13 August 2024

The key to saving money with your solar system: SELF CONSUMPTION

Ok, so you have had a brand new, shiny solar system installed (hopefully by KDEC!) and you are almost excited to receive your first electricity bill since your solar installer drove out of your driveway. You are hoping for the best, right?

You get home from work one night and see the envelope with your energy retailer’s logo on it. You hurriedly race inside, grab a glass of wine and sit down to open it.

Now, if you have been advised by your installer, and then followed that advice you will be pleasantly surprised at just how much you have saved. If you do the math in your head, you will work out that the payback period (your return on investment) is well worth the money you have outlaid.

If you haven’t been advised correctly or your installer hasn’t designed and installed the system to your needs, you may be very disappointed.

You need to use the electricity your solar system produces at the time it is being produced. Consume as much of it as possible.

How can you? There are multiple answers, and it can be quite simple as long as you are prepared to be proactive

Firstly, it is imperative that you have some good quality solar monitoring installed. Not only do you need to see how much solar you are producing, but you need to know how much energy your home/business is consuming. Knowledge is power (literally in this case) because if you know how much spare energy you have you can coordinate your consumption to suit.

• Set your dishwasher time to come on in the middle of the day.
• Set your washing machine and dryer the same way.
• Pool pumps can have timers installed easily and cheaply.
• Hot water systems can have diverters installed. (see previous blogs)
• Electric car chargers.
• Use cooking, cleaning and other domestic appliances when you have spare power up your sleeve.

Consumption tariffs have skyrocketed, feed-in tariffs are a skeleton of their former glory and battery systems are becoming a lot more affordable, but these should only be considered if you have done everything you can to use what you produce as you produce it.

Give us a call, we are happy to help get you armed with the right tools that can make your system the best it can be.

Why? Because tomorrow matters.