Why You Should Seriously Consider Solar – Even With Winter Approaching
By Finn Peacock – Chartered Electrical Engineer, Ex-CSIRO, Founder of SolarQuotes.com.au
In 2017, if you own your own home, you need to give serious thought to installing solar power.
Why?
Simply because solar energy has reached the point where it is the cheapest form of electricity you can put into your house.
And yes – this even applies to the wintertime, when a solar system will only produce, on average, roughly half the amount of energy it’s capable of producing in the summertime.
Every quarter you don’t have solar is another quarter where you are 100% dependent on expensive grid electricity, which you pay through the nose for.
Installing solar power, even in the winter, will reduce your electricity bills. And when summer rolls around – those savings on your bills will only be higher.
So – you shouldn’t need shonky advertisers peddling exaggerated deadlines to get you considering solar.
All the incentive you need is in those high quarterly bills that you simply don’t need to get in this day and age.
How The Economics Of Solar Really Work
Let’s run through a quick breakdown of how solar power would work in your home.
When solar electricity is generated by your panels, it will first get used by appliances in your home, with any surplus solar exported to the grid.
Electricity usage in your home is measured in kWh. The average Aussie home uses about 18 kWh per day. Generally, depending on where you live, you’ll be paying roughly 30 cents for every kWh you use in your home.
Your electricity retailer will pay you a small amount (around 7-18c) for each kWh that you export to the grid. This is known as the “feed in tariff”.
Because the amount you’re paid for exporting solar is small, It is better to use the solar in your home than export it.
This is because every time you use a kWh of generated solar electricity in your home, you don’t have to buy that kWh from the grid – which will save you around 30 cents per kWh.
Because feed in tariffs are around 7-18c per kWh, self-consumed solar electricity is about 2-4x more valuable than exported solar electricity.
This means households that use a lot of electricity during the day, or can set their appliances to run on timers, are a natural fit for solar power and can see very short paybacks of 4-5 years (20-25% returns).
If you are at home during the day or have pool pumps which run all day, your self-consumption can be up to 65% (with exports only 35%) and solar panels are likely to be a very good investment.
If you are not at home during the day (hello to all you 9-5ers!), you will typically self-consume about 30% of a well sized solar system, pushing the simple payback out to 8-10 years.
Bear in mind that this is still a 10-12% return on your investment.
(Avoid any solar company that calculates your payback based on 100% self-consumption. No-one has 100% self-consumption. The company is being dishonest to get your sale.)
A good-quality solar system has a lifespan of about 25 years.
This means that, in a realistic scenario, you could pay back a new solar system in around 7 years, and then collect ~18 years of further savings from a solar system after that.
If your home is suitable for solar panels, you shouldn’t be spending another second sending your electricity company ever-increasing payments every quarter.
Get quotes for solar now, see if a system is right for you, and then start looking forward to reductions in your energy bills, instead of increases. It really is that simple.
This website, SolarQuotes, makes it really easy to get 3 free quotes from pre-vetted installers in our network. We’ve been operating since 2009, and over 270,000 Aussies have used our service to get quotes.
If you’re considering installing solar panels for your home or business, SolarQuotes can help you get quotes from high-quality, pre-vetted installers quickly and easily:
“Many thanks…
I was a lost sheep in a field of wolves without your help”
About Finn Peacock
I’m a Chartered Electrical Engineer, solar and energy efficiency nut, electric car and e-bike owner, dad, and founder of SolarQuotes.com.au. My last “real job” was working for the CSIRO in their renewable energy division. Since 2009 more than 785,000 Australians have used my site to get quotes for high quality PV systems from pre-vetted solar installers.