The provincial government of New South Wales has published a guide for consumers on residential solar-plus-storage.
The Australian state has a huge penetration of residential solar with energy storage now a natural next step for many households.
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In order to address the comparatively more complex purchase of a battery, the NSW Home Solar Battery Guide aims to help consumers assess whether storage is a good fit and if so, to then select the correct system.
“Rooftop solar panels are more affordable than ever and the people of NSW are making the most of this clean energy opportunity,” writes Don Harwin, NSW minister for resources, energy & utilities and the arts, in the guide’s introduction. “More than 350,000 of our households are already harnessing the power of the sun.
“Battery storage gives people the power to bank their solar supply and be able to use it any time – day or night. This means that those 350,000 households are now considering whether storage works for them.”
In acknowledgement of the fast-changing nature of the energy storage market, the report has attempted to offer general advice that won’t be easily dated.
In addition to a walkthrough of the design of a solar-plus-storage system and advice on choosing an installer, it also includes tools to assess the payback period. It puts the 2017 payback period at under 10 years for a battery in tandem with a new solar installation.
NSW’s welcome efforts to ‘empower consumers’ is in stark contrast to Queensland, which is planning to remove feed-in tariffs from solar customers who install batteries.
German storage manufacturer Sonnen is targeting 2000 installs in Australia this year for its SonnenFlat programme. SonnenFlat guarantees a fixed monthly rate for customers who add their battery to Sonnen’s connected platform.