Is solar energy still worth the investment?
We’ve spoken to industry experts to help answer important questions like:
Does your solar energy consumption affect your return on investment?
What should you expect to pay on a solar energy system in Australia?
How can you calculate annual savings for your system?
These are questions that our team receive just about every week. And it makes sense – not only is it a pretty complicated system, but it doesn’t help that there’s a lot of misinformation about it.
We have put together the below video to help answer these questions, and give you the information needed to determine if Solar is the right investment for you.
So, is Solar actually worth the investment?
In short, yes, solar energy is definitely a great investment today in Australia. That is, assuming your panels are good quality, installed well and have access to basic necessities like sunlight. In fact, we would argue that Solar is now a better investment than it ever has been in the past.
A very general figure that we can use for this exercise is $1000/KW of inverter installed. For example, 5kw inverter with 6.6kw of panels is around $5,000. A 5kw Inverter (6.6kw of Panels) will produce on average 26kwh per day. We have completed a simple savings exercise based on the most common system size our customers choose, which is a 5kw inverter with 6.6kw of panels.
26kwh per day @ a self-consumption rate of 50%, meaning 13kwh per day self-consumed and 13kwh per day exported. Solar works on an instantaneous net value. If the house is using 3kw and the solar is producing 2kw then 1kw will be taken from the grid, and vice versa.
Based on the above Solar System details, how can we calculate annual savings?
13 x $0.22/kwh = $2.86
13 x $0.10/kwh = $1.00
Daily Savings = $3.86 ($2.86 + $1.00)
Annual Savings = $1,408.90 per year in savings. ($3.86 x 365)
The maths we have listed here are very safe numbers. We have seen systems of this size save in excess of $1,800 per year depending on the self-consumption percentage.
With an out-of-pocket expense of $5,000 (this is approximate, and may vary depending on a number of factors such as roof accessibility, the panel and inverter brands used, and any added extras) and an average of 28% return on investment, we reckon that solar is a great investment.
