The short answer is no. Unfortunately, having solar panels alone isn’t good enough to eliminate your energy bills. These are the main reasons why:

Low Feed-In-Tariffs

Over the years, the feed-in-tariff rates offered by energy retailers have significantly dropped. Before this, solar panel owners could sell excess solar energy back to the retailers for a reasonable price and make some savings on their bills. However recent rates offered by the retailers meant that customers are buying energy at a higher rate than their selling price. It does not make sense to be depending on feed-in-tariffs to make a saving.

Higher Bills From Night Time Energy Usage

Solar panels are an excellent investment. However, to get a good amount of savings in your bills, your house needs to be using more energy during the daytime as compared to night. However, most households have a higher electricity usage in the evenings when the whole family is back from work or school. Nighttime energy usage requires you to import electricity from the grid and pay retail electricity prices. Depending on the level of household activity, you could be paying up to thousands of dollars a year in energy bills just for using energy during peak periods.

Proposed tariffs for exporting solar energy

Australia has one of the highest solar uptakes in the world, with around 30% of homes fitted with solar technology. This massive shift to solar energy has helped millions of households generate clean renewable energy and help reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. However, when a large number of households generate and sell their excess energy back into the grid at the same time, a huge strain is put on the electricity grid. To overcome this, the government has proposed to impose tariffs on those exporting solar into the grid during peak periods.