How Much is a 5kW Solar System in 2023? (with an important warning)

Trying to work out how much to pay for a 5kW solar system isn’t easy.

Many of our customers tell us how steep the learning curve is when trying to choose a system. The good news is it has never been easier to choose a good quality system thanks to record-low prices on the better brands.

Price of a 5kW Solar System

To help you cut through the confusion, we believe you should have all the information you need to make an informed decision, including pricing.

And so here it is:

For a good quality 5kW solar system, the average solar price in Sydney starts at $5,500, fully installed.

If you want a smart solar system with panel-level optimisation, expect to pay around $7,500 for a SolarEdge system. A top-of-the-range system with Enphase Microinverters and high-efficiency solar panels from REC Solar will cost around $10,000, and so this is about the most you can expect to pay if you want the best of the best.

This 13-panel system will output around 20kWh a day, and can save you up to $500 every quarterly power bill.

Price Of A 5kW Solar System With Battery Storage

A 5kW solar system is often considered the smallest solar system that is compatible with a Tesla Powerwall battery. Any smaller, and you generally won’t generate enough solar power to charge the 13.5kWh battery in the winter half of the year.

A 5kW solar system with Tesla Powerwall battery storage starts at $21,500, fully installed. This includes a good quality solar system using Q Cells panels and a string inverter. A top-of-the-range 5kW Smart Solar System from Enphase with battery storage starts at around $26,000, fully installed.

5kW Solar System	Solar Panels In A 5kW Solar System	5kW Cheap Solar Price	Good Quality 5kW System	SolarEdge	Top Of The Range
5kW Solar System Price	13 x 415W Panels	Less than $5,500	From $5,500	Around $7,500	Around $10,000
5kW Solar System Finance	13 x 415W Panels		From $47 a fortnight*	From $61 a fortnight*	From $79 a fortnight*
5kW Solar System With Battery Storage	13 x 415W Panels & 13.5kWh Tesla Powerwall		From $21,500	From $23,500	From $26,000

* Repayment numbers are estimates based on a 7-year term. 3-7 year terms available, more info here: Solar Power Green Loans

The best of the best would include REC Solar panels with Enphase microinverters. More information is available here: The best solar system in Australia

==> The future of solar power technology is here! Nearly all Solaray systems now feature panel-level output, online monitoring, back-to-base status alerts and more! Discover the next generation of solar technology with Enphase

Working Out The Right Price To Pay For A 5kW Solar System

Trying to work out how much to pay for a 5kW solar system isn’t easy – many of our customers tell us how steep the learning curve is when trying to choose a system.

Unfortunately, a lot of solar systems you see advertised online are far too cheap – they use no-name panels, and we hear stories every week of people being left high and dry by installers who go belly-up, or simply won’t return phone calls.

‘Cheap solar’ has become a real problem in Australia, and this race to the bottom has been the death of many installers, who simply couldn’t afford to service all the warranty claims. This is made even worse by the fact that so many manufacturers have either disappeared or pulled out of the Australian market:

That’s why we say a 25-year warranty isn’t worth the paper it’s written on if the company backing it isn’t going to be around. It is estimated around 1 in 3 solar systems in Australia are now unsupported, and this is only set to continue due to the nature of Chinese manufacturing and larger economic factors, but it’s bad enough already.

More on cheap solar here: An incredible 1 in 5 solar systems are defected by the Clean Energy Council.

Cheap 5kW Solar Systems – What To Look Out For

The first thing most people do when they search for a 5kW solar system is to find out how much it costs. Here are some typical ads you will see in your search results:

If you are new to solar power, your very first online search could have you believing a good quality 5kW solar system costs around $4000, maybe even less. The ads use words like ‘premium’ and ‘tier 1’.

It all sounds great… except it’s not. $4000 is far too cheap for a good quality 5kW solar system.

You Have Been Warned – Don’t Buy A Cheap 5kW Solar System

If you were to get 3 quotes for a 5kW solar system from reputable solar installers in Sydney, you would find that we would be offering similar brands, and that our prices are all within a few hundred dollars of each other. Yes, there can be slight differences, but for the most part, the quotes will be around the same price.

To put it another way, you won’t find a $6,000 5kW system ‘on sale’ for $4000. Even if you’re happy for the installer to cut a few corners (which you shouldn’t be), you simply can’t get top quality brands for that type of money.

Good quality solar panels have dropped in price to the point that it no longer makes sense to consider the bottom end of the solar market when buying a 5kW solar system. You can have the best solar panels from the world’s leading manufacturers, online monitoring, a professional installation, full technical support, and still get a return on your money in 3-5 years.

Smart Solar 5kW Sale On Now

Request a solar power quote today and let us help you reduce your power bills with a good quality solar system. Our Smart Solar Sale includes:

Premium solar panels for maximum performance
Free consumption monitoring – keep track of how much power you are using in the home
Fast-tracked installation
Technical support
Full-service warranties
Free system monitoring for the life of your system
Solaray’s famous hassle-free installation service – it’s why we have one of the highest customer feedback scores in the industry

Smart Solar Sale – Request a Solaray Quote

Your
Power Bill

The Solaray Difference	’Cheap Solar’	All Solaray Systems	Solaray Smart Solar
Decades of reduced power bills	Unsure	Yes	Yes
Most efficient solar panels	No	Yes	Yes
Full-service warranties	No	Yes	Yes
Free technical support	No	Yes	Yes
Whole of system warranty	No	Yes	Yes
Free online monitoring	No	Yes	Yes
Back to base status alerts	No	Yes	Yes
Easily expandable	No	No	Yes
Work with partially shaded sites	No	No	Yes
Panel-level system output	No	No	Yes

5kW Solar System FAQs

Is A 5kW Solar System Enough?

These days we generally only install a 5kW solar system if we are limited by roof space or you really just don’t use much electricity (and don’t plan to).

For almost all households, a 5kW solar system will be on the smaller side these days. The average-sized solar system we are now installing is closer to 8kW, with most households choosing to install at least a 6.6kW system and may now going really big to basically fill the roof.

We have had a few people tell us they are worried the solar industry is trying to up-sell them when they first enquire about a 5kW system. A good analogy would be to consider someone walking into a computer shop and asking for a computer that was a great option a few years ago. If the 2017 model was still available, but only a little bit cheaper, it isn’t in the customers’ best interest to buy the older computer.

5kW solar systems were common a few years back when solar was a lot more expensive, and when panels were a lot less efficient. Not only has the price per panel plummeted in recent years, but the efficiency of the panels has also improved significantly. The standard residential panel has increased from 250W to over 400W, while the price per panel has fallen.

In fact, the price of solar per kWh generated by a solar system is actually cheaper than the feed-in tariff offered by most energy retailers. This has resulted in a huge shift in the systems people are buying to the point where a lot of our customers are literally filling the roof with panels.

Other reasons why solar systems are now much larger than 5kW:

The larger the system, the larger the government incentive, so the increase in price for the larger system is partially offset by the government rebate.
Many other households are planning to buy a plug-in hybrid or electric car within the next 10 years. Having a larger solar system means excess solar power can be used to charge the car during the daytime
Battery storage is now being the norm, and most households will have battery storage as a part of their solar system in the coming years. Ensuring the solar system is sized up to your 24-hour usage ensures the system is battery-ready. A 5kW system is the absolute minimum size you need to get a Tesla Powewall battery, however, it often won’t charge to full capacity during the winter as there isn’t enough excess solar power during the day, especially on rainy days.

The Output Of A 5kW Solar System In Sydney

The output of a 5kW Solar System in Sydney

A 5kW solar system in Sydney is a great size solar system for a medium-family home. This article will look at the benefits of installing a 5kW system, the main brands you should be looking at and provide detailed information to make sure this size system is the right fit for your household.

According to the Clean Energy Council Guidelines, A 5kW solar system in Sydney will output around 20 kWh a day (averaged out across the year), outputting more on the long summer days, and less in winter. It is important to understand that this 20 kWh of solar power will be produced during daylight hours, and typically as a bell curve as illustrated below.

Depending on how much power you use during the day, typically you would want to have a quarterly power bill of around $600 to $1000 (up to around 30 kWh a day excluding any off-peak hot water) to make good use of a 5kW system. These numbers will vary if you are planning on installing battery storage, as it is now possible to store excess solar power to be used in the evening, allowing households to run almost entirely off solar power. Please contact us for more information about this and how to accurately size up a battery-ready solar system.

A solar system will peak when the sun is shining directly onto the panels, so for an array facing north, this will be for approximately 4 hours during the middle of the day. This system is installed on a roof facing northwest. This is a common orientation to face a solar array in Sydney, especially if you have time-of-use billing where power is most expensive between 2 pm and 8 pm. You can see in the graph how even in autumn the system will continue operating until 7 pm if you have the panels installed to catch the late afternoon sun.

The other important point to take away from this image is that a 5kW system will almost never reach its peak output. This system reached a maximum output of 3.84 kW and yet produced 29.1 kWh of power across the day.

For a 5kW system to output 5kW at any one time, it has to be the right time of the day and the right time of the year, which is very rare. In this example, the system is installed on a tile roof with a normal pitch of about 20 degrees. There are 19 panels all facing north-west. This helps extend the output into the late afternoon, as seen in the graph above. In Sydney during summer, panels that are installed flat will be working at their peak efficiency because the sun is so high in the sky.

For these panels installed at 20 degrees, the output will be higher than average in spring and autumn and slightly lower than average in summer and winter. The peak output on this system during a sunny March day is only 3.84 kW, however, even in March, this 5kW system will typically produce around 30 kWh a day, much higher than the Clean Energy Council guideline of 19.5 kWh.

Solaray is the largest and most experienced installer of Enphase Systems in NSW, and our expertise ensures your system is installed in a manner that optimises output and system performance. The performance of our Enphase portfolio is on average 110% of expected output, including systems that are installed on shaded roofs. This real-world performance is why thousands of households in NSW choose Solaray Energy for their solar installation.

Do you want this level of system monitoring? Our Enphase systems come with full system monitoring free for the life of your system. Find out more – Enphase Micro Inverter Systems

What Will A 5kW Solar System Run?

A 5kW solar system will be connected to the main phase of your house, so it will run everything in your home during the day except for anything connected to a controlled load phase, sometimes referred to as off-peak.

This is for your off-peak hot water (and occasionally for the pool pumps) and it is not covered by the solar system. The off-peak tariff is much cheaper than your standard electricity tariffs for the home so we don’t connect the solar system to it.

A 5kW solar system will output up to around 4.5kW in the middle of the day, and will produce on average 20kWh a day, producing more in summer and less in winter. This will typically be enough power to run everything in a modern family home including the appliances, lights, TV, internet etc. It will probably not be enough power to run pool pumps, a large ducted air conditioner and the whole house at the same time, so if you use a large amount of power during summer (or any other time of the year) we would recommend looking at a larger system if you have the roof space. The Solaray Team can help you size up a solar system when you are ready.

5kW Solar Systems in Sydney

Standard residential solar panels have been improving rapidly. REC Solar is now offering 405W panels, and as technology improves we are now seeing high-efficiency panels drop in price such as from Q Cells.

This means that for a 5kW Solar Installation in Sydney, Solaray systems typically include 13 panels, either in series with a top-quality inverter from SolarEdge, or as a 5kW Micro Inverter System powered by Enphase that features panel-level output. This ensures your system will output maximum power in all weather conditions:

The main benefit of microinverters is that each panel is independent of the others, making it possible to design arrays in different orientations and at different angles. A common panel layout is to have some panels facing north, and the others west – to spread out the output of solar power across the day, making it easier to use most of the solar power as it is generated.

Having panels west is also advantageous if you are on time-of-use billing, where you typically pay around 50c per kWh between 2 pm and 8 pm for your power.

A Final Thought

With solar prices so low these days, we find many customers buying larger systems up to around 10kW or so, even when their quarterly power bills are less than $1000 – the average size system we are currently installing is now well over 5kW.

By installing extra capacity and taking advantage of generous government rebates, we see many households increasing their power usage to invest in their lifestyle by running pool pumps, air conditions and even spas from solar power.

As solar batteries become more popular, installing a large enough solar array to power your house from solar power 24 hours a day ensures you are 100% ready to invest in batteries when you choose to do so; many households are now sizing up a system based on their daily usage rather than their daytime usage in readiness for solar storage.

Please contact us for more information about battery-ready solar systems to discover what your options are, as not all systems are easily expandable.