For many Solaray customers, the summer months are when their power bills are close to $0 despite having the pool pumps running and the air conditioner on most afternoons.

As summer quickly approaches, a solar system in Sydney will now begin outputting significantly more solar power, often enough to run everything in the home during the daytime plus enough excess solar power to charge a large solar battery.

Don’t miss out on the best months of the year for solar

Putting solar on the backburner until after summer could cost you thousands of dollars in savings on your power bills.

A 6.6kW solar system can save you well over $2000 a year, while a 10kW system can save you up to around $4000! With a lot more solar power generated during the summer half of the year, you can miss out on thousands of dollars in savings on your power bills if you put off solar until sometime next year.

These savings numbers assume that around 70% of the solar power generated is used in the home as it is generated and that your cost of electricity is 25 cents per kWh. Many households are now paying a lot more than that due to the skyrocketing price of electricity, especially if you are on time-of-use billing where the energy tariff during the peak billing period can be well over 50 cents per kWh.

Here are the average daily output figures of a 6kW solar system in Sydney, by month, provided by the Clean Energy Council:

Is The Solar Rebate Ending At The End Of The Year?

No, this is fake news, however, it is reducing.

There are currently a lot of solar installers telling people that the rebates are either ending or significantly changing. This is nothing new. The rebate reduces every year and unfortunately a lot of solar installers muddy the waters by exaggerating how much the rebates are changing by.

Nonetheless, solar is going to be more expensive if you install a system next year, so if you are thinking about installing a system you will save a few hundred dollars if you do it now and have the system installed before the end of the year.

When the solar rebate was introduced, one small-scale technology certificate (STC) was issued for every estimated 1,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity a solar system would generate over a period of 15 years – until 2030.

However, with 2030 fast approaching the subsidy is now being phased out with the deeming period being reduced by one year, each year.

This means that for the average-sized 6.6kW solar system, it will be around $300 cheaper if you install a system before the end of the year. And don’t forget… the larger the system, the larger the government incentive!

There were rumours from the Coalition’s party room that the federal government was going to adopt the recommendation by the ACCC to completely scrap the SRES (commonly referred to as the government’s solar rebate), however, it has been about a year since this was in the news: the ACCC has recently come out again to reaffirm their position that the solar rebate should be scrapped.

In recent years, the dispute over the National Energy Guarantee ultimately resulted in a change in Prime Minister, and a formal position on solar rebates was brushed to the side… for now.

Our advice remains unchanged

Our advice is simple: the sooner you install solar power, the sooner you will be generating your own electricity for a fraction of the price you would otherwise be buying it from the grid. If you put solar on the back burner it can cost you thousands of dollars a year, especially if you are spending more time at home due to COVID-19.

With regards to the government rebate, your price is locked in when you place an order. You get the full value of the government’s incentive upfront so once you have a system installed, it no longer matters what happens to the STC price or the scheme in general. If you choose to hold off, the STC price could drop, or the government may even scrap the scheme entirely.

So it’s the perfect storm for solar at the moment. Solar pricing is at a record low, Sydney’s long summer days are still ahead of us. Choose to install a solar system now and finally do something about those rising power prices.

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