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The fate of solar power
This is a really useful thread and I am noting all the various suggestions being made. Some will be harder than others to implement but with the prospect of power costs sky-rocketing in the future, it's becoming mission-critical.
This led us to the installation of some solar panels a year back now and a fair whack of dollars to get it done. But it's proven to be worthwhile.
But of course, like all good things, it seems likely to come unravelled as other states follow the NSW lead in cutting the buy-back price of solar power going into the grid.
Our last 2 power bills have been one each side of zero as a result of the buyback. The last one actually saw a small credit in our favour. The difference, I think, is in the size of the installation. We put in 3000 watts of panels and these produce, on average something like 12-13 KwH a day. But whatever we consume during daylight hours comes straight off that and it's usually about 7-8 KwH leaving an average surplus of about 4 KwH a day - roughly $2-2.50 worth. People putting in solar systems less than 3Kw can't really expect to do much more than cover some of their normal daylight consumption and not much more.
But in order to get where we are, we had to fork out $10 grand nett. It's still a bloody long cost-recovery process and if you only made your decisions on that basis, you would probably not do it at all.
Peter
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