"Ronald Brakels","date":"May 18, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Finally, after one and a half years, the South Australian Home Battery scheme has added a battery calculator to their site. \u00a0It's a tool that's so useful in helping people understand battery savings, I consider it a vital addition to their website. 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Update 25th Feb 2024: The original press release has disappeared from the Smart Energy Council's site.]that strongly implied home batteries can pay for themselves.\u00a0 Unfortunately, at this time, they don't with the possible exception of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Battery Storage"","block_context":{"text":"Battery Storage","link":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/category\/battery-storage\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/1-plus-one.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/1-plus-one.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/1-plus-one.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/1-plus-one.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/1-plus-one.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":32777,"url":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/solar-batteries-investment-mb1177\/","url_meta":{"origin":11965,"position":3},"title":"Investing In Solar Only Vs. Solar + Batteries – Compare The Pair","author":"Michael Bloch","date":"August 19, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"https:\/\/youtu.be\/veZmzeHnTvs Solar panels only or solar power + battery - how do the numbers really stack up? I clearly explain all the maths so you can see the big difference for yourself. (Transcript) Let's start with solar. A 6 kilowatt solar system will produce 24 kilowatt-hours of energy on the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Battery Storage"","block_context":{"text":"Battery Storage","link":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/category\/battery-storage\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Comparing solar power and batteries","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/compare-solar-batteries.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/compare-solar-batteries.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/compare-solar-batteries.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/compare-solar-batteries.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/compare-solar-batteries.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":40687,"url":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/nsw-solar-battery-guide\/","url_meta":{"origin":11965,"position":4},"title":"NSW Government Publishes Pernicious 71-Page Battery Guide","author":"Ronald Brakels","date":"June 29, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Guess what! You can now read another tax-payer funded document that does more harm than good.\u00a0 The NSW Government has published the NSW Home Solar Battery Guide 2020.\u00a0 It's supposed to help the people of NSW and Australia decide if getting batteries is right for them. 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