Latest / Making Cents / I Put Solar On My House. Was It Worth It? (Numbers Breakdown)

Transcript

I Put Solar On My House. Was It Worth It? (Numbers Breakdown) · Making Cents

0:00
Imagine never opening another power bill with that little flinch.
0:05
Imagine the sun doing your washing, heating your water, running your heat pump, charging your car, all of it for nothing.
0:14
Free power pretty much forever.
0:18
Now, is that fully the reality of solar power?
0:21
No, let's not be silly, because this isn't a sales pitch.
0:25
However, 18 months ago, I did go solar with an electric car and I spent $89,000 to do so.
0:34
And in the previous video I did on this, I told you I think you could actually do it for about a quarter of that price and get pretty similar results.
0:44
Well, that video went crazy.
0:47
You guys flooded me with questions.
0:48
And so I'm putting on two hats to answer all of those questions.
0:53
One is my financial journalist hat, where I research this for you and tell you what we can find out about the facts of what's going on right now.
1:04
And the other is my personal experience hat of how this all plays out in reality.
1:10
The little tips and tricks that can go unnoticed that you'll need.
1:14
Because, yes, even now, even though we're in the depths of winter, I am paying pretty much nothing for both power and petrol.
1:25
Because, remember, I'm solar powering my car too.
1:29
And a lot of people have had that same idea, because when I chat with solar installers, they tell me they are absolutely pumped with inquiries.
1:40
We're all trying to figure out a way around the cost of living and whether an investment into solar could be the way to do it.
1:47
And I do see solar power as something to treat as an investment, an upfront cost that pays itself off and then keeps paying you, which means we will also research this like an investment.
2:03
We will look at the types of people that it does and doesn't work for and how you make this work the hardest for you.
2:13
So before you spend a cent or write the whole thing off as too expensive, too hard, not for people like you.
2:18
This is the episode that is digging into the facts of when it works and when it doesn't.
2:25
Would it even work for your house?
2:28
And if it would, what is the cheapest, smartest way to get you there?
2:34
Because I promise you, it is a lot less than I spent.
2:38
I've taken the questions you've asked me, I've grouped them into the most common areas, and I'm answering as many of them as I can right here, right now, today.
2:49
Would it work on your roof?
2:50
How do you actually run the numbers for your house?
2:54
Should you get solar now?
2:56
Or wait, do you genuinely need a battery?
2:59
Or are you about to waste maybe ten grand?
3:02
What do you do if money is tight or you rent and don't even own your roof.
3:08
And can there be a way there for you to still get there?
3:12
Where is all of this heading in the future?
3:15
Because even if you finish this episode thinking no, it's not for me right now, you might be someone who thinks hold out for a couple of the future ideas that are coming.
3:28
Things that I think could make solar even better for the average person.
3:33
So welcome to Making Sense.
3:35
It's the podcast people who want financial freedom without giving up their coffee.
3:39
I'm Frances Cook, a financial journalist and fellow financial freedom seeker who makes money simple for you.
3:44
I want to help as many people as possible reach financial freedom by taking control of their money.
3:49
And you can help me in that mission.
3:51
Two really easy ways.
3:53
First, hit subscribe wherever you like to listen, YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or any other podcast player.
4:00
Then send this episode to a friend so we can all level up our money together.
4:04
Then the show grows and I can keep giving you the money info that makes a difference to your life.
4:10
Okay, World's Fastest recap for anyone who missed the previous episode about this, but I really do think go back and watch it.
4:19
Listen to it wherever you get these podcasts.
4:21
I will link it in the episode description for this one.
4:25
However, 18 months ago, we spent $89,000 on a home solar power system and an electric car in summer.
4:36
Now our bills run negative, as in the power company pays us.
4:41
And even in the two coldest months of winter, we're spending around $200 a month.
4:47
And that's for both power and the car.
4:52
And we are both heavy power users and we drive a lot, we use a lot of energy, and we are just absolutely golden now.
5:02
Now, my rough numbers put the return at about 15.6%.
5:08
And there's a payback time on that.
5:11
Even that enormous spend, it will take us about six and a half years, six and a half years until we've saved enough money that it's paid off.
5:21
And then another 20 years of free power and fuel for us.
5:27
And that is if power prices stay where they are, which is unlikely, to be honest, because they've tracked it.
5:33
Power prices went up 20% in just the last two years.
5:38
It is estimated to be going up again this year, another 5%.
5:43
So actually that payback time that we've calculated could be even shorter if energy prices keep going up because we will be comparatively saving even more.
5:56
And it's tax free because I saved the money rather than earning it.
6:02
So saving yourself rich works rather nicely in this situation.
6:07
So a really fast overview there, but the numbers were pretty convincing for us and then we found ways to make it work so that enormous spend wasn't crippling.
6:17
Like I say, laid that all out in the previous episode.
6:20
I will link that for you so you can check it out if you want to.
6:23
But really, enough about me.
6:26
What about you?
6:28
Would this work out as well for you?
6:32
Let's start ripping through your questions first.
6:36
Would this work for your house?
6:38
When we think about whether you would also go well with solar, we want to start with your house because there are some physical aspects to whether or not solar works for you.
6:49
And because most people put solar on the roof, we start there.
6:54
You do not need a perfect roof.
6:55
You need a good enough roof.
6:58
So what makes a roof good enough?
7:00
Which way it faces is the first starting point.
7:03
North is is the dream.
7:04
In New Zealand, north facing panels catch the most sun across the day all year round.
7:10
But if your roof doesn't face perfectly north, do not despair and do not stop listening because east and west facing roofs still pull in 80 to 85% of what a north facing roof does.
7:25
So a good installer can help you figure it out.
7:28
But an east west split panels catching the morning sun on one side and the evening sun on the other can actually suit some households better than a pure north hit at midday because it spreads your power out across
7:46
the times you're more likely to be home and using it.
7:49
So north Great east or west still good?
7:54
South?
7:55
Yeah, not good.
7:57
The angle of the roof is the next thing you want to think about.
8:00
Everyone fixates on the compass direction and forgets the tilt.
8:05
There is a sweet spot roughly somewhere between 15 and 40 degrees where the roof catches the sun nicely through the seasons.
8:15
Now most normal pitched Kiwi roofs still sit in that range, so for most of us, home and hosed, not a problem.
8:23
But do know that if your roof is either very flat or very steep, it's not necessarily a no, just a more complicated install then how much clear roof you've actually got.
8:39
Each panel is usually a smidge under 2 square meters, usually somewhere around 1.8 square meters if you you are wanting me to be precise and a system worth bothering with.
8:53
Usually around eight panels or more.
8:57
So you're looking for a decent unbroken patch of roof.
9:02
Doesn't have to be the whole thing.
9:05
Keep an eye out for things poking out of that roof too.
9:08
So like chimneys, vents, skylights, because they don't just take up space, they can throw shade.
9:16
Which brings us to shading chimneys, trees, things that throw shade, can bring down how much you generate.
9:26
And again, a good installer can help you figure this out.
9:29
It can turn into a design problem of where you put the panels.
9:34
Getting the right gear.
9:35
Sometimes you might want something like optimizers, but it's still worth keeping an eye on your roof different times of day, figuring out any shade issues that might crop up, making sure the installer works around that and the state
9:50
of the roof itself.
9:52
This one's pure money, not sunlight.
9:54
The average panels last around 25 years, which is what we're investing into.
10:01
This is a long term play to pay up front and then get free power for so long that it beyond pays itself off.
10:10
That's the entire game here.
10:12
Problem is, if your roof is tired and is likely to need replacing in the next five years, you really don't want to pay to take the panels off and then put them back on again.
10:25
If you have a re roof on the horizon, you might want to do that first.
10:32
Or you can even do both together.
10:34
You just get the boring bit sorted first before you put that shiny bit on top.
10:39
Now if you're hearing all of that and thinking, ah, I don't know, my roof might not be right, you can actually get ground mount panels.
10:49
It's not only your roof that's an option for solar.
10:53
We went pretty hard on this as you can probably tell by the amount that we spent.
10:57
Insane.
10:58
So we do have about half of our system on a bank near our house.
11:04
Worked out super well.
11:06
Loved it like kind of made a whole little feature of it in the garden.
11:11
Got some grasses growing up around it.
11:13
It's quite a nice little balance of tack and native New Zealand grasses that it actually looks awesome and of course generates the power that we want it to do first and foremost.
11:25
But we're semi rural and we have space.
11:29
Most people want their solar on the roof.
11:32
So letting you know that there is options.
11:36
But also this episode can't be three hours long or we'll all die.
11:41
Mostly me talking to myself in my office.
11:44
So I'm powering through and covering the situations that most people will have, which in this case means thinking about the roof.
11:52
Just know however, if you have got the space and your roof isn't great, chat to an installer about things like ground mounted panels.
12:02
So that's your at home checklist.
12:06
But then you take it to a good installer and say here's what I've noticed.
12:10
Now how would you model my install to get around those issues?
12:16
Because a good install should take into account your roof, your angle, any shade, and then they can design around it.
12:25
But you want to have the right questions and information for them so that they don't flog you some off the shelf standard thing that they give to everyone in all different situations.
12:40
Because that is not how you will get the best bang for your buck.
12:45
You're about to hand someone a lot of money.
12:48
Don't worry about making them earn it.
12:50
Get it all modeled properly.
12:53
That's how they earn your business.
12:55
Number two issue is lifestyle.
12:58
There is a really important life question here as well as the house question.
13:03
First up, are you planning to stay in this house for the long term?
13:09
Because unfortunately, from my research, some solar doesn't seem to add much to your house value.
13:16
Maybe in the future it will, as people cotton on to how good this is.
13:21
But right now, no.
13:24
So it's a big investment upfront that you then need to stick around to get the savings from.
13:32
And like I said, I've calculated paying it off six and a half years for us, which I'm so stoked, and then we get just under 20 years of free fuel and power.
13:42
And that is how this becomes very, very worth it for us.
13:46
It's pretty good.
13:47
If you weren't planning to stick around for that time, maybe it wouldn't be worth it.
13:53
Now, another lifestyle factor, solar generates during the day, which means if you're home during the day, you get the most from it automatically.
14:03
So if you're retired or you're like me and you work from home, or you have a different situation where you are at home during the day, slam dunk, great.
14:15
Or can you run things on timers?
14:18
Your big energy sucks.
14:20
Like the dishwasher, the washing machine.
14:24
Timers can get you around that.
14:26
Make sure you're taking advantage of this.
14:28
These lifestyle factors can make a big difference in terms of how much you get out of the system.
14:35
So it's important to think about them.
14:37
Or a battery.
14:39
A battery can help you time shift so that you generate power and then store it for mornings and evenings when you'll be using it.
14:49
And this one is another question that my inbox was absolutely hammered with.
14:54
Do I need a battery?
14:56
So let's do that bit properly and in depth right now.
15:00
Do I need one?
15:01
Is it worth it?
15:02
Should I wait for them to get cheaper?
15:05
Because batteries are an expensive part of solar energy systems.
15:09
They can cost between 7 to $10,000.
15:15
So you really do want to know if you actually need one or if you can get by without one.
15:21
Now, this One, there are a few different versions of the battery issue.
15:28
How you would use it, how you would weigh it up.
15:31
That can make it easier for all of us.
15:33
So stick around.
15:34
I'm going to walk through a few different situations.
15:38
It's a varied ride.
15:39
I've looked at it from absolutely every angle I can think of.
15:43
So here's the problem that the battery solves.
15:45
First up, solar makes its power in the day, but most of us use most of our power in the morning and the evening.
15:55
Breakfast, dinner, heating the telly at night.
15:59
There's actually a really cute name for this, it's the duck curve.
16:03
But basically, power demand peaks in the morning, it dips in midday, it peaks again in the evening.
16:12
And that kind of looks like a duck's back, high tail D dip to the back, back up to the the head up top.
16:18
You smell what I'm stepping in here?
16:19
The duck curve gives us a classic mismatch.
16:23
The sun is pumping out power at noon when the house is quiet.
16:28
And then you want all of your power at 7pm when the panels have clocked off.
16:34
Or at least this time of the year they definitely have.
16:36
Maybe you'll get something more in summer, but you don't want to be just having this working in a few months of the year.
16:41
If you're at home in the day or using timers to run your most power hungry appliances in those peak solar times, you're all good.
16:51
Otherwise without somewhere to store it.
16:55
Here's what happens to all of that beautiful midday solar power.
16:59
You sell it back to the grid for about 8 cents and then a few hours later you buy power back for from the grid for over 34 cents.
17:11
It's so annoying.
17:13
I know, it's nonsense.
17:14
You really don't make much money from selling solar back to the grid.
17:19
That is a myth that a lot of people talk to me about.
17:22
I just, I wouldn't factor in making money from solar from selling it back to the grid because you get buttons.
17:30
The numbers work best on this when you are saving money, which means using this power yourself.
17:37
A battery closes that gap.
17:40
It lets you time travel, it catches your cheap daytime power, saves it for the evening, so you're spending your own power at night instead of buying it back at the more expensive rate.
17:53
So here's how I would weigh it up and here are the times a battery could be worth it.
17:59
If you if you're out of the house all day and have high usage, morning and evening battery could be a smart investment.
18:05
If your power is expensive or your Buyback rate for selling back to the grid is rubbish as it is for most people.
18:14
The bigger the gap between what you sell at and what you buy at, the more that stored solar power is worth it to you.
18:23
Big gap, big battery earns hard.
18:27
Small gap doesn't so much.
18:29
And of course resilience, which isn't necessarily a spreadsheet issue, but more of a gut feel issue.
18:36
Maybe you want to be sure of power continuing in a power cart or you live somewhere a little isolated battery can help with that.
18:45
So we did go for battery because we're really high power users.
18:51
We work from home, we're a family.
18:53
We have high power usage all the time, including especially the evenings.
19:00
We don't plan to move from this house, so we're okay with a longer payback time.
19:06
We just wanted to get it one and done, do it once, do it right.
19:09
When we did the numbers, it also didn't really push out the investment and the payback time too much.
19:16
It really worked for us.
19:18
We also cheat with the battery to charge up from the regular electricity network on cheap off peak power times.
19:26
So we use it twice.
19:28
And this is a nice little hack if you haven't come across this.
19:30
We charge up the battery using solar during the day, and then we have free power in the evening when the sun is down.
19:39
And then about 3am, that battery automatically turns on, starts charging really cheaply from the grid.
19:49
That super cheap off peak power because just about everyone else is asleep.
19:54
And then when the family gets up in the morning, we use that battery power, not the more expensive morning power prices.
20:03
And we've reduced our costs again.
20:06
So it does let you hack the system in really sneaky ways.
20:10
That was worth it to us.
20:13
We just had to set the system up, get it all timed golden.
20:16
We also looked at the direction that power prices are going, which is up, and how unfriendly a lot of power generators are to solar users.
20:27
Selling power back to the grid, the absolute buttons that you get for selling that power back.
20:33
And we made a prediction which may or may not turn out to be correct, but it's the prediction that we are, you know, putting our money where our mouths are.
20:41
So we're pretty sure we decided that we think power prices are going to get worse, that the buyback will continue to be rubbish, so the battery will continue to make sense for us.
20:57
If this episode is your kind of thing, you'll want to check out the Market Memo too.
21:01
It's my weekly newsletter where I break down how to actually invest all plain English chat about how the share market really works and how you can get it working for you.
21:12
It's everything I wish I'd had when I was starting out.
21:15
Head to Francisco Co NZ Invest.
21:19
I'll also pop that link into the show notes for you.
21:21
Right back to it.
21:24
Here's when a battery might not makes sense.
21:28
If you have more normal power usage than we did, we really high power users, remember that might not be you.
21:37
We're also charging the car off it too.
21:39
So you know, two people working from home, two kids home a lot of the time, a car.
21:44
We're really, really high power users.
21:47
So if you're using a more normal amount of power and your home during the day to take advantage of that generation at the time it's happening, you might be able to scoot by without a battery.
22:01
Get through the big things like running the dishwasher at lunchtime, doing the washing between meetings, charging the car in the afternoon.
22:08
You'd be using your solar as you make it in real time, which means you might not need to store it because you're already spending it.
22:17
In that case, a battery would be solving a problem that you don't really have.
22:22
A solar only system could work beautifully and you keep that 10,000 bucks that you would have spent on the battery.
22:29
Or maybe you have a power company where your power is pretty cheap and you can sell back to the grid at a better rate.
22:36
It can actually depend on where you live in the country, what deals are available to you in this area.
22:43
So in that case, storing it wouldn't be as important.
22:48
I will say it's really easy to get upsold on a battery as well and get more than you need.
22:53
So the solution might not even be a yes or a no to a battery.
22:57
It might be how big a battery do you need?
23:01
Because some power companies will let you see your power usage in real time.
23:05
And if you're weighing that up, look at how much power you use in the mornings and the evenings, how many kilowatts, and that's the size of battery that you need.
23:16
That's what you're covering.
23:18
A battery will often cost in terms of how much power it can store.
23:23
So smaller means cheaper.
23:26
A smaller one that actually covers only what you need might also be the solve on this one for you.
23:33
If you pay thousands more for extra capacity, then mostly just sits there half empty, you're dragging out your time for the system to pay itself off.
23:43
So check your actual evening usage.
23:47
Get the installer to run numbers for you.
23:49
If you're Struggling with it.
23:50
They can often do this with you don't get more than you need.
23:54
Oh look, maybe it doesn't matter what size the battery is.
23:58
That battery might be the issue that tips the whole project out of reach for you.
24:04
I don't know that you should let it if that's the deciding factor.
24:08
Solar on its own still pays, especially if you just use a few timers for hot water and bigger appliances.
24:17
Especially because here's another little hack for you.
24:21
You don't have to decide on the battery today.
24:25
I talked in the previous video about how just in the last few years, solar prices have gone down by so much and the amount of power you can generate has gone up by so much that your investment rate
24:42
has now gone down to about a quarter of what it used to be.
24:46
It's incredible.
24:47
Tech has improved to the point where the maths has just totally changed.
24:53
Batteries are on a similar journey, but they're just a little bit behind, unfortunately.
24:59
So if you're thinking it doesn't make sense for me right now, but maybe it would in the future, once batteries are cheaper and better, then you put in what's called a battery ready system.
25:13
You install your solar now with a hybrid inverter.
25:16
The brains of the setup already able to take a battery and.
25:21
And you just don't put the battery in yet.
25:23
Then when you're ready or when the price is right, adding one in is a relatively simple bolt on, not a rip it all out and start again sort of job.
25:33
A battery that's a marginal call today could be an obvious yes in two or three years.
25:39
Battery ready system lets you start saving with solar right now and keep the door wide open to add storage later.
25:48
Exactly when it makes the most sense for your wallet.
25:51
Or I have one more clever little trick for you to get around the battery issue.
25:56
You can look into a hot water diverter and kinda treat it like a battery.
26:03
So most homes heat their water with an electric element sitting inside a big insulated tank, your hot water cylinder.
26:10
And heating that water is just casually one of the biggest chunks of your power bill.
26:15
It's often something like a quarter to a third of it.
26:18
It can be even more, really depends, but it's usually at least that.
26:22
And remember, the biggest problem with getting solar is usually timing.
26:27
You're home in the evenings, solar is made in the day.
26:31
Well then you can get a diverter little device that costs a few hundred dollars.
26:38
It watches for moments when you're making extra power and instead of letting it get sent back to the Grid too cheaply.
26:45
It instead switches on your hot water element and pours the solar power into heating your water.
26:52
So it's kind of treating your hot water cylinder as a battery.
26:58
You're still getting some time travel in here by just being really smart about when you're heating your hot water.
27:05
All happening automatically.
27:07
And it's a tiny extra investment, far cheaper than an actual battery.
27:12
The catch is it does only heat hot water.
27:15
It can't run your tally or your heat pump.
27:18
But as a first step, it's a good one.
27:22
Bottom line, a battery is a time shifting tool.
27:25
So when you're weighing it out, you're asking yourself two things.
27:30
One, how badly is your power use out of sync with your solar generation?
27:36
And two, how big is the gap between your buying and selling rates for power?
27:42
Out all day, expensive power, lousy buyback, battery might be a clear yes.
27:47
Home all day, cheap power, maybe skip it or go battery ready and wait.
27:54
Now I've said battery more than I think I would ever need to say it in my life.
27:59
So let's move on to the next issue here.
28:02
How do I run the actual numbers?
28:05
So how do you run the numbers on whether this could be a good call for you or not?
28:10
Your house passes the test, you've thought through the battery issue, the lifestyle issues.
28:16
So then how do we actually crunch it for you?
28:20
We all know I don't love crunching the numbers and I don't think most people do, so.
28:26
So we're doing very much back of the envelope maths here.
28:29
We're starting with a shortcut and then I'll get you to some, you know, some, some better numbers.
28:32
But let's start with the shortcut comes down to three numbers.
28:37
Number one, what it costs.
28:39
That is the quote from an installer.
28:42
Get at least three quotes.
28:44
My personal recommendation, based off my experience, is to look for the smaller local installers.
28:50
My experience has been that they're the best.
28:53
Anyway, get quotes, see what you're looking at.
28:56
Write that number down.
28:58
It's the number going out.
29:00
Number two, what it saves you in a year.
29:04
Get your power bills for the last year, add them up.
29:07
Or you can take the last month and just times it by 12.
29:10
But we are in winter right now, so that's probably going to be pretty high.
29:15
It's better if you can do it for the last year.
29:18
But whatever, you know, let's not make the perfect the enemy of the good.
29:22
Let's just get a ballpark number here ready for you.
29:25
Get the number of your power usage for the last year.
29:28
Don't mess about too much.
29:29
Making it perfect.
29:30
So you've got how much it costs to install, then your power bills, which is how much you're hoping to save.
29:38
And then final step, step three, divide it.
29:41
You take the cost to install, divide it by that yearly power bill.
29:47
That's roughly your payback time in years now, before I can already hear the solar nerds screaming in my head, before my fellow solar nerds, I love you so much, but probably going rabid after that.
30:02
Back of the envelope maths.
30:03
I know, don't get mad.
30:05
I know very few people end up covering all of their bills from their solar install.
30:12
This is a rough back of the envelope calculation to get people started.
30:19
You then use this number to give yourself a starting point of how long it could take to pay off the system and decide if you're even interested in going further.
30:29
Then as you go through the system of getting quotes from installers, you get them to do more complicated maths for you based on the system that they think would work best for you.
30:43
So you've got this rough rule of thumb starting guide and then you get them to say, I could give you this and I think it would get you here because then you know, if you're even in the same
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region, you've got a rough map to start with.
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They're filling in the gaps for you.
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A lot of these installers can work out at quite a detailed level your savings for you and give you an estimate of how much you save.
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So you give them your power bills, they run it through an app.
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Often they estimate savings and that can be even better if you get them to do that again, you know, they've got all this right here.
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Get them to earn your business.
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Let's run this properly.
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Hours.
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We worked things out ahead of time and then we also recalculated it as we got more and more information, recalculated it again.
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Once we had our real savings, once we were using the system to see how it actually worked out in reality.
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Once you've got the system in and you see how much you're saving in reality, then you take install cost, divide it by your real savings and then you've got your real final payback time in years again.
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Mine was six and a half years, which was much quicker than I thought it would be.
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And then with the solar panels lasting about 25 years, it's another 18 years of free power and petrol.
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And the thing is, that's probably a worst case scenario because power prices keep climbing Power prices are not your friend and they're not getting friendlier.
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They have been going far higher than general inflation and cost of living increases.
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It's been 20% increase in the last two years.
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There are more coming.
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It's pretty miserable when you're paying those bills.
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But when you've got solar, every price rise makes your own power generation worth more and shortens that payback period.
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You're dodging every increase coming down the line.
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Now, question group number five.
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What if it's not for me?
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There is a bit of a delicate conversation to be had here and I want to just address it head on.
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I'm always a fan of that.
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If there's an elephant in the room, let's talk about it.
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Because there is a problem here and it's a problem with a lot of money topics, to be honest.
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I've talked in other episodes about how the first steps with your money can be the hardest.
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Because you've got nothing holding you up yet, nothing pushing you forward yet.
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It's all you at the beginning.
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It gets so much easier as you build momentum, as you've got savings or investments or whatever pushing you forward, other changes become easier.
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But the first steps are really hard.
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And I just think it doesn't help anyone to pretend that it's not.
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I will never be one of those pull yourself up by your bootstraps sort of people.
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Because when you have the least is when things are often the hardest to change.
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And that doesn't mean we don't make those first steps right, because two things can be true at once.
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That something is genuinely harder, but also that there isn't really another way that often nobody is coming to save you.
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And that making that effort, despite it being a real genuine, tough effort, making that effort will be so worth it.
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And same with solar, as with so many other money topics, with solar, you can make this investment to save money, but it relies on you being able to make that investment that you usually own your own home, that
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you can access money to install it, and then you get all the rewards.
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So if the money is tight or you're someone like a renter, what do you do?
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I'm going to start with if money is tight, then renters.
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I'm coming back to you.
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If money is tight, single biggest lever you can pull to help your budget is often using a green loan.
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That's what we did.
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Most of the major New Zealand banks offer them for solar and batteries as part of your mortgage.
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You get really cheap lending, often around 1% interest, some banks even give you 0% for a short period of time, three to five years.
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Borrowing money that costs you almost nothing completely changes the investment maths.
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It's the difference between this being a rich person move and a normal person move now.
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Next run go solar only now, add the battery later.
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We cover that in the battery section.
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That battery ready idea.
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Get the panels up, start saving immediately and leave the door open to adding battery power storage when prices drop or when your budget recovers.
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You don't have to do everything at once.
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Now if you rent gonna be straight rather than sell you false hope.
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Renters right now you mostly can't install solar because it's not your roof and not your call.
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That's just frustratingly true.
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But if you really want to look into it, there are a couple of things to consider.
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You could have a little chat with your landlord, see if they'd ever consider it as an upgrade to the house, particularly with the availability of green loans to finance it.
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The rental market is actually really tight at the moment.
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Rental prices have been falling.
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I wouldn't necessarily say it's a slam dunk, but depending on your landlord, they may be open to it.
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A home with low power bills is a real selling point when the renter down the road is comparing three places at once.
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Try framing it that way as a competitive edge, not something that's a favor to you.
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Some will still say no, but some will be sitting there wondering exactly how to make their rentals stand out and could be into it.
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It's worth having the conversation otherwise, in terms of getting that free power lifestyle, it's about smart plugs and timers because you're going to be targeting off peak power instead.
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Consider it a way to start training yourself into the habits that will make solar useful later.
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When you do become a homeowner and can make that type of investment.
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Keep listening to the pod.
37:16
We will get you there.
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And honestly, even if you do stay a renter, I think the way we are seeing solar evolving, it might be in your future anyway because there are some super creative initiatives happening.
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And that's how we lead into point number six.
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Where is this all going?
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I mentioned earlier in the episode that the technology has been evolving, it's been getting so much smarter.
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The same size solar panel now generates so much more power for you than just a few years ago.
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And they're also much cheaper.
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At the same time they're doing more, they're costing less, it's about four times further that your dollar will stretch in terms of getting that Solar generation back.
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It's not just the tech getting better.
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There are different ways of using it that I think are going to create really interesting use cases in the future.
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One thing I'm fascinated by is balcony solar.
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So instead of a big system bolted onto your roof by electricians, it's one or two small panels that can sit out on a balcony or lean against a sunny wall or fence and plug straight into a a normal
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wall socket.
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That's the whole thing.
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No roof, no electrician, no install crew.
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You just buy a panel that feeds power into your home's wiring through the plug and shaves off a bit of your bills, whatever you're pulling from the grid.
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They're huge in Germany and hundreds of thousands of homes precisely because they're cheap and because you can just unplug the thing and take it with you when you move.
38:58
Germany also has a really big renting population conversation for another episode.
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But you know, obviously based on that, they would be loving this.
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So maybe balcony solar doesn't run your whole house, but better than nothing, right?
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Apartment dwellers get cheaper power renters.
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It's amazing.
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A real dent.
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And what can be an annoyingly high big bill.
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Not legal in New Zealand yet, though we apparently don't have the a safe approved way to plug your own power generation into a wall socket.
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And let's not mess about with electricity team.
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I don't want anyone burning their house down.
39:37
Electricity authority, though, has said they're looking into balcony solar specifically.
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So that is really exciting to me.
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I hope they move fast.
39:47
You never know how fast they'll move on these things, but I really hope they do.
39:50
Fascinating.
39:51
And.
39:51
And then there's what they call virtual power plants.
39:54
Also think this is so clever and interesting.
39:57
I love people doing interesting things.
39:59
So picture a few thousand homes that each have solar panels and a battery on their own.
40:06
Each one's just a little household setup.
40:09
But link them all together with clever software so they can charge and discharge as a group and suddenly that group of homes behaves like one big power station.
40:23
That's a virtual power plant.
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No smokestack, just thousands of homes pulled together, propping up the grid and getting paid for it.
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Isn't that cool?
40:34
And there's an early taste of it happening right now on a trial in Queenstown.
40:39
Now they're doing a slightly different version of it.
40:42
They're using electric cars as the batteries.
40:45
So your EV charges up when power's cheap or the sun's shining.
40:51
And then it can feed power back into your house and even back to the grid when it's needed most.
40:58
Part of why they chose Queenstown for this trial is resilience.
41:02
There's effectively one power line into the whole region.
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Terrifying.
41:07
And a serious earthquake risk in the area.
41:10
So a network of local solar batteries and cars that can power homes on their own could keep the lights on in a disaster.
41:20
Pretty specific use case there.
41:22
But I just find the innovation in this area so interesting and we desperately need this because the smarter we get, the more power prices come down for everyone and frankly, I'm sick of the power increases.
41:37
We really need to do something differently anyway, glimpse into the future there and the ways that eventually I think solar will become a really big part of our energy system, whether or not you're someone who personally installs it
41:51
on your own home.
41:52
So those are your main questions answered.
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I hope it helps.
41:56
There were also questions that people sent through about electric vehicles and how they can figure out if they should get one of those to find fight off the petrol price increases.
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So if you want that, just let me know.
42:07
I can do it.
42:08
It's just that these episodes take a lot of research because I want to be sure I'm giving you really good info.
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So I want to know if lots of you want a particular topic so it's not wasting my time, right?
42:20
So hit the comments.
42:21
If you are keen, I can get myself moving.
42:23
It's not one size fits all, it never is with money.
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But hopefully this episode can give you the info you need to make the decision that fits your life, your house, your budget, not mine.
42:36
So if this episode was helpful, send it to a friend so we can all level up with money together.
42:40
Until next time, have a great day.
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This podcast can only give you general information about how things work in most situations.
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It's not individual financial advice.
42:51
If you're after that, a financial advisor is always the best bet.