The way solar power works in Sydney these days is all of the solar energy is directed into your home to be used immediately.

By using solar power, you’re not buying electricity from the grid, and that directly reduces your power bill. And importantly with that, you’re not actually going to see the saving on your bill as a line item, it’s just gonna be a smaller bill.

Say for example you have an $800 quarterly bill, and then you go and install a good-sized solar system, it may reduce your bill by $300 a quarter. In that case, your bill will just be $500.

But then there is also a feed-in tariff. So if you don’t use the solar power in the home as it’s being generated (and you don’t have battery storage), then the solar power will go straight out to the grid and you’ll get paid a feed-in tariff by your energy retailer.

This is not a rebate, but a part of the agreement you have with your energy retailer. The FITs bounce around a bit, they’ve been up over 20 cents per kWh before, but these days they’re somewhere between 5 and 10 cents. I think a lot of retailers at the moment are around about 7 cents, a kWh.

And so obviously with the price of power at the moment being a lot more than 7 cents a kWh (and it’s on the way up), in fact in the peak billing period if you’ve got time-of-use billing, it is often well over 50 cents a kWh. So it’s much, much better to save 50 cents in that example, compared to getting a 7-cent credit on your bill.

And so what we say is we want the feed-in tariff on your bill to be as small as possible because that means you’re using most of the solar power in the home as it’s being generated.

In this example, if you’re $800 bill is now $450, we’d only want to see a $20 or $30 credit on your bill from your feed tariff because that means that you’re really making the most of the power that you’re generating.

A solar battery allows our system designers to size up a solar system to match your 24-hour energy usage. This means you can generate much more solar power compared to just trying to cover your daytime usage.

Without battery storage, most solar homes will only be about 30-40% self-sufficient. By adding battery storage, we can completely eliminate your power bills.

Unlike solar power, battery storage offers a lot more than savings on your power bill. So when you consider if battery storage is worth it for your household, you also need to factor in:

• Blackout protection

• Virtual power plants (VPPs) – sell excess solar power at a rate much higher than standard feed-in tariffs

• The ability to run your home on solar power 24 hours a day

• Protection from future price rises for electricity

• The ability to charge an electric car, which also helps you save money on petrol

• Divesting your home from coal and gas

  There are also a number of intangible benefits that our customers enjoy, such as the freedom that comes from being independent of the power grid.

  We get a lot of messages from customers after long blackouts who are genuinely grateful and relieved that they could get on with life while their neighbours struggled to make do without power.

  In the same way that a nice new kitchen may not have a specific ROI calculation, living in a home where you can generate, store and manage your own electricity can be worth a lot more than the strict return on investment.

  Of course, not having to pay a power bill isn’t such a bad thing either!

  In terms of cost, the amount you pay for a battery will depend on how much excess solar power you have, how much energy you use, and what you’re trying to achieve. Lots of factors!

  But as a starting point, the price of a Tesla Powerwall is $16000 fully installed.

A lot of solar installers make a big fuss about their installation teams being in-house, and they’ll tell you to watch out for subcontractors.

So what’s the big deal?

It’s a smart one-liner that they use because it lumps together all of the solar installers that use subcontractors, from the Cowboys all the way up to Australia’s leading solar companies.

The rest of the industry is then trying to play catchup to explain how there are subcontractors, and then there are subcontractors.

Most Large Solar Installers Use Subcontractors

The solar industry uses subcontractors for a number of reasons:

• It’s the individual that is accredited by the Clean Energy Council to install solar, not a company. Therefore, a lot of solar installers work for themselves, and as they grow they bring on more staff. They typically work with one or two solar companies and have firm agreements in place including costs

• On rainy days, the installers can do other work such as electrical work

• The solar industry has big peaks and troughs. Larger installers would have long lead times during the busy periods if they weren’t able to quickly subcontract more installers. During quiet times, the installers can do electrical work. This is much more difficult to manage with in-house installers

• In-house installers require a large upfront cost including a van, tools and training

  So What’s The Risk?

  The problem is that the Solar Cowboys exclusively use subcontractors, and in our opinion, it can appear to be for nefarious reasons.

  Often, the responsibility for the entire installation, including warranty obligations is passed on to the subcontracted installer. This makes it difficult to get any proper service because the company you bought the system from won’t help you if things go wrong.

  It appears to be an attempt by the Solar Cowboys to avoid one of the main pitfalls in the solar industry, which is where solar companies install cheap brands that are notorious for high failure rates. By not having to honour service or warranty obligations the solar company is able to stay in business.

  This type of company will often sell door to door or use telemarketers. It is also a tactic used by the larger solar companies that sell very cheap solar systems.

  But the problems don’t stop there.

  We have seen ads on Gumtree looking for backpackers to install solar.

  The Solar Cowboys will get one accredited installer to sign off on multiple jobs each day, but it’s unaccredited labourers actually installing the system.

  The Clean Energy Council are trying to crack down on this, which is great, however, this type of thing happens with solar companies that use in-house installers as well, which leads us to the main point.

  Quality Installations From Reputable Solar Companies

  The main point to consider when choosing a solar installer is that it doesn’t matter if the installers are subcontractors or in-house installers.

  What’s more important is that the team installing your system is experienced, professional, well-trained, and generally people who care about doing a good job.

  Reputable solar companies that use subcontractors will typically work with the same teams for many years. The installations will be of the highest quality, and all service enquiries are made directly to the solar company that you bought the system from, not the installer. The responsibility for the installation is not passed off to a subcontracted installer.

  In summary, the reputation of the solar installer is what matters the most. If you choose a reputable solar company, you will be looked after.

The Feed In Tariff is only something you need to worry about if you don’t have battery storage.

The price your chosen energy retailer pays for any excess electricity generated from your solar panels is recorded as a credit on your power bill.

In NSW, solar power is fed into your home as it is generated and your household will use it first before you draw power from the grid.

This means that for every kWh of solar power used in the home you are directly saving money you’d spend on your power bill. This reduction in your power bill is the main financial benefit of solar power.

Everything else will be bought up at an agreed rate by your electricity retailer.

At the moment, most feed-in tariffs are between 5 and 10 cents per kWh, with many being about 7 cents. They bounce up and down a lot, for example in previous years they have been up over 20 cents per kWh. Typically, they are always at least 5 cents per kWh.

In the solar industry, the normal deposit is either $500 or 10%, and then full payment is due on or before the day of installation.

Lately, we are starting to see some companies ask for full payment upfront when placing an order. We can only take a guess, but costs are increasing across the board and when that happens sometimes combines struggle with their cash flow. Don’t get caught out paying in full only to find your installer go under before the installation is completed.

You want your panels facing north to generate the most power, however, what’s more important is that you generate enough solar power at the right time of the day.

So if you are not home in the middle of the day, but you the kids are home from school relatively early, and maybe mom’s a teacher or dad’s a tradie and they get home relatively early or whatever, we can face some panels west and so that way you can push some of that output later into the day.

If that’s when you want your electricity to be generated then that can be a really good thing and much more beneficial than having a big peak from like 12 to 2:00pm or so.

Similarly, if you want to have more electricity being generated early in the morning, then we can do that by facing the panels east.

So it depends a bit on when you want the electricity to be generated.

The other thing to keep in mind is the angle of the panels. If they’re flat they’ll generate more electricity in summer compared to the average. Or if they’re on a pitched roof such as a tile roof, then they’ll generate more power in winter compared to the average.

Finally, in terms of putting panels south, we can do that now that solar panels are so much cheaper. The worst-case scenario is a steep roof facing south because as you can imagine, the sun is lower in the sky to the north and so they don’t get much direct sunlight. But if you’ve got a roof that’s just south of west or south of east and it’s not too steep or even quite flat, then that’s fine.

We can definitely put panels on a south-facing roof and we are doing that more and more to max out the roof space to help you get as much electricity coming through as possible.

Online monitoring is about making sure you can see what’s going on with the solar power system and how much power it’s generating and what it’s doing, what its status is and importantly, you need to have that because the last thing you want to do is find out your system’s not working when your power bill arrives in three months’ time, but that’s the first step.

The second step is in relation to how your system is actually performing in relation to our expectations. Because when we sell you a system, we tell you how much power we expect your system to generate day on day, month on month, year on year. So it’s important we benchmark that data and understand what’s going on.

So, our system will give you detail around and graph that detail for you, so you can see how much power your system’s generating.

Then it comes to the exciting stuff and that’s when us data junkies get excited because we’re going to give you data and the access to data, so you can start to profile what your system’s doing when you generate power and how you can use it, because we all want to get the best out of self-consumption.

So whether it’s just solar power or you’re putting in solar power and storage, self-consumption is really important and data is really powerful.

The Solar Panels are the heart of any solar system. Whilst there are literally thousands of brands of solar panels on the market, Solaray only selects preferred suppliers that meet our strict standards. The supplier must:

• Manufacture their own products in their own factories

• Have a local office in Australia to provide warranty and other support

• Conduct Research and Development and show a level of technology leadership

• Have been manufacturing and supplying solar panels for at least 10 years

• Have the financial and market strength to be able to honour the long term warranty

• Have commercial scale and solar farm reference sites

As with most industries that have grown rapidly in the past (such as televisions, computers, cars etc), we are starting to see a growing consolidation in the number of manufacturers and it is likely that within the next few years, we will see the industry dominated by the top handful of suppliers. For this reason alone, it is worth selecting panels from any one of the world’s leading brands rather than the smaller or newer ones.

Once you sign up for a Precision Energy Installation, we immediately submit your grid application to the relevant energy distributor. For systems up to 5kWs, this is a formality. For larger systems it can take a few days or more. Once we receive approval, your installation will be managed by our installation coordinator, who will welcome you to Precision Energy and book an installation date for you. This is generally booked within around two weeks and installation dates are available Monday to Friday, weather permitting.

We endeavour to have your system installed within 2-4 weeks unless you request us to hold for whatever reason. Due to our strict safety policy, we do not install solar systems when it rains. In the event of inclement weather, we will rebook your installation as soon as possible. We always work with your requests as we strongly recommend that someone be home on the day of installation.

Installing any product on your roof is a job that needs to be treated with care. At Precision Energy, we pride ourselves on the quality of installation and workmanship. The quality of the installation can potentially determine both the performance and the longevity of your system. We apply years of project and implementation experience to our installation process and we are proud to set the standard for the industry for quality installations. All Precision Energy installations include:
– installers are trained and supervised by our Operations Team to rigorous standards
– installers are Clean Energy Council Accredited
– installers have a track record of quality installations
– we do not contract installations to unknown or ‘cheap’ contractors
– installers are given enough time to complete every job properly
– all installations are planned using our industry-leading project management methodology
– customers are kept up to date and informed at every step of the process
– we pride ourselves on rarely if ever needing to go back to a job to fix problems

Should you decide to go ahead, we will lodge an application with your electricity distributor for the connection of your new system to the electricity grid. We then plan an installation date with you for once the connection is approved. Our customer service team will keep you up to date as to the progress with your application and the installation day. On the day of installation, our team will arrive and install the system. This usually takes around 5 to 8 hours depending on size and complexity. Once installed, we demonstrate the system to you and arrange for the connection to the electricity grid (and the installation of a new solar meter). Naturally, our teams always clean up after themselves and are available to answer any questions you may have. Finally, we take care of any paperwork required to benefit from any rebates and bonuses.

We will repair any damage we do in the installation of your system, However, if you have roof tiles that are very old, it is likely that some of these will be damaged in the installation as the installers walk across the roof, and so we ask that you provide us with spare tiles if necessary. If you are concerned about the age of your roof, please discuss this with us first.

Very little. Solar panels are passive and so faults are very rare, however, they can collect dust, bird poo and other particles that will build up over time. Luckily the rain will typically wash off all of this debris. If there is a period of many months without rain, by all means safely wash your solar panels by spraying them with a hose (whilst standing safely on the ground), but we don’t recommend that you go up onto your roof and wash them by hand. It is not worth your time and of course, it can be dangerous. If you get up onto your roof to clean the gutters then spraying your panels could be a good idea if you are able to do it safely.