What to Know Before Buying Solar in 2024

hi I'm Jake Warner from the pen solar center and in this video I'm going to be answering the top questions that moms and dads ask before they buy solar for their home or business and those questions are what causes price variations in quotes how much can I expect to save once I install solar how much of your solar can you actually use are there government rebates available for my home or business how do I choose the right solar installer why do you use the panel that you've quoted me so if you'r

e thinking about getting solar power or battery storage for your home or business this is the video for you let's get started what causes price variations in quotes well actually there are a lot of different things that will cause price variations between quotes the type of inverter that you're going to get on your property is one of the biggest dictators in price variation as well of course of the panel quality and the installation quality so let's start from the top inverters that are availabl

e to you are a typical string inverter which is the most costeffective way of actually installing solar but it does come at the sacrifice of potentially safety reliability and performance the next option that you'll have is a string inverter with DC optimizers this is commonly known as a solar Edge system or it could be other styles of DC optimizers that are retrofitted to an existing string inverter that may cost you a little more than a standard string inverter or your third option and the saf

est smartest and most reliable option on the market currently is of course the nphase micro inverters they have a far longer warranty period and simply give you more energy over the life of your solar system then it will come down to your home do you have a brick veneer home is your home cladded is your home single story or double story and is it tin versus tile or perhaps you have clip lock they are just a few variations that are going to dictate why quotes may be different the next things to l

ook at are does the company have home warranty Insurance a little fun fact for you if your job is worth over $20,000 including GST and before your government subsidies are taken out the Solar Company is actually obliged to take out what we call a home warranty insurance policy for your home now this can cost around $750 it can even cost more if your job is worth more companies will try and cut costs by not giving you this insurance but if you look into Fair trading it is 100% necessary that your

home receives that policy the next thing that's going to wildly change price ing is in-house installation Crews versus subcontractors now for a model like penri solar center we have what we call a day charge so our admin costs and our installation costs are actually going to be the same for you whether you buy 10 panels off us or 36 panels off us that means the bigger the system gets the better the value for money is for you as the homeowner if you're dealing with a company who uses subcontract

ors you have to ask what's the quality of their installation going to be like and also you've got to remember subcontractors will be responsible for buying the cables the circuit breakers the silicons and the deck tights that are going to be used on your home if you're being paid per panel you're probably not incentivized to buy high quality gear and that is where you may find big price differences how much can I expect to save off my power bills once I've installed solar well firstly there's tw

o answers to that question are you installing solar only only or are you installing solar and batteries the light answer to the question is that with solar only you can expect to save minimum of around 50% all the way through to about 70% with solar and Battery we'd expect to do the rest of the heavy lifting we'd expect a minimum Savings of around 60% all the way up to completely wiping your power bill and even having the energy retailer owe you a check at the end of the year there are a few thi

ngs that go into the savings however is how much of your solar you are actually going to use versus how much you're going to sell to the grid we call selling to the grid a feeding tariff your feeding tariff is worth far less to you than how much you buy energy from from the grid that's what we call the Buy price so if you're utilizing all of your solar that system's going to pay itself off really really fast and you're going to have fantastic results however if you're selling it all to the grid

and all your energy is being used at night time you may not get as greater results the secret weapon to supercharging your return on investment actually lies right in the palm of your hands you see every solar system that we install at pen solar center has full consumption monitoring consumption monitoring will help you shift and shape your energy habits on the run you may have a pool that needs to be set during the day there could be some washing or chores around the home that could happen duri

ng the day in daylight hours as well once you get these things right you can your bills plummet and your return on investment increased by years are there any government rebates available for me when I'm getting solar on my home in Australia there is a federal government rebate available for anyone who purchases solar now the government rebate was actually introduced in 2015 and will scale back all the way to 2030 so right now we're about halfway through the rebate scheme and it will wrap up in

2030 which means you will no longer receive the the government rebate what exactly is the government rebate though well the government rebate is actually a form of upfront discount off your solar system we call this the STC scheme depending on how much energy your system will produce from the day you install it to 2030 when the rebate ends is how much of an upfront discount you'll get right now 10 kilow would get about $4,000 worth of government rebate back off the government most solar quotes o

n the market will include include the government rebate already reduced which you can find in a line item in one of your pen solar center quotes now the government rebate will reduce every year till 2030 so there's actually no better time to get it than the present if you wait next year it will reduce by 115 and so on so forth until 2030 the government rebate is actually available for residential homes as well as commercially so it doesn't matter if you put 10 Kow on your factory unit or your ho

me the Govern rebate available for that same 10 Kow will be exactly the same discount how do I choose a solar installer to work on my home the order of importance when you choose someone to install your solar system should be the following number one choose a company that does great installations so choose the company that's going to be around to stand the test of time I know that's a hard thing to do and it's not always guaranteed to pay off for you but choose the company that you trust the mos

t the person doing the install is far more important than the products you actually choose to be installed you see I've seen the greatest products of all time installed by people who didn't know what they were doing and fall over in 3 years I've also seen pretty average products installed by professionals who install solar every day and stand the test of time so the person who installs the solar is the single most important thing in your installation the next most important thing is your choice

choice of inverter technology are you going to roll the dice on a string inverter or are you going to get something that comes with certainty and peace of mind like an nphase microinverter system that's Choice number two Choice number three what panels are you going to install on your home panels these days don't have as big of a gap from the entry level stuff all the way through to the world's best panels the Gap has dramatically closed and so has the pricing four and five a battery storage and

the racking that's going to be used on your home are they using a great black racking because a lot of people will sell you a black panel and put it on Silver Rail it makes no sense at all make sure you've got all the black racking and all the black trimmings to go with it so the panel looks fantastic on your roof and the battery thing well you've got to make sure it's the right battery for you I would stick with Brands like Tesla and N phase for battery storage why do you use the panel that yo

u've quoted me well at pen solar center we have a very strict criteria When selecting the panels that we will quote for you in fact we only ever sell one panel at any given time this helps streamline efficiencies and gives you the best and sharpest pricing at all times when you're dealing with multiple suppliers at once your efficiencies decrease you won't be giving that supplier the volume of work and you are certainly not going to get the best price off any of them so what we do is we select t

he panel that I would install on my own home at that current point in time the factors that we take into consideration are first and foremost the cost of the panel you don't want to be paying BMW prices for a Kia what we want is we want Toyota prices for a Toyota everyone knows that Toyotas are one of the most reliable vehicles on the market so when we're selecting a panel we have to have a reliable great High performing panel that that is suited at a great price for our consumers the other thin

gs we look at is the efficiency of the panel now efficiency of panel is the output of the panel divided by the actual physical space that the panel takes up the minimum efficiency that will accept at pen solar center at the moment is 22% not too many panels on the market are actually greater than a 22% efficiency the other things we take into consideration are the temperature coefficient temperature efficient of a panel is how well the panel produces in extreme heat or extreme cold conditions in

Australia we don't really deal with the extreme cold conditions as much as we deal with the heat so panels are tested flash tested at 25° C every single degree above 25° the panel's performance reduces by a set percentage something else when we're looking for a panel is of course the panel's output at pen solar we will not sell you a pan panel any less than 440 WTS in the future we expect that to go to 450 480 and even 500 watts per panel so that's the things we take into consideration when we'

re looking to pick a panel that is going to suit you and your home Aesthetics of the panel are really really important every single solar panel that we have ever sold at pen solar and ever will sell will have a black frame the black Frame Works in with the black racking system and looks really really slick on your roof by not having a black frame it's going to make your panels stand out and look just ugly eliminating that aesthetic barrier so that people have more access to solar is exactly what

we're trying to achieve by only stocking black panels so now we've gone through my top questions that people ask before they buy solar I've given you my Pro tips and I think you are well informed enough to go and make a fantastic decision around solar for your home or business there is no better feeling than waking up every day to a home powered by the Sun the abundance of energy that's available and the power that you have over how you produce store and consume your energy will be one of the g

reatest decisions you ever make in your life I'm Jake Warner director of the pen solar Center thank you for watching I'll see you on the next one