Renovate Australia Podcast Episode 6

After weighing up for a long time whether to install residential solar power on our house here in South Australia we decided to go ahead and get some quotes on the costs associated with it. To start the process I visited a web-site called SolarQuotes.com.au that my brother in law recommended.

The guy who runs it is Finn Peacock and he seems to be a very up and up kind of guy, who even called my brother in law back on the phone to answer some of his questions!

His web-site will connect you with three different solar providers for quotes. After filling out the simple form I had two of the three companies contact me pretty quickly with quotes over the phone.

In addition to the three companies that I was connected to via the SolarQuotes site, I also contacted two companies that I had recently received flyers for. They were very low prices, for what looked like decent systems, so I thought I would give them a try.

SolarQuotes.com.au also has a Solar Installer Leaderboard on their site. I had a look at that page and contacted three other companies that had done a lot of work in South Australia, were either Platinum or Gold rated on SolarQuotes, and also had very few, or no negative comments on forums.

Following the advice on SolarQuotes.com.au I did the following while researching the companies:

1. Checked out the reviews on SolarQuotes
2. Searched for forum posts about the companies on Whirlpool
3. Asked a lot of questions of the people giving the quotes (13 suggested questions from SolarQuotes)

In addition to those questions I also checked out reviews and forum posts on the inverters and panels I was quoted on.

Since moving back to Australia I have noticed a huge trend of homes installing home solar power systems. As it turns out 10% of homes actually have solar power systems installed, and they are producing about 1% of the nation’s power.

At the end of 2012 the rebate from the Australian government dropped by half of what it was. The funny thing is though that the price of systems has not changed significantly based on the flyers that I had from December 2012 and one from March 2013.

One benefit of having solar power is the electricity feed in tariff. Here in South Australia there are two feed in tariffs that you can receive; one from the government and one from your energy retailer. The one from the government though is set to be eliminated if your system is installed after September 30, 2013:

Solar customers who received approval from SA Power Networks for an upgrade prior to 1 October 2011 will be permitted to carry out and complete that upgrade before 1 October 2013 to remain in the feed-in scheme, however, they will only be entitled to receive 16c/kWh for future electricity fed into the grid for the whole of their system until 2016 …

So with that in mind, should I install a home solar power system before September 2013? I would LOVE some advice as it is a large investment, but it could have some real benefits down the track …