Living at the bottom of a Gully in Adelaide’s foothills doesn’t make us the ideal candidate for Solar (A certain large Energy Provider refused to quote saying “you don’t get enough sunshine to make it work”), so I asked for a few quotes from Solar Quotes and they were excellent.   We were seeking a large upgrade from our old 1.5kW system and I was thinking maybe 6kW, and possibly a battery.

Of the three quotes, one was just a pressure sales guy so that didn’t work, the other declined saying “we don’t do batteries” and then we met Aidan, an ex Sparky who was as low pressure and practical as they come.   He listened and even had some good ideas on panel placement and said “I reckon we can get close to 30 panels here (we ended up with 29)”.

He proposed a 9.6kW system with 8kW Solar Edge (ended up being 2x4kW as the 8kW were out of stock), Trina 330W panels with solar optimisers, and a 13.5kW Tesla Powerwall 2.

The proposal estimated a Highest Energy Yield of 58kwh per day (we’ve seen 61!), and a Annual Yield of 8,600kwh (we’ve actually produced 10,270 in 2021, that’s 10.27MWh!!

Being at the bottom of the gully means our winter heating (no gas) is all electric and we knew that the reduction in sunshine would mean our winter offset would be lessened, but our (up to $2,000 bill for winter) is comfortably under $1,000 and once the sun angle changes, we quickly see our energy production jump up.   Our annual bill prior to solar was around $4,000pa and we are at least 60% down on this, so the system will provide a ROI in around 7 years.   Our lowest monthly bill was just $6 from memory.

So, the solution works, the backup to mains is fantastic, and the hardware hasn’t skipped a beat in two years.

The planning and install team was efficient, the scissor lift needed for our two storey house was dropped off the day prior and collected the day after install.  The guys were friendly and cleaned up all the mess and left the old system out of the way and ready for it’s next home.   There was a minor issue with an out of stock cable that meant the programming couldn’t be completed, the Kozco engineer stayed in touch and turned up when he said he would and finished the commissioning.   All the paperwork with meter upgrades (3 phase) was organised and simple.

No service calls to speak of, but in short, a great experience and I wanted to provide some screenshots from the excellent Tesla app that really gives great insight to the instant and historical view.

Oh, and financially – the system was valued at over $27K and after rebates we paid just over $16K.

– Bruce Munro