Does installing solar power reduce my electricity bills?

Solar power doesn’t just help the environment. There are a lot of ways that it can reduce your costs, too. If you want to reduce your energy usage and your electricity bills, read on.

Making Money With Excess Energy

A solar energy array will sometimes produce more energy than your household actually needs. Feed-in tariffs will turn this extra energy into future energy credits. When you produce excess energy, you have no way of storing it on your own, unless you have a battery installed. Instead, it’s fed into the grid. This offsets your power bill, and it’s very useful.

Let’s say you produce more energy on Monday than you need, but on Tuesday you produce less energy than you needed. You sell back those energy units on Monday and purchase them back on Tuesday, which comes out as a draw for you. The system ensures that your energy is “banked” until you need it.

On the other hand, let’s say you produce more energy than you need on Monday and Tuesday. You get credits for both days, and that offsets the ultimate cost of your energy bill.

Government Rebates

Through small-scale technology certificates, Australian citizens can get a government rebate just for getting a solar power installation. This is normally offered as a point of sale discount by your solar installation company to reduce your initial installation cost. 

Government rebates can be sizeable, but they also change from year to year. Make sure to check with your solar installation company; they’ll be able to tell you what’s available now.

The Pay-Back Period

There’s a certain point at which your savings are greater than the price of the system. This is also known as your break even point. When you first install a solar power system, you’re going to need to invest some cash right away. And that means you’re going to be “underwater” on your system, but this doesn’t last for very long.

After a few years, you’ll have paid of your system. From there (barring maintenance and repairs), any additional solar energy that you collect only saves you money. It can even make you money if you’re feeding back to the grid consistently.

Don’t want to pay for the solar system upfront? That’s not necessarily a problem either. There are many financing options that make it possible to pay for your solar panel system over time.

Making More from Your Solar Power 

Solar systems are complex. There are peak times, off peak times, seasonal times, and so forth. If you want to increase the amount of energy that you’re able to save, you need to look into your usage patterns first. Identify the times that you’re most likely to use energy, and identify the times that you can avoid energy use altogether.

The energy consumption of your house and the size of your solar installation is going to impact how much electricity you produce. Consequently, it’s also going to alter how much energy you have for your home, and how much you sell back to the grid. If you really want to save money, a larger system is generally better. You also want to save money on the cost of installation.

However, be aware: going with the cheapest bidder for a solar system is usually not a good idea. Not all bidders are made equal. For a solar installation, you should consider the upfront cost of installation.

Reducing Your Bills through Solar

Are you able to reduce your energy bills through solar power? Absolutely. Reduced energy bills is the primary reason most people switch to solar, and once it’s installed, it requires virtually no work from you. 

Not only are you going to be able to save money on your energy bills, but you’ll also be able to sell money off to the grid, or use it yourself later. If you want true energy independence, you can try to produce all your energy needs through your solar system, and invest in a battery to store your excess energy for future use.

The larger and cheaper your solar system is, the better your results — but within reason. You still don’t want to sign up with a company that is the “cheapest in the business” or that doesn’t produce high quality panels.