Eligibility criteria for the solar rebate will be households where the:
Combined household income of less than $250,000
Property valued at less than 1.5 times the national median house price (currently $1.15m) or 1.5 times Auckland and Queenstown median house price (approximately $1.49m and $1.9m, respectively).
Solar system is a minimum of 2Kw
The rebate will be available for rental properties.
Don’t really know the specific ins and outs of different policys and all that, but really want solar to become more main stream, and with that, hopefully bring the prices down a bit.
Very keen to get some solar in the near future, and would love for some friendlier prices :)
The one to watch is the buyback rate, or what the power company will buy power off you for. Unless you’re using a lot of power during the day, this is typically what makes solar not worthwhile.
The real problem is the daily charge. If the buyback is close enough to the purchase price you can make your night time (off peak) costs balance your generated income. When you have a high daily rate you have make up that difference before you can break even. I just switched to a provider with a bigger buyback/purchase difference but lower daily and will come out ahead because of that. Got tired of sending 2x more kWh to the grid than receiving and still ending up in debit.
Does the math, math if you get enough Batteries so that you can use a lot of it at night, without much buyback? Or does the high cost of storage not make the math quite math.
I’m currently paying 10c/kwh off peak, and most of our power is used off peak, I doubt a battery would pay for itself any time soon. Besides, they’re not the most environmentally friendly option.
Just totally random, but I suddenly thought of when they first introduced hybrid power into F1, and kept it quite open for the manufacturers to come up with their own solution, and at least one team (from memory) tested flywheels.
Wondered if someones done a residential scale flywheel, and it seems like there’s been at least some research into it.
Those systems more or less completely charged and discharged in each corner from memory, there wasn’t all that much energy in the system.
The only realistic use case I can think of would be keeping power on long enough for a generator to spin up. Otherwise you’d have a moving part with a scary amount of inertia that needs routine maintenance, and otherwise just sits there.
Hopefully with the massive amount of effort going into battery tech, the price continues to come down rapidly, and we also get new technologies coming out that are a bit more eco-friendly
I’m all for new solar but the rebates going towards residential installs will go directly in the pockets of the same companies that are squeezing us as they make billions in profit.
Without similar DER/VPP legislation they have in Australia, the markets will continue to be skewed in favour of the big gentailers. I agree that this is a separate issue from the distributed generation needing to be installed but don’t stop there. Let’s take it all the way and make a level playing field for small generators.
As I’ve said in other comments, the best way to get around the power companies is to offset your own power usage, and put little to no power into the grid itself.
That way you’re essentially paying yourself full purchase price for the power you make, and the power co doesn’t get their cut at all.
Putting solar panels on the roof of a building that is empty during the day, and in use at night is exactly the type of thinking I’d expect from Labour.
We should be putting it on the roofs of businesses, because they’re there during the day
I put solar in. It dropped my power bill about 40%.
Why you always argue we shouldn’t do good things because it’s not perfect is beyond me.
Solar on houses is good. Solar on houses and businesses is better. But just because the latter isn’t happening right now is no reason to not do the former.
Sure, but there are other considerations. Many businesses do not have appropriate roofs, or are in shared buildings, or are surrounded by tall buildings so get little sunlight.
Also, just because you won’t benefit doesn’t mean others won’t. Like I said, combining running washing etc during the day, keeping the house cool/warm for free during the day, and the buyback (small but significant) has dropped my power bill almost 40%.
I personally think residential solar is a great idea. I think commerical solar is a great idea. I’m happy with anyone adding solar to anything.
ETA: oh, and if you are in favour of solar, then I suggest you vote Labour or Greens. They are the only parties with concrete plans to increase solar uptake.
Yes, I have it somewhere. I think it was in the order of 10 years but I’d have to find the details to confirm that.
I didn’t do it with the thinking of return on investment however. To me, it is an increase in property value, and a reduction in day-to-day costs which were big factors, and of course reducing my environmental impact.
I actually installed my panels in two stages. The second stage added 60% production, but cost slightly less than the initial 40% did. The costs are even less now. Couple that with input from the government, and the pay-off time would be much less if I installed it today with this policy in effect. Much more appealing to people whose main concern is strictly reducing costs.
I’m also a big fan of residential solar for redundancy and disaster resilience.
Agreed. I added solar when I moved to the Bay of Islands which has about the most expensive electricity rates in the country. I also work from home. It will pay for itself in 6 years at current electricity rates (which, some people tell me, are only going to get more expensive).
Unfortunately I’d need a battery to increase resilience against power cuts, and the maths doesn’t add up for that yet, at least for me.
Yes batteries are currently not really worth it at the prices we pay. I had 2 small batteries installed (IIRC they are 4kwh total), but they really add nothing. Slightly offset costs,but weren’t worth it. I got a good price on them, however, so I’m not too upset, but in hindsight I wouldn’t have added them.
I’m a big fan of centralised storage. Using excess generated power during the day on a pumped water storage system, or similar, and then returning it to the grid at night. I think the economies of scale make the most sense this way, and then buyback rates should be equal. That would require some radial overhauling of the current power landscape, however. If only the power companies hadn’t been privatised back in the day, we would be in better shape then we are now.
The policy says the rebate is for a battery as well. However I prefer the Greens policy that goes even further than Labour’s.
And let’s be honest, we already know the power companies and businesses do not pass on savings to the consumer and will just keep it all to boost profits. I would much rather solar directly benefits households, no matter how little it may be.
It’s slowly improving and will only get better with the popularity of EV’s. Even LiFePO4 batteries are considered much more environmentally friendly than previous tech. I got a quote a few months ago for solar + battery and that already included LiFePO4 battery storage.
The tech won’t improve unless there’s uptake and demand, which is starting to increase now. Australia has had subsidies for solar installation for a while now and costs for rooftop PV there are some of the lowest.
It’s up to you if you want to trust the power companies, but in the 5 or so years of living in this house our power prices have only ever increased.
Yes, but the power company typically buys it from you at roughly half the price they sell it for, so a system that is offsetting power used on the premises is far more cost effective than one on an empty house.
Why do you think we step up the voltage as far as 220 thousand volts? You can lose a maximum of 5% of the nominal supply voltage between the switchboard and the load inside a building, and 7% from the point of supply to the load.
Transmission loss on low voltage is definitely not insignificant.
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