We have solar panels!
This was the first thing on the to do list when we got the house, but it's taken a while for the rebate to come through and for the company to have time to do it. We also needed to get our roof replaced, as the old tin was rotting - we went with a very white Colourbond. It's frustrating spending that much money on something you can't really see, but worth it, especially as Jamie put the insulation in at the same time.
We actually worried about the angle - it's pretty much flat to the roof and we imagined it angled. However they assured us that solar panels are so good these days that you don't really need to angle them, especially with how many we have.
We decided on 14 × 450 W Trina Solar panels (TSM‑450NEG9R.25) together with a 5 kW Sungrow inverter (SG5.0RS) - the panels are meant to be high‑quality, high‑efficiency panels that deliver strong power output but are compact so that you get more generation from fewer panels. They've got really good durability and performance over time and are kinda mid range panels - given the high range are way more expensive, and the benefits marginal for us for the life of the panels, this was a good choice for us.
These days the price of supplying power to the grid is like .3 of a cent down from the heyday of 70cents so we dont' really care about that, but just so that if we run our hot water and appliances during the day, we're just using solar.
It did take a week for it to be signed off but now we're away - yay. On our last house we didn’t get the app working, and to be fair, I’m not really even interested much in checking all the time - that’s for Jamie. If the sun’s out, I know it’s a good time to run all the appliances, haha.
My Mum's talking about solar panels but we're trying to talk her out of it. She'll sell the house soon enough and she has a great house that doesn't need the addition of solar panels to make it valuable. Plus, that'd be my inheritance she's spending. Gen X child of boomer here. Sue me. Or don't - I can't afford it.
She can afford to pay the electricity bills too, and there is only one of her to use electricity - and it doesn't take much to heat.
Our house is older - we think the solar panels will also shade the roof in summer so less need for air con on the super hot days.
Four grand isn't much to pay for them either - AUD of course. Government rebate makes them really affordable. These days there is no buy back scheme, but still, it's worth it. The money came from the sale of our house so it doesn't feel like we are impacting our budget too much. Plus, I've already paid the deposit months ago.
I wish I could afford the battery, but another 12K AUD just wasn’t possible for us. There’s other things to spend our money on and we genuinely think it’d be a helluva long time before it paid for itself. We don’t run an EV either so we just didn’t feel the need. We do have the option later on if the prices come down.
I do think things like this add value to our tiny home.
I don't know, maybe it's not worth it all, but it feels good to do it. We live in a land with a lot of sun, so it feels stupid to not generate your own 'leccy on the roof, right? And it does make a difference to your monthly outgoings.
Do you have solar panels? Do they save you much on the bill?
With Love,
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