Is it worth adding batteries to a solar system in Australia?
From 1 July 2023, wholesale electricity prices in the NSW market increased by around 50%¹. Not all of this was passed on by retailers but retail energy prices increased by around 20% in 2022–23 and retail electricity prices increased by a further 14% between June 2023 and November 2023². Anyone who pays power (or insurance) bills will tell you that inflation feels a lot higher than the quoted average CPI figure of 3.6% (at 24th April 2024)³.
The only good news about increasing electricity prices is that it makes the ROI on solar systems better. In early July 2020 we made the decision to invest in solar. At the time we made a number of assumptions, some of which turned out to be wrong. Four years later we added a battery. One of the tricky things about making this purchase is sizing the system. The suppliers will advise you, but it can feel like they are selling you what they have available, not a system tailored for your circumstances. The following article explains what we based our decisions on and compares this with what actually happened.
The Solar System
Our installed solar system generation panel capacity is 6.48kW. We have eighteen LG Neon 360W Panels and (until recently) a SolarEdge SE5K Inverter with the MODBUS option (which gives you funky real time monitoring via the…
