Solar panel update.

The solar panels have been quietly eliminating our electricity bill over the last couple weeks since the feed-in tarrif meter went in. I've been keeping an eye on the readout from the meter every morning and the results look very promising. This morning the totals were 138kW sold into the grid, with 98kW bought back.

How that looks is as follows:
Credit: 138kW x $0.50/kW = $69.00
Debit: 98kW x $0.21/kW = $20.58 (Tariff 11)
Net Difference: $48.42 profit.

This doesn't include Tariff 33 power that the hot water and pool filter are using, but at anything less than 372kW and we're still turning a profit at the moment. Based on electricity bills since switching the pool filter over to Tariff 33 I would estimate the current usage to be around 98kW.

During winter the system will not generate as much energy due to the shorter day and less intense sunlight, but our energy usage should reduce somewhat as well such as turning back the amount of time the pool filter is running. Still we may break even or have a small bill in winter months, but averaged over the year I'm expecting a credit in our electricity account.

Overall it's an investment like any other, and it will be about 5 years before the system has paid itself off. Provided that it proves to operate for another 20 years with minimal maintenance costs then we'll be looking forward to a possible avg. 20% p.a. return, but the risk being that who knows what the electricity market will be like over that time. :)