![\"Savings](\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/solar-tools.jpg\")
<\/p>\r\n<\/p>\r\n
Inflation is back, and the cost of living is rising.\u00a0While not as bad as headlines may claim, we’ll end up a lot poorer if inflation starts to beat wage growth consistently.<\/p>\r\n
Taking steps to protect yourself in an inflationary environment makes sense.\u00a0 If we’re in for tough times, sensible investments that reduce expenditures will help you get by.\u00a0 But if rosy times are coming, the same actions will help you grow richer.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n
Chances are you can guess what I’ll suggest as the best, low-risk step you can take to keep your cost of living down — but just because I’m predictable doesn’t mean I’m wrong.\u00a0 If you own an unshaded roof, installing solar panels is the best action I can think of to either keep your electricity expenditures down or provide an overall credit on your electricity bills.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n
This article will tell how much the average household can expect to save by installing solar in each Australian capital.\u00a0 What’s more, I’ll give you the tools you can use to estimate your solar energy savings and help you find the best retail electricity plan.<\/p>\r\n
Specifically, these two tools:<\/p>\r\n
UPDATE May 27:<\/strong> Apologies, but the Electricity Retailer Comparison page has been taken offline for maintenance and some re-jiggering.<\/p>\r\n While we’ve had these tools for a long time, they’ve recently had a significant overhaul, so they will work with time-of-use tariffs and not just flat tariffs as in the past.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n Some very clever people here at SolarQuotes did the upgrades.\u00a0 So, no, I wasn’t involved.<\/p>\r\n We’ve made big improvements to our tools, but changes can introduce new problems, both big and small, so we can’t promise that the results will always be perfect, or they’ll always find the best electricity plan available.\u00a0 What we will do is make them work as well as we can.\u00a0 You can use the tools right now, but they are in beta, which is a type of testing where we try to make them better.\u00a0 They are works in progress, and we’re improving them as we go.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n Adelaide is Australia’s premier state capital — according to the alphabet.\u00a0 For this reason, as well as the fact I live there, I’ll start the solar savings calculations in the City of Churches.<\/p>\r\n I said churches, not Lurches!<\/p><\/div>\r\n If you go to the Solar & Battery Calculator page, you’ll see this introduction at the top, letting you know what you are getting into:<\/p>\r\n After carefully reading every single word of that and committing it to memory — or not — you can scroll down and enter information that will let it estimate how much a solar power system is likely to save you.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n First off is your postcode:<\/p>\r\n This is important because there is a big difference in solar energy output between Darwin and Hobart, and without a postcode, the calculator won’t know where you are.<\/p>\r\n Next is how many kilowatts of solar panels the system will have, as well as the direction they’ll face:<\/p>\r\n You can also enter panels’ tilt: You can add information for more than one array of panels to get accurate results if there will be panels facing in two or more directions:<\/p>\r\n If you want a quick estimate, you can pretend all your panels face the same direction.\u00a0 Preferably whichever direction will have the most panels.<\/p>\r\n You can also add a battery:<\/p>\r\n If you don’t mind paying up front for energy security, a battery can almost guarantee very low electricity bills or — depending on the size of your solar system — an electricity bill credit.\u00a0 But if your goal is to save money overall, then a battery isn’t likely to help at the moment unless your situation is exceptional.\u00a0 I won’t look into the costs and benefits of installing a battery today.<\/p>\r\n You can add the total cost of the solar power system:<\/p>\r\n Providing details of your electricity bills will allow the calculator to estimate how much you’re likely to save:<\/p>\r\n Entering the solar feed-in tariff<\/a> you will receive will also help determine your savings from solar power:<\/p>\r\n If you don’t click the green tick to unselect it, the calculator will assume your feed-in tariff will drop by 1 cent per year.\u00a0 In this example, it will continue until it hits 6 cents.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n Finally, you can hit this button to see your estimated savings:<\/p>\r\n You might say to me…<\/p>\r\n “But I don’t wanna fill all that in.\u00a0 That slightly resembles effort!”<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n If that’s the case, the good news is, after you enter your postcode, the Solar & Battery calculator will add the default values for a typical home with a north facing solar system in your area.\u00a0 You don’t have to go through any more effort than clicking on “Calculate Savings” at the bottom of the page if you don’t want to and are happy with “typical” results.<\/p>\r\n If I simply enter an Adelaide postcode and leave everything else on the default values, then it will give me the first year of electricity bill savings and the simple payback period for a 6.6 kilowatt north facing solar power system that costs $6,600:<\/p>\r\n I consider that to be a damn good result.\u00a0 But it may be possible to do even better.\u00a0 This is because the calculator used the default values for the cost of grid electricity, and you may be able to find something better.\u00a0 You can change the default values by going to where it says “Energy Plan” and clicking on “Select tariff”.<\/p>\r\n If you are in Western Australia, there won’t be much of a choice.\u00a0 But the majority of Australians can either enter the name of an electricity retailer or scroll down through a list of plans, which will include the estimated first-year savings they’ll provide:<\/p>\r\n The hard part is knowing which plan to click on because the best ones usually aren’t available to most households.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the Solar & Battery Calculator isn’t smart enough to know which plans are available and which ones have special conditions attached.\u00a0 It’s not the calculator’s fault.\u00a0 Electricity retailers often make their plans confusing and often try to include sneaky conditions to rip people off.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n For example, for Adelaide the first plan below the “Default Values” is:<\/p>\r\n This plan requires you to have a suitable home battery and participate in their Virtual Power Plant (VPP)<\/a>.\u00a0 Not many people have a home battery system, and even among those who do, not all are prepared to allow an electricity retailer to have their way with it.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n If you want to find an electricity plan that…<\/p>\r\n Then you need to use another online tool that will give you all the relevant information you need.\u00a0 Our Electricity Retailer Comparison Page, which I’ll describe below, is our attempt to do this.\u00a0 You can use it to find a plan, check that it’s suitable for you, and then — if you want to be thorough — you can check if you can select it in our Solar & Battery Calculator for a detailed breakdown of the savings it provides. \u00a0<\/p>\r\n Alternatively, you may find that just checking the retailer comparison page is enough to decide which plan you want.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n Our Electricity Retailer Plan Comparison Page<\/a> (UPDATE: May 27:<\/strong> apologies, but we’ve needed to take the comparison page offline for the time being while we carry out some work on it) is easy to use, especially if you stick to using the simple version:<\/p>\r\n If you’re feeling lazy, all you need to do is enter your postcode and solar system size:<\/p>\r\n The comparison page will then estimate how much electricity homes with solar panels consume, but note it’s for a large family and not a typical household, so odds are you’ll want to crank it down.\u00a0 Further down, I’ll give you typical figures for how much households in each capital consume.<\/p>\r\n Then the Retailer Plan Comparison Page shows a long list of retail electricity plans and an estimate of what you can expect to pay annually.\u00a0 Here are the first 9 retail plans shown for an Adelaide home with a 6.6 kilowatt solar system<\/a> with “Total Energy Usage Per Day (solar + grid)” left at the high default value:<\/p>\r\n The full list of plans shown for Adelaide is longer than this.\u00a0 At the moment, it will present 175 different plans.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n Retail plans with special conditions that may make them unavailable to all households are highlighted with a blue-grey background.\u00a0 Sometimes the conditions are deal-breakers for most homes, such as requiring a battery.\u00a0 Other times they are milder, such as only allowing a solar system of 10 kilowatts or smaller — or possibly under 10 kilowatts.\u00a0 But even if you choose a plan without this highlight, you will still need to click on the link symbol:<\/p>\r\n This will bring up the plan’s details and let you check it is suitable for you.\u00a0 Looking at the details of the first plan shown for Adelaide, I see it is quite sneaky and only suitable for homes with extremely high grid electricity consumption, making it unsuitable for the vast majority of solar households.\u00a0 I’ll take note of this, and we will probably make a change soon.\u00a0 As mentioned, it is a work in progress.<\/p>\r\n There’s no need to stick with the default energy consumption on the Electricity Retailer Comparison Page.\u00a0 You can adjust it, so it’s implausibly low…<\/p>\r\n But average total daily electricity consumption for a home with a 6.6 kilowatt solar power system is:<\/p>\r\n You can either check your electricity bills to determine your actual consumption or if you think it’s likely to be fairly average, you can use the figures above.\u00a0 The positions of electricity plans will shift according to the figures used.\u00a0 Note that the average Australian household only has 2.6 people, so if your home has four or more people, you’ll use considerably more than the averages above.<\/p>\r\n You can also adjust your usage profile.\u00a0 This will change how the page assumes your home consumes electricity throughout the day.\u00a0 You can click on the following options:<\/p>\r\n If you click on “View Usage Profile”, it will present a graph showing how it assumes your home, on average, consumes electricity over 24 hours.\u00a0 Below is a chart for an Adelaide home with a 6.6 kilowatt solar system where people are usually at home during the day, a reverse cycle air conditioner is used for heating and cooling, and a standard electric hot water system is used:<\/p>\r\n Note if you have an electric hot water system — either conventional or a heat pump system<\/a> — the page assumes you will use it to heat water during the day.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n So far, I’ve described the simple version of the comparison page, but if you only want to compare fixed tariff plans and don’t mind entering some extra information, you can click on the “Advanced” option near the top of the page to improve accuracy:<\/p>\r\n This will allow you to add the following additional information:<\/p>\r\n This assumes you already have a solar power system that has been providing energy for a year or more.\u00a0 This makes it less useful if you plan to get a system, but you can always estimate if you want.<\/p>\r\n Some exceptionally inertia-prone people may consider having to spend entire seconds using the Retailer Plan Comparison Page to be an excessive amount of effort, but these seconds can be very worthwhile.\u00a0 For an Adelaide household with average electricity consumption, the difference between the estimate annual cost of the cheapest and most expensive plans available to all homes with 6.6 kilowatt solar systems comes to $896.\u00a0 Here’s what the estimated annual electricity bills look like:<\/p>\r\n Even if you only end up saving $100, it is still worth the effort — unless you earn over $6,000 an hour, in which case you may not consider spending a minute to save $100 worthwhile.\u00a0 But if you’re not Elon Musk or Gina Rinehart or their bastard son, I suggest checking every year.<\/p>\r\n Electricity retailers usually change their plans in July.\u00a0 While they can change from the 1st of July, it may take several weeks for all their new offers to appear.\u00a0 It will depend on what type of plan you have, but it is common for retailers to either raise what they charge or not pass on price decreases at this point.\u00a0 So I recommend checking if there is a better plan available towards the end of July.<\/p>\r\n I’ll now calculate the first-year savings from installing a 6.6 kilowatt solar system in every capital and its simple payback period.\u00a0 This is the number of years it will take to pay for itself.\u00a0 It’s called simple, because it doesn’t include capital costs.\u00a0 Because these vary between individuals, you’ll have to work out your own estimate if you want to add them in.<\/p>\r\n To work out the simple payback period, I’ll need to know the cost of the solar system.\u00a0 The default value the Solar & Battery Calculator uses for solar is a straight $1,000 per kilowatt of capacity.\u00a0 This makes a 6.6 kilowatt system $6,600.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n While getting the cheapest solar system you can find is a bad idea<\/a>, it’s possible to get a reliable solar power system from installers we trust who do quality work for less.\u00a0 Because I’m writing this article for people concerned about the cost of living, I’m going to use a price that’s 9% lower than the default and assume a 6.6 kilowatt system is bought for $6,000.<\/p>\r\n Using the same price in every capital overlooks regional variation — the average cost of solar systems is higher in Darwin and Hobart and lower in Perth –, but I’ll stick to it for simplicity so we can compare the capitals.<\/p>\r\n How much you spend on a system depends on your budget and preference.\u00a0 If you have a ton of money, I recommend getting as large a system as will fit on your roof with top of the line hardware, including solar panels with a product warranty of 25 years<\/a> or more. \u00a0<\/p>\r\n If your budget is limited, then I still suggest getting as large a system as will reasonably fit on your roof while still getting a reliable system from an installer who does quality work.\u00a0 We will only refer you to installers who provide reliable, well-installed systems if you get quotes through us, even if you request a budget solar power system.\u00a0 We’ll also back them up with our Good Installer Guarantee<\/a> to remove any stress over whether or not you’ve chosen an installer you can trust.<\/p>\r\n I am now ready to determine the electricity plan that will provide the greatest saving for a home with a 6.6 kilowatt north-facing solar system.\u00a0 I will do this in the following way:<\/p>\r\n This gives the following first year savings for a home with a 6.6 kilowatt north facing solar power system in each capital, along with simple payback time:<\/p>\r\n Here are the first year savings in a graph:<\/p>\r\n As you can see, the first-year savings in Sydney are exceptionally high.\u00a0 This is thanks to the GloBird Energy plan used having a solar feed-in tariff of 20 cents.\u00a0 This high rate surprised me, so I went to their website to double check if any special conditions were limiting its availability, but I did not see any. Still – I’m sceptical – so if anyone switched to this plan – please triple check you’ll get this feed-in-rate, and let me know how you go.<\/p>\r\n The capital with the lowest first year savings is Perth.\u00a0 This is due to Perth’s unfairly low feed-in tariff.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n Here’s a graph of the simple payback time, assuming the system cost $6,000:<\/p>\r\n These simple payback periods assume the electricity plans stay the same.\u00a0 It also assumes the solar feed-in tariff will drop by one cent per year if it is above 6 cents.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n As you can see, the simple payback time is under five and a half years in every capital, with the best being in Sydney.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n The second best is potentially in Melbourne at three years.\u00a0 This is indicated by the light blue segment on the graph and is possible with the Solar Victoria panel rebate<\/a> of up to $1,400.\u00a0 This is currently available to the majority of households without solar panels.\u00a0 The next shortest payback period in Adelaide, is due to a combination of high grid electricity prices and a good feed-in tariff.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n The longest payback period, at 5.4 years, is in Hobart.\u00a0 This is understandable, thanks to it having the lowest solar electricity output of pretty much anywhere in Australia.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n Less understandable for most is why Perth has the second longest payback period when it has more sunshine than any other capital.\u00a0 This due to its unfairly low feed-in tariff.\u00a0 Fortunately for Perth people, the cost of solar power is lower than anywhere else, so it is possible to get good quality solar for less than the figure used here.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n I’ve looked at installing a 6.6 kilowatts because they’ll generally fit on all but the smallest roofs these days.\u00a0 But, if you have room for more — and you’re not in Western Australia where homes with more than 6.66 kilowatts of solar panels won’t receive any feed-in tariff — then I recommend going larger where possible.\u00a0<\/p>\r\nWe’ve Worked Hard On Our Tools<\/h2>\r\n
We’re Still Working On Them<\/h2>\r\n
The Solar & Battery Calculator – Adelaide<\/h2>\r\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/cost_lurch.jpg\")
![\"Solar](\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/cost_calc1.png\")
<\/p>\r\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/cost_calc2.png\")
<\/p>\r\n![\"Solar](\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/cost_calc3.png\")
<\/p>\r\n![\"solar](\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/cost_calc4.png\")
The large majority of home roofs have a tilt of either 15 or 22.5 degrees.\u00a0 There’s not a lot of difference in solar output between the two, so if your roof tilt looks similar to most homes you can just leave it at 22 degrees.\u00a0 If your roof is actually 15 degree, it will make very little difference to the result.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/cost_calc5.png\")
<\/p>\r\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/cost_calc6.png\")
<\/p>\r\n![\"System](\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/cost_calc7.png\")
<\/p>\r\n![\"Electricity](\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/cost_calc8.png\")
<\/p>\r\n![\"Feed-in](\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/cost_calc9.png\")
<\/p>\r\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/cost_calc10.png\")
<\/p>\r\nBut What If I’m Lazy?<\/h2>\r\n
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Adelaide Results<\/h2>\r\n
![\"Solar](\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/cost_calc11.png\")
<\/p>\r\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/cost_calc13.png\")
<\/p>\r\n![\"Electricity](\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/cost_calc14.png\")
<\/p>\r\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/cost_calc15.png\")
<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Electricity Retailer Comparison Page<\/h2>\r\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/cost_calc25.png\")
<\/p>\r\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/cost_calc16.png\")
<\/p>\r\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/cost_calc17.png\")
<\/p>\r\n![\"Electricity](\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/cost_calc18.png\")
<\/p>\r\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/cost_calc19.png\")
<\/p>\r\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/cost_final.gif\")
<\/p>\r\nAdjusting Electricity Consumption<\/h2>\r\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/cost_calc20.png\")
…or horribly high:<\/p>\r\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/cost_calc21.png\")
<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Electricity Usage Profile<\/h2>\r\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/cost_calc22.png\")
<\/p>\r\n![\"Electricity](\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/cost_calc23.png\")
<\/p>\r\nAdvanced Version For Higher Accuracy<\/h2>\r\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/cost_calc26.png\")
<\/p>\r\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/cost_calc27.png\")
<\/p>\r\nIt’s Worth Finding The Right Electricity Plan<\/h2>\r\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/cost_calc24.png\")
<\/p>\r\nMost Plans Change In July<\/h2>\r\n
Solar Power System Cost<\/h2>\r\n
How Much Should I Spend On Solar?<\/h2>\r\n
Savings By Capital<\/h2>\r\n
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![\"Savings](\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/cost_calc28.png\")
<\/p>\r\nSolar System Simple Payback Period<\/h2>\r\n
![\"Simple](\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/cost_calc30.png\")
<\/p>\r\nGo Bigger<\/h2>\r\n