Is it worth going Solar these days?

New Home Builder in QLD is offering free Solar but any rebate(s) will go to a third party for the first 5 years.

My initial reaction was to say no to Solar for the following reasons:
* Unsightly
* Possible high failure rate
* Possibility of damage in high wind area
* No rebates for 5 years
* High initial Carbon Footprint

What do you think?

I have looked at it a number of times but still can't justify it with our usage, most of our power would go into the grid as our main usage is after 5pm or before 7am.
Also I have heard of many people that have systems stop working then have all sorts of problems getting them fixed, then there is the whole damage to roof thing. The systems are not installed by roof plumbers and little care is given to things like swarf on the roof and dis-similar metals, or in the case of tiles the brackets are prone to damaging the tiles or just cause leaks in general.

I know that you only hear about the bad experiences from most people and the good experiences go unreported but for my usage the maths still doesn't work out either.

Maybe next year?

Yes, the damage to the (new) roof can be significant. I was also worried about dodgy installers.

I had a great experience putting solar in. Old mate sparky reckons solar hAs come a long way in recent years. His only warning was to use a long established company with a long warranty. The system pays for itself in five years, the warranty lasts ten, can't lose.
The neighbours put theirs in ages ago. They love running the air con all through a hot day without affecting the power bill.
As for damage, you literally can't do anything ever without damage unless you pick a good tradie.
We've had a bunch of severe storms that took out fences since the install, but the panels remain unaffected.

Yes for some people, no for others. If you have a house where you have a large load running through daylight hours (like a/c all day) then it might be feasible.

Has been worth it for us 18mths in. We have adjusted our appliances to use daytime solar. Our biggest consumption is electric hot water so putting it onto a timer was simple and effective. We're regional so pay highest rates for power and lowest for feed-in. Even with that we are only left paying the service fees for power. We paid more for a individualised panel system that will report via phone or pc each individual panel output which is more complicated but the 20yr warranty is a no brainer. It is also ready for a battery when they are more developed . Good luck there's a lot of cheap Chinese sheet and snake oil salesmen.

Sounds good if I can get it done by a reputable company then?
I will be running a 25KW ac system on most days so should be worth it. We also do all our washing and cooking (all electric) before 4:00pm

I read that LG panels are good. Skip the cheap Chinese panels.

Solar is well worth it.

that said I wouldn't go through a builder unless you were absolutely certain of what quality you are getting

also unless you are paying for the build without a loan theN the real cost after interest of the solar is +10 times what you think it is and that's no real value

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Storm Ahead said..
My initial reaction was to say no to Solar for the following reasons:
* Unsightly
* Possible high failure rate
* Possibility of damage in high wind area
* No rebates for 5 years
* High initial Carbon Footprint

What do you think?

I don't think solar is for you

but seriously - we've had 5.5 kW of panels installed in 2013 (in WA). The only issue we had was with the inverter, which was promptly replaced under warranty. The system paid for itself in just over six years so we are already ahead. Even with low feed in tarrif, we still get about 16% return on investment (savings in electricity bill) so by far the best investment decisions I ever made.

If you are really considering solar, I would suggest to ask the same question on Whirlpool and read posts on similar topic, as always on the internet you get some good and some bad advice :-)

forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum/143?g=371

I hope this helps

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Storm Ahead said..
I will be running a 25KW ac system on most days so should be worth it. We also do all our washing and cooking (all electric) before

25kW! Not on the electrical input side? Still, have you got 3 phase power?

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elmo said..
Solar is well worth it.

Agreed.

Spring last year i put in a 6.6kw system (REC panels and 5kw fronius inverter, about $4600), and i've probably saved $1,500. My 2 monthly bills were usually just above $500 but last summer i had 2 bills under $50 and my latest bill was only $230.

My dad got a 6.6kw system at the same for under $3k, cheap panels and a goodwe(?) invertor. Also saved $1k+ but the gear isnt so good and who knows if the installer will be around for any warranty issues.

It's a no brainer, especially in WA. Just got to sort through the mountains of rubbish to find a decent installer and system and there is no way i'd be going through a builder or any of the other solar cowboys.

I don't like the sound of "free" solar included in home build. How much power to choose the panels, inverter etc would you have there, will it still be warrantied after the five year rebate to third party?
That said, I've had 6.6 REC, fronius inverter, etc, for a year installed by reputable local guy. Haven't payed anything significant for power since, currently in credit. We use catch diverter for hot water, which is brilliant, much better than a timer. So it's worth it for us, but as others have said, depends on your needs and usage patterns
Last but not least, part of my reasoning was reducing green house footprint, not just cost, and was happy to pay for that a bit

We need to go nuclear and stop burning coal .
Or at lest gas .
Instead of selling all three to smarter countries.

Solar is a good financial investment whilst all the poor people have to subsidise the cost for you and pay you for the power you produce.

Don't worry too much about where the panels are made. Pretty much every panel is made in China. Whilst they do produce poor quality panels, they produce top quality ones too. I would imagine LG would only put their stickers on quality ones.

IMO when you weigh up everything (convenience, noise, portability, replacement cost, ror) based on costs today

Travelling - Absolutely


On house (the average person, with kids, loves aircon, not particularly tech savvy or handy)- Borderline, unless in a consistently sunny location with reliable components, likely to still be running several years beyond warranty, and you use your whitegoods etc during the sunny periods (assuming nothing damages a panel)

On House (the gadget / tinkerer / Handy person) - Yes, as you are happy to adapt to living with solar and you'll make it work for you no matter what

House with a pool in FNQ, saving about $5 a day just on running the pool pump when the sun is up, monthly bill down from 200ish to $30ish, also put the a/c on a timer to kick in around 3pm so the house is nice and cool when we get home

Google solar calculator Australia to check out the savings

A mate spent $150,000 on a smallish solar farm on his 4 acre block.

He gets paid circa $25,000/annum for what it feeds into the grid. That equates to a 17% ROI.

I think it is worth it.

Nothing is free so lets get that out of the way first. If your builder is offering you something for free then either the cost for it is built into something else or you are not getting something you should be getting.

It would be difficult to work this out with a new home build as there are a myriad of items where the cost of the free item could be made up with other items. So you see the 'free' solar panels and inverters. You don't see the foundation concrete that cost $5000 more than it should have. Or even worse you can't see the lack of foundations that cost $5000 less than it should have.

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Ian K said..

Storm Ahead said..
I will be running a 25KW ac system on most days so should be worth it. We also do all our washing and cooking (all electric) before

25kW! Not on the electrical input side? Still, have you got 3 phase power?

3 phase power to the house and 24.5kW Daikin unit is what is being provided by the builder.

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gs12 said..

I don't think solar is for you

I was all for Solar and EVs etc until I watched Planet of the Humans by Michael Moore...

Crunch your numbers Storm Ahead, we followed a similar plan to Rails and installed a 1.5kW system years ago, primarily to offset our pool pump, but we're on the old scheme so can sell our power at 52c/kwh and buy it back at night for the market rate to run the pump. Use your home loan rate as your discount rate (or opportunity cost) in your finance calculations. Sizing the system properly is a key consideration because under the new scheme it's not really worth generating any more power than you can use in a domestic installation.

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Storm Ahead said..

Ian K said..

Storm Ahead said..
I will be running a 25KW ac system on most days so should be worth it. We also do all our washing and cooking (all electric) before

25kW! Not on the electrical input side? Still, have you got 3 phase power?

3 phase power to the house and 24.5kW Daikin unit is what is being provided by the builder.

I would guess that is heating/cooling KW and not electrical, they generally specify by that, but even then you'd imagine it would draw at least 6KW of electricity. If it's electrical KW you've probably got enough cooling there for a multilevel office block.

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GreenPat said..


I would guess that is heating/cooling KW and not electrical, they generally specify by that, but even then you'd imagine it would draw at least 6KW of electricity.

Thanks for pointing that out. I just checked and you are correct!

System Reverse Cycle. Standard Inverter. three Phase. DAIKIN outdoor model number RZQ250LY1
23.5kW Cooling Capacity
26.8kW Heating Capacity
(Power Input 7.85kW cooling/8.47kw heating)

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Paddles B'mere said..
Crunch your numbers Storm Ahead, we followed a similar plan to Rails and installed a 1.5kW system years ago, primarily to offset our pool pump, but we're on the old scheme so can sell our power at 52c/kwh and buy it back at night for the market rate to run the pump. Use your home loan rate as your discount rate (or opportunity cost) in your finance calculations. Sizing the system properly is a key consideration because under the new scheme it's not really worth generating any more power than you can use in a domestic installation.

It feels like we have been hit with a 1000 decisions about the house which we have to make before the end of this week. So, we haven't had much time to look into the solar rebate scheme yet.

From personal perspective , solar PV is worthwhile.With some improvements in the future required.
In the case of grid failure, after weather cataclysm , family home solar should be a saver.
But that require some even small amount of battery storage and obviously inverter designed to work off grid too.
I have already output 70 kwh everyday, even if my roof is partly shaded by tall trees, on my newly installed PV.

As a whole country investment family solar PV subsidy it total nonsense.
Purpose build solar farm do deliver 10 x more energy for bucks.
State and government money will be much better spend on national transmission lines, specifically designed for green energy.
So we need urgently build High Voltage Direct Current lines.
There is no alternative; government needs to do so -as a private business is unable to build infrastructure of this size.This lines need to cross whole country , require land purchase or lease or even been build underground. But this is not a task for private business small or big.
Those lines should also be publicly owned , not private, to avoid extortions prices in the future.
Nowadays the main barrier in further development of green energy in Australia in lack of this ability to transfer this energy from place where is produced to consumer ( large or small).
For individual solar PV it means you are not paid for energy , since you can not export to the grid everything you produce.
For big industrial solar farms it mean millions or even hundreds of millions dollar losses on farm build and ready to produce , when nobody is buying, even switched from network completely.
The real price, cost of electric energy is 2c per kwh and all the difference in feed in tariff is pure subsidy or customers rip off .Simply waste of good money - means country has too much, beside falling export and house prices, job losses and preparation to war with Chine.

Not if you live in f#####g England it aint

Just how effective it has become in WA... heading towards overload!!

www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-31/wa-solar-subsidy-overhaul-to-avoid-grid-overload/12608036

Not that it's particularly relevant, but it's a good idea to sometimes clean the panels. I noticed that the output from my system was down after the summer bushfires, so I got up on the roof with a mop. Result was about 15-20% more power.
I look at some of the local business's installations and wonder how that could done when the panels are laid out side by side with no gaps for 6-10m. Do they even notice that the output is down? It must be, judging from the reduced shininess of the panels. That tells me that there is a film of dirt stuck to them.

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Mr Milk said..
Not that it's particularly relevant, but it's a good idea to sometimes clean the panels. I noticed that the output from my system was down after the summer bushfires, so I got up on the roof with a mop. Result was about 15-20% more power.
I look at some of the local business's installations and wonder how that could done when the panels are laid out side by side with no gaps for 6-10m. Do they even notice that the output is down? It must be, judging from the reduced shininess of the panels. That tells me that there is a film of dirt stuck to them.

Multiply that by every solar installation across the country, that's a heck of a lot of wasted power!

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cisco said..
A mate spent $150,000 on a smallish solar farm on his 4 acre block.

He gets paid circa $25,000/annum for what it feeds into the grid. That equates to a 17% ROI.

I think it is worth it.

Except that the capital value is going down by at least 5% per year and if the bottom falls out of the energy market the panels will be next to worthless, just look at what secondhand panels sell for these days.

Does the solar farm require no maintenance or other outgoings?

@Macro ................. you have outlined all the reasons why "distributed" alternative generation works very well ............... it might seem inefficient at face value compared to centralised generation, but it doesn't generally need increased network spend and in many instances can reduce network spend. The holy grail is figuring out efficient storage (electrically and economically).

And kk ............. you're right, there's a few costs missing out of that ROI calculation .............. you'd be wanting to depreciate a technology investment like solar at least 10% I reckon (10 year installation life) so there's $15k/yr straight off the bat to drop the ROI to 7% without even considering maintenance yet. That's still not too bad though.