The myth of the $0 bill – I still get clients asking about the $0 bill – or they tell me that their friends have had a solar system installed and haven’t had an electricity bill in years. Let me separate myth from fact.

Solar is more about reducing your energy bills than getting to the ‘$0’ bill. Remember you use your solar during the day, and this means you are not pulling or taking power from the grid (the big bad power company) and in doing so you are reducing your bill.

There are however a couple of things to note, solar only saves you money while it’s generating electricity, and it doesn’t store electricity to be used later, that is a battery’s job, and that’s a whole other article.

You will still use power after sunset, and this means buying electricity from the grid. If you follow my tips and tricks, you should get your usage down to a minimal power draw at night, and lastly, you are charged a fixed cost, which as of Jan 2023 is $1.08 per day. This adds up to $394 a year without even buying power. So even if you turned everything off and went away for the year you would still have to pay Synergy $394 for 12 months, this is just one of the reasons you can’t get a $0 bill anymore.

The other factor is the feed-in tariff is much lower now than what it was initially. This is what you get for the leftover power you feed back into the grid. Currently in WA, Synergy gives you 2.5 cents before 3pm and 10 cents after 3pm per unit or kWh.

Make your Solar work for You

This is why I recommend you use your solar during the day as it will save you 30 cents a unit or kWh when you use your own solar, instead of buying from Synergy. So have your air conditioners running during the day even if you aren’t home to keep your home cool and use your solar.

Fit timers on all appliances to run during the day, eg. washing machine, dishwasher, pool & spa pumps, and all the heavy things that use large amounts of power. It’s so easy to do these days. everything has timers, and if they don’t, you can get easy-to-use aftermarket devices to turn them on for. There are also smart timers that can be hooked up to your wifi for as little as $20 each. So there really is no reason not to run things during the day anymore.

Yes you will hear stories of times when the feed-in tariff was much higher, so people actually got paid or received a credit instead of a bill, but that was over 10 years ago. Power prices were less than half the price they are now (the good old days).

Pensioners or low-income earners receive a discount from the government which will help with the fixed cost, can get closer to the $0 bill but still will be paying at least $100 – $200 a year for power even with solar.

The other thing is, in WA Synergy restricts your maximum inverter size to 5kw. You can put 6.6kw of solar panels on your roof but still only produce 5kWh every hour at peak times and average around 28kWh a day. This is only for single phase (domestic systems). 3 phase (industrial systems) can go up to 15kw inverters, but once you go above the 5kw inverter size you lose the feed-in tariff and are also export limited which means you get nothing for your extra power feeding into the grid.

Therefore you really want to make sure you are using all your daylight power generation. Just because you have bigger bills doesn’t always mean a bigger system will be beneficial to you.

It is important that you get the right Solar Guy who knows what they are doing, can understand your energy needs and won’t try to sell you a bigger system that you may not need. If you get the wrong solar system, it will actually cost you more money than you will save.

With good planning and the right system, you should be able get your bills down to $50-$80 depending on your usage and time of year. Call me now to see how low I can get your energy bills.