Is Solar Worth It? Real Costs, Real Savings, and What You Need to Know with Leigh Storr

If you’ve been thinking about getting solar but feel unsure about the cost, rebates, or how much it will actually save you, this episode breaks it all down.

I sat down with Leigh Storr, CEO of Resinc (just named Installer of the Year by the Smart Energy Council), and walked away with such a better understanding of how solar works and why it’s a total no-brainer if you own property in Australia.

In this chat, Leigh shares:
☀️ How solar panels really work
🔋 What batteries do (and whether you need one)
💸 What rebates and green loans are available, even if you’re renting

So if you’ve ever looked at your electricity bill and thought “surely there’s a better way?”. This episode is for you.

Grab a quote from RESINC today

CHAPTERS

00:00 – Intro & Guest Welcome
01:18 – The Solar Episode Intro
02:33 – What Even Is Solar?
03:55 – Can Any House Get Solar?
04:19 – Does Solar Work on Cloudy Days?
04:57 – How Long Does Solar Power Last?
06:06 – Feeding Back to the Grid = $$$
07:03 – What’s the Cost of Solar in 2025?
08:36 – What’s the Payback Period?
09:49 – The True Cost of Doing Nothing
11:26 – Real Savings from Real Women
11:59 – Government Rebates Explained
12:37 – Solar for Rentvestors (Landlords)
13:40 – Can Tenants Benefit Too?
14:52 – Claiming Rebates as a Rentvestor
15:09 – Award-Winning Solar Company
15:43 – Spotting Dodgy Solar Companies
17:00 – Aftercare & Proactive Service
18:06 – How Batteries Actually Work
19:24 – Rebate = Instant Discount
19:50 – Solar + EV = Game-Changer
20:46 – Green Loans & Payment Plans
22:39 – Ongoing Costs & Maintenance
23:17 – The Big Myth: Solar is Unaffordable
24:57 – Electricity Retail Profits vs. Real Costs
25:52 – Battery Boom Incoming
26:24 – Ready to Go Solar? Next Steps
27:48 – 2 Hacks to Lower Your Bills Today
29:59 – Final Thoughts  

LINKS AND RESOURCES FROM THE EPISODE
Smart Energy Council: https://smartenergy.org.au/ 
 Australian Government Rebates and Loans for Solar: https://www.energy.gov.au/solar/financial-benefits-solar/government-rebates-and-loans-solar 
Compare Energy Retailers (Energy Made Easy – Government Tool): https://www.energymadeeasy.gov.au

CONNECT WITH LEIGH STORR

Website: https://resinc.com.au/
 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/resinc_solar/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RESINCAustralia/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/resinc-solar/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@RESINCSolar

CONNECT WITH LADIES FINANCE CLUB

Join our free Facebook group - Ladies Finance Club Money Chat
Website: https://www.ladiesfinanceclub.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ladiesfinanceclub/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ladies-finance-club/

TAKEAWAYS

• Solar panels capture sunlight to generate electricity.
• Most homes are suitable for solar installation.
• Solar panels can still generate energy on cloudy days.
• Excess energy can be fed back to the grid for credits.
• Installation costs for solar systems vary widely.
• A well-designed solar system can yield a 20% ROI.
• Government rebates can significantly reduce installation costs.
• Solar can increase property value and attract tenants.
• Choosing a reputable solar provider is crucial.
• Batteries store excess energy for later use. Batteries help save money and provide power during blackouts.
• Government rebates can significantly reduce the cost of solar systems.
• Green loans offer subsidized interest rates for solar installation.
• Monthly repayments on green loans can be less than current electricity bills.
• Solar systems can offset both electricity and gas bills.
• Solar energy is a long-term investment that appreciates over time.
• Regular maintenance is minimal, mainly cleaning panels as needed.
• Understanding your energy usage can lead to significant savings.
• Optimizing your energy retail account can save you money without upfront costs.
• Education and awareness about energy consumption are key to reducing bills.

SOUND BITES

"Solar is simple. Install solar, save money."
"You can completely eliminate your power bill."
"Can you afford not to go solar?"
"Batteries provide power during blackouts."
"Solar can offset your gas bill too."
"Solar systems are almost maintenance-free."
"Solar systems save you money every year."

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Molly: Welcome to Get Rich, the podcast that helps you do just that. Get rich and stay rich. Hey, I'm Molly Benjamin. I'm the founder of Ladies Finance Club, one of Australia's largest financial education platforms for women. But before I started helping thousands of women take control with their money, I was a hot financial mess when it came to my own finances and not the fun kind of hot, more like crying in a supermarket, wondering where all my money went kind of hot.

[00:00:29] But here's the thing, if I can go from financial mess to owning a share portfolio, investing in property, and building wealth. Then you can too. My mission is simple to make women rich because when we have financial freedom, we have choices, confidence, and control over our future. Every week on Get Rich, I sit down with some of the best experts in the industry to break down how we can all start investing, growing our money, and creating long-term financial security without the jargon, boring bits or overwhelm.

[00:01:02] Because when women get rich, we don't just change our lives. We change the world. So if you're ready to start making some Smart Money moves, hit that subscribe button and let's get Rich together.

[00:01:18] Welcome to another episode of Get Rich. The podcast that helps you do just that, get rich and stay rich. I'm your host, Molly Benjamin. Now, I gotta be honest with you, before I had this conversation, I had no idea how solar actually worked. But after chatting with Lee Stor, CEO of Zinc, who were just crowned installer of the year by the Smart Energy Council.

[00:01:41] I walked away thinking, if you are a property owner in Australia, solar should be an absolute no brainer. So in this episode, we break down how solar actually works or what batteries do, the kind of real savings people are seeing, and also like what's the actual cost of solar. I. Plus how to access government rebates, green loans, and the benefits as a rent investor.

[00:02:03] So whether you're starting from scratch with your knowledge like I was, or you're a bit solar curious, this episode will give you a really solid understanding of how solar works and why it might be a really smart investment for your home. So have a listen and let me know what you think. You can jump into our Facebook group, ladies Finance Club, money Chat, or DM us over at Ladies Finance Club on Instagram on the gram.

[00:02:26] We'd love to hear your thoughts. I hope you enjoy this episode. So thank you, Lee. Welcome to Get Rich.

[00:02:33] Leigh: Thank you for having me, Molly. Happy to be on.

[00:02:35] Molly: Okay. I'm not gonna lie, when it comes to solar, I have, I don't know, I just don't really understand how it works. Like, I mean, I get that, you know, we have sunshine and then it creates energy, but that is literally probably the height of my knowledge.

[00:02:47] So we are starting from a very kind of basic level here. So I thought to kick things off, because I'm so. Keen to find out like the costs and the savings and if it's worth it and like all the things we need to know, but like, can you just really explain to me how solar panels work and what they actually do for our home and our bills?

[00:03:07] Leigh: Great. Really good question to start off with, and solar, we like to say solar is simple. Install solar, save money. There's no moving parts. It's very simple and it's all done for you. In essence, solar panels capture sunlight falling directly on your roof, um, or on a ground mount system. All energy comes from the sun.

[00:03:23] Ultimately, even fossil fuels, that's sunshine that fell millions of years ago potentially. So rather than waiting millions of years digging it up, fossil fuels is coal and burning it for energy is we capture it directly fallen from the sun and at the point of sight. So if you've got rooftop panels on your house.

[00:03:37] Then it means you're capturing the sunshine, falling on top of your roof and able to turn that into electricity to power your home and avoid paying for expensive electricity costs.

[00:03:47] Molly: Okay, so that is all sounding really good. Can any house put solar on or any property? Put solar on.

[00:03:55] Leigh: Yeah, majority of homes are a really good fit for solar.

[00:03:57] It does come down to roof orientation a little bit. It comes down to factors such as shading. Obviously if you live in an apartment complex, you don't have access to the roof or permission, but for most houses, I'd say nine outta 10 homes in Australia are installable and great fit for solar. If you've got roof space, we call that solar real estate.

[00:04:15] Mm-hmm. And if you're paying a bill under that roof space, ideal fit

[00:04:19] Molly: as far as like the sun goes. Do you still make energy even when it's not super sunny?

[00:04:25] Leigh: Solar works on solar irrigation, so even when there's cloud cover, there will be solar coming through those clouds. So it's like radiation. So real solar radiation.

[00:04:33] So if you're out, uh, sun baking on a hot day and there's cloud's over, you get pretty sunburn from the solar radiation coming through, and your solar panels will work exactly the same way.

[00:04:43] Molly: Okay, great. So I've got my house, I've got my roof, I've got my solar panels, and then there's a special system, I'm assuming, where it takes that, that energy, and then puts it into the home.

[00:04:57] As far as like, and, and I don't even know if this question makes sense, but like, if it's a really sunny day, will that power your home for like a day, two days a week?

[00:05:06] Leigh: It depends on whether you have batteries or not, as to whether you can take that power from the daytime and use it in the evening.

[00:05:12] Generally, anything that you don't use from the solar system will feed back to the grid and you'll get paid credits for that from the energy retailer, which is nice to have the shoe on the other foot for a change. I. But yeah, generally your sunshine for that day powers the home for that day. If you do have batteries, you can store it and use it overnight, potentially into the next day.

[00:05:29] And you want to ideally right size the solar system based on the roof space that you've got available and how much your electricity costs and usage are in the household.

[00:05:38] Molly: Okay? So if my solar makes enough, I can send it back to the grid and the grid will, and I guess those who dunno, the grid is where all, just like our normal system.

[00:05:48] Leigh: Correct. So the grid, the the large scale solar plant and the large scale coal generators and all the poles and wires that come through the house and provide everyone with power, you're absolutely right. Anything that you don't use will generally be allowed to be fed back to the grid, and your energy retailer will pay you what's called feeding credits for that.

[00:06:06] Which help offset your nighttime usage and help offset your supply to property costs. So if you've got a large enough system that's providing more power than what you need during the day and feeding some excess back to the grid, there are chances that you can completely eliminate your power bill through that method.

[00:06:19] And sometimes even credits.

[00:06:21] Molly: Oh, that makes sense. 'cause I know when I did a call out to see. If people use solar, some people are like, yeah, I get paid for my solar. And I was like, how does that work? But that would be what she's talking about.

[00:06:32] Leigh: Yeah, correct. And those rates for feeding credits back to the grid, they have reduced a little bit over the last couple of years, and they're roughly peaked to what you call the wholesale energy rate.

[00:06:42] So if you are with Origin or a GL and they're buying your electricity from your house and selling it to your neighbors effectively, instead of paying for wholesaler electricity from the power generation, they get to buy that from your property locally and convenient to your neighbors. So a well designed solar system won't only provide for your own needs, potentially some of the neighbors around you as well.

[00:07:03] Molly: Okay. Oh my gosh, I don't think I, like we won't get too much into the technicals 'cause I'm like, how does that even work? But let's maybe just take a jump over to the cost. So like what does typically solar set up cost? I. Like upfront cost in Australia in 2025?

[00:07:22] Leigh: Yeah. Very, very common question and a very difficult one to give an exact price without knowing the needs of a customer and their usage.

[00:07:30] So we see customer's bills anywhere from $1,200 a year to $12,000 a year in a residential home. To give a good indication, a well designed solar system will give you about a 20% return on investment so far as savings. That's a fantastic, uh, investment for a household. We, yeah, believe it's one of the best investments a household can make is installing solar on their roof and offsetting electricity costs.

[00:07:51] So far as an upfront cost, you're looking at anywhere for a high quality system from $6,000 up to about $30,000 for a residential solar system, depending on how large it is and whether it's with or without batteries. If you're a really. High user, that system cost may go up higher, but for example, a customer that we recently installed and offset a $12,000 a year bill, their system with batteries was about $50,000.

[00:08:13] So they're getting a great return on investment, close to about 25% return on investment. And great thing about the, uh, solar return on investment. If you've got high quality products and service, then as long as the sun comes up the next day, you've got a pretty sure thing on a return on investment.

[00:08:28] Molly: Yeah.

[00:08:28] So for that. Customer you just said, how long would it take them then to pay for that solar to kind of pay itself off?

[00:08:36] Leigh: Yeah. If that customer, it's about a four year breakeven,

[00:08:38] Molly: four even breakeven, and then they don't pay electricity bills really for the rest, like how long do these systems last for?

[00:08:45] Leigh: So with batteries these days, batteries have a 10 to 12 year warranty period.

[00:08:50] Mm-hmm. And expected lifespan of about 15 years. And your solar panels have a 25 year, uh, warranty period and an expected lifespan up to 40 years. So the latest solar panels is rated to still be producing about 89% of day one power in 25 years time. So only 11% drop in output.

[00:09:09] Molly: Wow. So over a period of 20 years, you're gonna be.

[00:09:13] That massively in credit.

[00:09:16] Leigh: Yeah. So if you're looking at, uh, a simple way of looking at return, assuming a, a slight increase in power bills across the years is you're looking at about a 10 x return over 25 years for your investment into solar as to what you'll save over two, five years. Factoring in increasing cost of power.

[00:09:33] We always look at the real cost of power for customers is a lot of people know how much they're paying per month or per quarter, usually too much, but they haven't stopped to think about what their cost is over a long period of time. And I saw a fantastic post you put up recently, Molly, comparing someone with solar and someone without solar over 10 years.

[00:09:49] Yeah. So if someone's paying the average household bill, about 2,400 a year is less likely gonna be, including the average cost of power, increases about $35,000 of power expense over 10 years. Now, if you like me, you only get to pay for your power bills if you've already paid tax on your income. So you've gotta earn about $50,000 just to keep the lights on and pay your power bills.

[00:10:10] So a lot of people look at solar and they think I. They can't afford it, but they haven't stopped to think they're already on a payment plan with their energy retailer. Mm is they're paying off their infrastructure and putting profits into their pocket. Now, a great thing about solar is that 10 year cost, you'll be able to significantly reduce or completely eliminate that cost for a fraction of that amount.

[00:10:29] And over 25 years is the question's not, can you afford to go solar? It's can you afford not to go solar because that same average. Power bill over 25 years will be about a hundred thousand dollars worth of electricity costs, and that's money that you can a hundred

[00:10:43] Molly: thousand dollars of electricity costs.

[00:10:45] Wow.

[00:10:46] Leigh: Yeah, huge 25 years. That's the inverse or the negative effective compound. Yeah. Rate increases is when there's money that you're spending rather than money that you're earning. And that's based on sort of a 4% per year increase. And prices have been going up a lot higher than that.

[00:11:02] Molly: Wow. And we always say to people, you know, the easiest way to make money is to save it.

[00:11:06] So imagine what you could do with that a hundred K. You know, imagine what that would be invested. In the share market over 25 years, that's a huge amount.

[00:11:15] Leigh: Let's put back the mortgage. Yeah.

[00:11:17] Molly: Straight back into the mortgage, pay it off years earlier.

[00:11:21] Leigh: Correct.

[00:11:22] Molly: And all that interest saved. Wow, okay. I didn't realize the savings would be that much.

[00:11:26] Like I knew there'd be a lot, but that is crazy. And I'll, I'll also pop in the link into the show notes of the Instagram post You Are Liz referring to, because that was actually with Real Figures, so that was one of our LFC members. Who wrote to me to tell me about her savings on solar. So those figures are actually real.

[00:11:44] And with the government rebates, like I'm always like seeing ads on Instagram and social media just around like, oh, there's this government grant available. All these different incentives, like what's the deal with those and how do you claim them?

[00:11:59] Leigh: So you get incentives for solar and also for batteries.

[00:12:02] The federal government's just announced a fantastic battery rebate starting 1st of July, and that will offset about 30 to 35% of the cost of a battery to install. There's also a solar panel rebate, which offsets about the same. 25, 30% of a solar system in store. So when you look at that, those rebates combined allows you to add value to your house and reduce your power bills, partly funded by government initiatives.

[00:12:29] So it is fantastic that that exists. It allows a lot more of us to install solar and take control of those cost of living expenses.

[00:12:37] Molly: And we're seeing a lot of rent vest. I'm a rent investor, so I, I live in an apartment, but I have a property up in Toowoomba in Queensland. Is that worth as a, I guess as a landlord getting solar on the property, does it increase like the amount, I mean, I dunno if you know the answer to this, but from what you've seen, does it increase the amount you can either rent it out for because they're gonna be making savings or it's more just, it's the right thing to makes your property more lucr like?

[00:13:06] Exciting for a tenant because they, they know they're gonna save on their power bills.

[00:13:10] Leigh: Yes. There's a few different benefits there as a, as a rent investor or an investor to have property on, uh, solar on your property. Yeah. Number one of course is reducing power bills and adding value. You've got a depreciable asset that you can claim on tax there as well.

[00:13:23] Yeah. Now will depend on whether you are paying for your power bills or your tenants paying for the power bills. If you have No, generally the

[00:13:29] Molly: tenants. Mm-hmm.

[00:13:30] Leigh: Yeah. Generally the tenants and. If you've got solar on the property, it could be more appealing to rent. It can help retain tenants and it can also attract a higher rental amount.

[00:13:40] So fully inclusive of bills, for example, is what you may be able to do as a landlord, differentiates your property, but the next rental, um, review and may allow you to charge a little bit more. So, for example, I've got a fully furnished apartment in Brisbane that we rent out and we charge more because it's fully furnished.

[00:13:58] And I've got a great example of that. Property that I mentioned before of as a friend's property that was paying $12,000 a year power bills that's actually attended a property, and it's the tenant paying $12,000 a year. Now this is a beautiful property that the rent is three and $5,000 per week. And during the recent, uh, cycle in Alfred Southeast Queensland, Northern New South Wales is it cut power to that property for 13 days.

[00:14:22] And under New South Wales tenancy law is they had to forego rent after 48 hours until the power was restored. So they lost 11 days of rent at about $500 a day. So five and $5,000 worth of lost rent because the power went out, they'd installed a fantastic system with batteries that'll offset the tenant bill and help retain that tenant going forward as well.

[00:14:45] Molly: Wow. Okay. And as a rent investor, can you also get access to these government rebates and incentives?

[00:14:52] Leigh: Absolutely. So it's attached to the property rather than the individual?

[00:14:55] Molly: Yeah. Okay. Yeah,

[00:14:56] Leigh: so every property that uh, is in Australia is effectively eligible as long as you're able to install it and it meets eligibility criteria, it hasn't already had those rebates claimed.

[00:15:09] Molly: Fantastic. And Lee, I believe a congratulations is in order because you guys just won a Smart Energy Australia award.

[00:15:17] Leigh: Thanks, Molly. That was the Smart Energy Council installer of the Year award, so of over 4,000 solar installers in in Australia. We won the 2025 installer of the year.

[00:15:26] Molly: So obviously you guys are great, but there are companies out there, they have been in the past that were kind of doing the dodgy, like we've seen like the Today to Die shows where they're like kind of find these guys who are just selling kind of snake oil.

[00:15:39] So how do we know who's like legit and who's not legit?

[00:15:43] Leigh: If you look at any industry, every industry has great operators and bad operators. Unfortunately, when you've got an industry that is fueled by incentives, it'll attract more of them because it's easier to sell a product. So one of the best ways to differentiate between a good company and a great company or a bad company altogether is looking at reviews, um, looking at reviews over time, the quality of the reviews, looking at reviews, whether they're just recent because the company was.

[00:16:06] Cheap and fast, or whether they're customers that have been customer for several years and are leaving proactive reviews. So that's a good way. There's a lot of companies that also know how to play the review game, and they're low operators, but high volume, so a lot of five star reviews. But if you filter on their reviews for the lowest reviews, you'll often see they've got 10, 15, 20%, one star reviews, and they're the reviews that are coming in when a system has failed and there's no aftermarket service.

[00:16:32] Where the customer thought they were saving a few thousand dollars upfront by going cheap. It's costing them thousands in rectification and then replacement of a system. And unfortunately we see it a lot in this industry. One of the, I guess, downsides of, or dark sides of the solar industry, I. As one of the high quality providers, about 20% of the systems that we install we're replacing an older, failed, properly installed solar system where a customer's bought cheap and unfortunately they're buying twice, so

[00:16:58] Molly: Mm.

[00:17:00] Okay. And I think you've mentioned it before, I. You guys aren't the cheapest, but you're the highest quality. And I think when you're looking at solar, you don't, you don't want the cheapest.

[00:17:10] Leigh: Correct. And we look at that as real value is results. It's not price. So, and oftentimes we've all made this mistake we've bought on price.

[00:17:19] And we got poor value because the product failed service wasn't there and it wasn't what we're expecting. So we go over and above for our customers in every instance. That's why we're the highest rated and most awarded solar company in Australia, and that's for predominantly our aftermarket service and the results that we get.

[00:17:35] Customers get what we promise and we're there for them well beyond installation. And in fact, we've got the only proactive customer service team we know of in the industry where each year for our customers, we're dropping back, saying hello, having a cup of tea, running through their electricity bills, running through their online monitoring, and seeing how else we can help that customer save even more around their household in relation to solar and electricity.

[00:17:55] Molly: Okay. I've just got a couple more questions before we wrap. So as far as batteries go, how do batteries work? Do you just kind of like stick them in the house?

[00:18:06] Leigh: Batteries will more often than not go in the garage or on an outside wall to the house. We wouldn't often put them inside the house where people are living.

[00:18:14] It's usually in the garage or outside. Yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah. Yep, that's all right. The way the battery will work is it will take excess solar that you're not using in the home during the day, and it will charge the batteries and sit there available for you to use in the household either after the sun has gone down or maybe the sun's dropping down.

[00:18:32] Everyone's come home from work and school. They've turned all the power on. They've put the washing in the washing machine, and your power demand in the house has exceeded what the solar is producing at the end of the day. Yeah. The batteries will kick in and top that up. And I could even show you a great example, uh, shortly of how that works in practice and the customer using power both from their solar and from their batteries and how the solar charges the battery.

[00:18:53] Molly: Oh, yeah. Show, you can show me now if you want. That sounds good. Excellent.

[00:18:56] Leigh: I'll bring that up. And great thing about batteries, they've got two, two huge benefits. One is they help save you money. So with the government rebate coming into place, they've got a great return on investment now as well. And then secondly is if you've got a well designed battery system during a blackout, you've still got power in the household.

[00:19:13] Yeah. So at least for all of their essential services and possibly the whole, yeah.

[00:19:17] Molly: And just if people aren't a hundred percent sure what you mean by rebate, so the government will give you that money back.

[00:19:24] Leigh: It'll actually come as a discount on the system. So as a solar installer, we facilitate all of that for you.

[00:19:30] Companies aren't expected to trade energy renewal energy certificates we give. Yeah, it, it's a little bit complex, but all of that's done in the background and done for a customer, so it's given as a discount off the total system. So, for example, if a system is $10,000 and is three and $5,000 of rebates, the customer price would be six and $5,000.

[00:19:49] Okay, cool.

[00:19:50] Molly: So when we're talking before about the savings, like if you are then charging a car and it's not costing you anything, then that's again another additional huge saving. 'cause you're not buying petrol, you're not worrying about. Yeah. That element of it, I didn't think of that. Yeah,

[00:20:10] Leigh: absolutely correct.

[00:20:11] And in fact, um, my mother-in-law, she installed a solar system through us recently and her credits, she's got a, what we call a dual fuel account. So gas and electricity come on the one bill. Mm-hmm. And her credits from her solar are actually cover her gas account as well.

[00:20:26] Molly: Wow.

[00:20:26] Leigh: So she's, uh, not only offset her electricity, but she's offset her gas bill as well.

[00:20:30] Molly: Wow. Okay. I mean, this is exciting. So I guess as far as your thoughts on solar leasing or payment plans, if people don't have the upfront cash, but they want to install it, what are some options?

[00:20:46] Leigh: There's fantastic green loans available now. So there's credit unions and main banks that provide green loans and their subsidized interest rates.

[00:20:53] You're looking at between anywhere from 3.75 up to about 6.5% for a green loan. So oftentimes at or below mortgage rates. Yeah. So it's to encourage adoption of renewable energies. Yeah. And you're looking at terms between seven years to 15 years and the magic in green loans is it allows you to install solar and potentially batteries.

[00:21:13] And the monthly repayment on the green loan is less than what you're paying in electricity. So for example, if your bill's $200 a month and we could install a solar system that eliminates or significantly reduces that power bill and it only costs you $150 a month on a green loan, then not only have you been able to put it on your roof and upfront cost the savings, cover the repayments.

[00:21:33] Mm. Once that green loan's paid off is you've got free power thereafter. So that's why solar's a lot more affordable than people think. A lot of people have forgone installing solar because they thought they couldn't afford it. They've seen the upfront costs and they thought, we haven't got that. Or they're saving for a holiday, or they're saving for a new kitchen or for a deposit on their rent vesting property.

[00:21:53] So it's, it's one of those investments that's very few and far between where the expense to own the system is covered by the. Savings that is generated. So when you buy a motor vehicle is as soon as you drive that car off the lot, is it depreciates in value. It costs money to fill up. It costs money to insure 'em money.

[00:22:16] To maintain a solar system is almost maintenance free. You should clean the panels when they need it every year or two, but. A solar system there is gonna save you money every year going forward, and each year the power prices go up. Your savings actually go up with it because you're offsetting that election plus.

[00:22:34] So you've got an appreciating return on investment, which is fantastic in any investment asset.

[00:22:39] Molly: Wow, this is so good. And I mean, you just mentioned like you might need to clean them occasionally. Are there any other costs involved?

[00:22:46] Leigh: So if you're looking at maintenance over 25 years, you should factor in a replacement of an inverter, which is one of the components.

[00:22:52] So you've got the solar panels on the roof, so you may have 20 solar panels and then you've got one inverter. So the inverter's a small part of the total cost of a system and installation. And inverters have a 10 year warranty expected lifespan of about 15 years, and you might be up for one replacement of the life of a system.

[00:23:10] Molly: Okay, great. And I guess what is a big myth you wish more Aussies understood when it came to solar? I.

[00:23:17] Leigh: One of the big myth is that people can't afford It is, yeah. If you can afford to pay your power bills, you can afford to install solar. Solar with, no.

[00:23:25] Molly: Yeah. I li Oh, I like that line. If you can afford to pay your power bills, you can afford to install solar, I might borrow that one.

[00:23:31] Leigh: And it's almost a situation. If you're unable to afford your power bills, then you really should get solar. And obviously that's, yeah. Different conversation and question and, and looking at that. We recently donated a system for a family that were $5,000 behind on their power bills. They've got a young family and they had a loss of jobs.

[00:23:49] Uh, we donated a system for them so they can get ahead and stop paying those power bills. But yeah, certainly if with cost of living increases is everything's gone up in the last number of years and. Your electricity bill is one of the only cost of living expenses that you can take control of is you have to pay your mortgage, you have to fuel your car, you have to eat food.

[00:24:09] You don't have to pay for expensive electricity. So we've seen increases. I saw a bill the other day that their electricity rate over the last three or four years has gone up 30%, but that also lost to 25% pay on time. Discount. So the net increase is about 60% on their power bills that ha they've gone up.

[00:24:27] So it's a significant increase and most of Australia have seen that. And what really irritates me and a lot of our team and customers is whilst our electricity bills have gone up at a record, speed is our energy retailers are making record profits and we're digging up coal and uh, and. Gas and sending that offshore and other countries can earn that in their power facilities and sell it to their customers at less than half the price of what we're paying in Australia.

[00:24:57] And I'm fortunate enough to live in a beautiful spot in Queensland, but unfortunately I can't install solar 'cause we're on an embedded network on an island. In that place, our electricity rate is less than 15 cents a kilowatt because the embedded network passed it through at the wholesale cost to us.

[00:25:13] Whereas most consumers are now paying between 30 to 60 cents a kilowatt, and that extra margin has been added on top. So we're seeing it. It

[00:25:21] Molly: seems so wrong. Yeah, they could do

[00:25:24] Leigh: that. And we're just seeing people get to their wits end of paying ever increasing power bills and wanting to take control of that and to use as much of the power that solar generates, adding batteries as well.

[00:25:34] So we've now got 4 million homes in Australia installed with a solar system and another three to 500 homes a year following suit. And now in this battery rebate, we're expecting to see an uptake of about a million homes, adding a battery over the next few years, as well as new homes being installed with solar and batteries.

[00:25:52] Molly: I'm converted. I mean, if I didn't live in an apartment like, well, it's, it is almost like a no brainer.

[00:25:57] Leigh: Yeah. Yeah. And that's what a lot of, it's fine when we take a customer through an education process and speak to them and walk them through and show how it works. That's the conclusion is this makes so much sense.

[00:26:08] Why haven't we done it earlier? Or a common question is, does everyone do this? Well, most people do. Obviously, uh, everyone has different priorities and, and neat. But yeah, considering a long-term investment on your home is one of the best investments that homeowner can make.

[00:26:24] Molly: So Lee, if someone's listening to this conversation and they're like, I wanna have a serious chat about solar and installing solar, maybe I have a few additional questions.

[00:26:33] What's the next best step for someone to go to follow?

[00:26:36] Leigh: Fantastic. The next best step is to reach out and one of our team members will happily walk you through it. We do what's called a custom design consultation where we look at your electricity bills, have a decent chat about what your objectives are, what the future looks like, your current and future needs for electricity, whether you've got young kids that are growing up, whether you've got kids that are leaving the house.

[00:26:55] Whether you've got an electric vehicle or you're planning to get an electric vehicle, whether you've got appliances around the house that you are adding onto, like split system air conditioning, installing a pool. So we look at your needs, take all of that into account when designing a solar system. Look at your roof space and look at whether you'd like to explore adding batteries or not.

[00:27:14] So we allow a 60 to 90 minute design consultation to walk through it completely understand your needs, and provide several options that best suit those. Um, we'd love to help if. There's listeners that, uh, would like, so, uh, we'll have a link in Molly's show notes that you can access and we'll have a great discount for followers of the Ladies Finance Club.

[00:27:34] Molly: Ah, thank you very much. And just for those people who are, obviously they don't currently have solar, but they're thinking about it, what's like one or two energy hacks or tips you have that that could help them save money right now on their bills?

[00:27:48] Leigh: Excellent. So number one energy tip that everyone can take advantage of is shopping around your energy retail account.

[00:27:54] And that's as simple as comparing your current plan against other market plans. Yeah, and on average our customers save about $400 a year by optimizing their energy retail plan. That's without having to install anything or outlay a single dollar. And that's a, a huge difference. Then you're looking at optimizing around the home and oftentimes once we put.

[00:28:13] Monitoring on a solar system and on a house, we're able to observe and detect different loads that come on during the day for a household that the customer wasn't aware of or forgot about. Recently, we had a customer who put an extraction fan in their roof because they had some mildew for a period.

[00:28:31] They forgot about that fan. It's been going for the last two years. Oh, and that fan has been using 15 kilowatts a day. So at current electricity rate, that's about a $5 a day electricity cost, and it's been running for the last two years. So we also noticed on the same customer's property, 'cause they couldn't understand why they were using so much electricity.

[00:28:50] Yeah. So once we had monitoring, we could see that their electricity usage spiked when their electric hot water system came on. And then instead of shutting off in two to three hours, once the water was hot, it kept going for a continuous eight hours. So that was using about 35 kilowatt hours a day instead of what should have been for that size system, a 10 to 12 kilowatt hour draw per day.

[00:29:11] Wow. So all up, they've saved about 35 kilowatts a day just by education and awareness and taking that time to run through it. Now with all of our customers, after installation, we do a Zoom training session, and we call it a momentum session about 30 days after we run through a customer's monitoring system.

[00:29:29] Look for any trends that are obvious like that, and in consultation with a customer. Talk through that. Look at, you can see when different loads are coming up, like air conditioning oftentimes, and see where you can. Save money, but two things. Awareness of what you're using and when you are using it, and even when the kids are using electricity around the house.

[00:29:47] And then secondly is optimizing your energy retail account. They're two big hacks that you can significantly reduce your power bill without spending a dollar. And then of course, to take it right down, installing solar and potentially batteries.

[00:29:59] Molly: Awesome. Well thank you so much, Lee. As mentioned, we'll pop all the links where you can get in contact with Lee and his team, but thank you for joining us and I learned so much.

[00:30:10] I have to say, I feel a lot more educated now about solar and how it works, so thank you so much for sharing.

[00:30:17] Leigh: Thank you, Molly. It's been a pleasure and hopefully there's some value there for listeners.

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