Economy of sun
I've had a solar array on my roof for the last few years; It collects sun-energy which we utilise or feeds to the power grid at $0.16 cents per kilowatt-hour which shows as a reduction on our power bill. Our usage is mostly day time so solar power reduced our electricity bill by about 65-75% depending on the time of year - Long, sunny summer days generate more power than overcast winter ones of course. It's been a great saving and the system paid for itself in three years or so. We've just moved house though, and my new one doesn't have a solar system.
With our new house we don't use as much power during the day. My wife runs our business from the other one during the day. So, for us to benefit from a solar system here we would need to collect and store the power. Battery storage doesn't come cheap.
Upside
We're considering a 6.6kw system, 18 panels with micro-inverters which are better than string inverters as they operate at almost 100% efficiency because each panel has it's own inverter.
For the battery we're looking at the Australian made Sonnen 10kWh battery which, when fully charged, will power our house at night.
Changing our power provider to Sonnen also means they'll give us 7,500kWh power allowance for free each year - That means we don't start paying for power until we've used that allowance up! This means zero-cost power; We only use an average of 8.5kw of power per day; 3,102kw annually, less than half of the allowance!
The battery will provide power to the house in the advent of a grid-power outage too; They wire it to the light circuit only usually as it won't have the ability to power the entire house, air conditioner, fridges and so on. It switches automatically from grid to battery or sun power during the day so it's all pretty seamless.
The system-cost payback is estimated at five years, but along the way we have those zero power bills each quarter and enjoy $0.10 cents feed-in tariff (rebate) when our system produces more power than we need and feeds it back into the grid.
Downside
The system we want costs $19,510 but with government rebates redices to $14,490...A lot of money. We could reduce it to $11,990 by swapping out micro-inverters for string inverters but efficiency is lost - OK in summer but in winter short days and cloudy conditions means we need peak efficiency so...Yeah, it's a big decision.
Length of stay in this property is a big concern. If it was eight years or more it would work nicely, less than that and the benefits won't be as good financially. There's a projected $15,500 saving over ten years and double that in twenty but...Will we be here in six? Who knows?
This will be a financial decision for us...Money up front and save later, or potentially leave the house and lose the bulk of the benefits...Or just pay for power as we use it from the grid? Pros and cons to both and much head scratching to do.
What is your power situation? Is it stable, costly? Do you have a solar system? Would you get one if you could?
Design and create your ideal life, don't live it by default - Tomorrow isn't promised.
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