Why has residential solar gone so quiet? 

On 2023/10/11 at 9:13 AM, Mo Seager said:

Why has residential solar gone so quiet? 

No stage 6

And oversupply

People who could afford to have already had their systems installed.

 

Oversupply is great for people wanting to install now. Prices down a lot. 

27 minutes ago, Chris_S said:

Prices down a lot

But the average voter will rather borrow another million to park the latest 4 X 4 in his driveway and continue to complain when LS kicks in 😉

23 minutes ago, Amit Bajpayee said:

Hey! I have to agree with comments about the price! I think that the people who could afford it have bought it. As far as others are concerned, I think that the time before someone can recoup their investment and start saving is still too long for people.

Properly planning, avoiding too much oversizing, taking advantage of SARS rebates and installing in stages means you can get away with a return on investment of under 6 years if done carefully; which is excellent going even if you compare to typical financial instruments like bank fixed deposits. (And this particular financial instrument defeats load shedding - whilst paying for itself!)

The drop in pricing also means that homeowners that have installed systems already should be looking at upgrades:

On 2024/01/11 at 11:29 AM, JayMardern said:

Now is the time for residential upgrades.

The reduced demand (and reduced load shedding) has dropped hardware pricing significantly; home-owners should be capitalizing on this while it lasts to take their systems to the next level on the cheap.

I waited for hardware pricing to drop to a level whereby I could double my system (second 5kW Sunsynk inverter, second 5kWh Hubble AM5 battery; additional 10 panels) whilst still keeping the Return on Investment at the sub-6 years of the original install.

This was tougher than anticipated because the sliding scale of electricity pricing makes it more cost-effective to go after the initial top 50% of your use rather than the balance, since those electricity units are far more expensive then when, say, usage drops below 1000 units per month after an initial solar install.

But the gradual hardware price drops towards the end of last year, coupled with an additional bigger drop when load shedding was temporarily suspended, made this possible - and it's a no-brainer.

 

Others should do the same.