You may have considered going for solar energy at your home in the past, but the high cost of solar panels and other installation costs may have forced you to abort that plan.
Solar installation remains expensive even with the handsome government rebates available, no doubt about it. The good news is that the costs have come down significantly over the last decade or so mean it is a much more worthwhile investment.
In fact, they are now sitting in an affordable range where it makes sense for an average homeowner to power homes using solar energy.
The average solar system 5-6kW will pay for itself in 3-4 4 years. When you consider the warranty period of a solar system is 25 years at a minimum, you will enjoy 20 years + or super cheap electricity bills in the face of rising power prices.
In the past, it was more about doing it for a cause and enjoying a sense of gratification, the real tree huggers, but today it is a sound investment that promises you huge savings in the future. But panels cost is scaring you here’s how you can find the cheapest panels and save on your total project cost.
Before we dive in let’s not forget that the government is paying for about half the bill for installation, plus they literally pay for themselves in about 4 years. It really is worthwhile.
Who to listen to?
If you have carefully researched solar panels cost you may have come across different rates for these panels. This can put you into a state of dilemma. The most expensive panels need not be the best and going for the cheapest ones available in the market may be a wrong path to choose also. So what do you do?
This is where you need to listen to what experts have to say. There are websites, such as gosolarquotes.com.au that offer you a true picture of the cost of solar panels. These sites keep track of the prevalent prices in the market and send you quote from local solar companies that enjoy a proven track record and rank high on customer satisfaction. By listening to the experts you will benefit in the following ways –
• Find Best Companies – It can be quite a challenge to find the best companies for your solar installation project. There are several companies that sell solar panels and install them. When you take advice from the experts they will suggest a certain setup or products. This is where the research begins. You might have 5 x different companies will 5 x different “equipment” (which refers to the brand of panels and inverter being used) and all claim that theirs is the best. My best advice is to do a bit of research yourself.
Reviews – There is no point just reviewing the company, people might have gotten the solar installation 1 – 3 years ago and all went well, but how is the equipment going to fair up in 10 years? I suggest going to independent reviews of the products being used. Even look at the price of the product and see which company s packing the best value into their package.
Obviously price is not everything, but it does give you an idea of the mark-up these companies are charging.
What I would look for is the kiloWatt output of the panels and how they degrade over time. The warranty period. How long they have been in business. Whether they have offices in Australia etc.
• Lowest Price – This is the biggest advantage of listening to the experts. Since they keep track of the solar panels cost which can be quite dynamic in a constantly evolving market they are able to bring you the lowest quotes from your local companies. However, this is different from choosing the company that offers you the lowest quote as they factor in the quality of the panels when suggesting the name of a company.
• Saves Time – You have more important things to do in life than sit and compare quotes from different solar installation companies. When you research these websites you will be able to save time and go solar in a quick time.
To sum up, by following the experts you will be able to save substantially on solar panels cost and also get to hire the best companies for the project near you. If you have been planning to go solar for quite some time it is the right time to turn your home into a solar-powered one.
Are solar batteries worth it?
The short answer is no. Currently, the battery industry is going through a huge boom in innovation and investment with the introduction of solar batteries over the last 5 years and the popularity of electric cars with the biggest name being Tesla.
Currently the price of a battery system for solar is not worth it, and you would take your payback period from 3-4 year for the solar system to about 10 years. 10 years is the warranty period of batteries also, so they would need replacing when they finally pay for themselves.
That’s break-even and not worth it.
The reason you would want a battery is because when your solar system is generating the most power, through the day between 11 am and 2 pm, you are not home to enjoy the free energy, so you would want to store it for use later that night.
Currently, electricity companies offer great feed-in tariffs for the energy you produce and don’t use, which means you feed it to them, and they give it back to you almost free later that night when you are not generating power.
When solar batteries eventually have at price over the coming 5 – 10 years it’s going to be a worthwhile investment, but until that time, I would not bother.
