Solar options for home in 2022

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#3418852 25-Sep-2025 21:36

MikeFly:

Be good to get GZ member who is an accountant or tax consultant to comment, but as far as I can see, this means you should be taxed on growing your own veges, making your own clothes etc?

If you were running a farm and claiming expenses and selling food at the market, but ended up eating half the stuff you grew, then that would be like running solar as a business. I guess they treat a small amount of export like a hobby business. Not worth pursuing.

Richard rich.ms

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#3418853 25-Sep-2025 21:43

richms:

MikeFly:

Be good to get GZ member who is an accountant or tax consultant to comment, but as far as I can see, this means you should be taxed on growing your own veges, making your own clothes etc?

If you were running a farm and claiming expenses and selling food at the market, but ended up eating half the stuff you grew, then that would be like running solar as a business. I guess they treat a small amount of export like a hobby business. Not worth pursuing.

That pretty much sums up my view of it, together with the fact that self consumption is pretty much untraceable by TPTB.

https://www.harmlesssolutions.co.nz/

Handle9

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#3418856 25-Sep-2025 22:08

It’s quite literally been described in the linked legislation how export is being treated for tax purposes.

There has been no citation of how reduced costs are taxable because they aren’t.

dantheperson

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#3418858 25-Sep-2025 22:21

Handle9:

It’s quite literally been described in the linked legislation how export is being treated for tax purposes.

There has been no citation of how reduced costs are taxable because they aren’t.

Hope they are not going to start taxing me on the savings i make watering the garden with rainwater instead of paying for watercares water.

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#3418860 25-Sep-2025 22:41

dantheperson:

Handle9:

It’s quite literally been described in the linked legislation how export is being treated for tax purposes.

There has been no citation of how reduced costs are taxable because they aren’t.

Hope they are not going to start taxing me on the savings i make watering the garden with rainwater instead of paying for watercares water.

The IRD sent me an assessment notice for retaining heat in my house with insulation.

chimera

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#3418861 25-Sep-2025 22:49

ChatGPT (aka eGod) says…

In New Zealand, exported solar PV electricity that you send to the grid is generally zero-rated for GST if you are GST-registered.

Here’s how it works:

If you are GST-registered:
- When you sell exported electricity to your power retailer, you are making a “taxable supply” under GST rules.
- Electricity exported to the grid is treated as a zero-rated supply because it is considered exported goods/services under the GST Act.
- This means you charge 0% GST on the sale, but you can still claim input GST credits on your solar system installation and maintenance costs.
If you are not GST-registered:
- You don’t charge GST at all, since only GST-registered entities can charge or claim GST.
- The retailer just pays you the agreed export rate, with no GST involved on your side.

fastbike

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#3418907 25-Sep-2025 23:02

chimera:

ChatGPT (aka eGod) says…

In New Zealand, exported solar PV electricity that you send to the grid is generally zero-rated for GST if you are GST-registered.

Here’s how it works:

If you are GST-registered:

When you sell exported electricity to your power retailer, you are making a “taxable supply” under GST rules.
Electricity exported to the grid is treated as a zero-rated supply because it is considered exported goods/services under the GST Act.
This means you charge 0% GST on the sale, but you can still claim input GST credits on your solar system installation and maintenance costs.

If you are not GST-registered:

You don’t charge GST at all, since only GST-registered entities can charge or claim GST.
The retailer just pays you the agreed export rate, with no GST involved on your side.

Good ol' AI telling you what you want to hear :)

Exports have to leave NZ to be zero rated.

Otautahi Christchurch

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#3418932 26-Sep-2025 10:04

fastbike:

chimera:

ChatGPT (aka eGod) says…

In New Zealand, exported solar PV electricity that you send to the grid is generally zero-rated for GST if you are GST-registered.

Here’s how it works:

If you are GST-registered:

When you sell exported electricity to your power retailer, you are making a “taxable supply” under GST rules.
Electricity exported to the grid is treated as a zero-rated supply because it is considered exported goods/services under the GST Act.
This means you charge 0% GST on the sale, but you can still claim input GST credits on your solar system installation and maintenance costs.

If you are not GST-registered:

You don’t charge GST at all, since only GST-registered entities can charge or claim GST.
The retailer just pays you the agreed export rate, with no GST involved on your side.

Good ol' AI telling you what you want to hear :)

Exports have to leave NZ to be zero rated.

That ChatGPT info is junk. For a starter electricity is a "taxable supply" when your retailer supplies it to you so the same applies to excess generation you 'sell' to them and most suppliers require you to supply them your GST number if you are GST registered in terms of your solar ownership so they can comply with tax regulations on their end of the transaction when adding GST to your credit. The second point raised in the GST registered portion claiming zero rating is at odds with what IRD classify as 'zero rated', which then negates the third point. As a GST registered business the most common zero rated items we see are international postage, incoming international shipping (on our stock), sales with a delivery address outside NZ (our website checkout deducts GST for these), and financial services. Our solar is not owned by our business but many farm and commercial/industrial installations would be.

So far as the non-GST registered situation goes this is at the call of how your supplier processes GST within their invoice to you as discussed here a while back. If the supplier deducts your (GST exclusive) export from the energy and services they supply you before applying GST then you are essentially being paid GST for your export as GST is added to the final total with your export being part of that. If your export credit occurs after GST is added to their charges then you're not. In the case of SolarEdge they actually say that a standing credit that is cashed out will have the GST removed from it but up until that point the credit you are seeing is GST inclusive.

A good example here of the value of doing your own research rather than reverting to an AI summary trawled from who knows what source.

https://www.harmlesssolutions.co.nz/

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#3418994 26-Sep-2025 13:42

fastbike:

Good ol' AI telling you what you want to hear :)

Exports have to leave NZ to be zero rated.

And therein lies the reason for ChatGPT's ramblings. It has interpreted 'export' in the sense of it being sent out of NZ, and then it has made up content to fit that definition. AI hallucination based on too shallow an understanding of the information requested.

https://www.harmlesssolutions.co.nz/

fastbike

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#3419038 26-Sep-2025 16:52

HarmLessSolutions:

fastbike:

Good ol' AI telling you what you want to hear :)

Exports have to leave NZ to be zero rated.

And therein lies the reason for ChatGPT's ramblings. It has interpreted 'export' in the sense of it being sent out of NZ, and then it has made up content to fit that definition. AI hallucination based on too shallow an understanding of the information requested.

Exactly. I got ChatGPT to review some code at work, made the suggestions it wanted, followed the hints - this went on for 3 iterations and then my code was almost back to what I had asked it to review initially.

I've also found it will give me code that is missing bits, won't compile etc. And it gives lovely PR style answers when I tell it that the answer was incomplete.

It has some use but it's not going away either. The challenge is how to harness it.

Otautahi Christchurch

richms

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#3419041 26-Sep-2025 17:02

But its great for writing waffly crap to put on a website to describe a product when you want it.

Richard rich.ms

chimera

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#3419461 28-Sep-2025 14:47

Yeah must admit I didn't read the Chatgpt response thoroughly before posting lol.

Back on the subject of solar, trade depot have pretty good pricing on DEYE hybrid inverters. Noticed the 8kw one for $4k. https://tradedepot.co.nz/8kw-single-phase-hybrid-inverter/

Same as what I use personally, can highly recommend it.

fastbike

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#3419473 28-Sep-2025 16:15

chimera:

Back on the subject of solar, trade depot have pretty good pricing on DEYE hybrid inverters. Noticed the 8kw one for $4k. https://tradedepot.co.nz/8kw-single-phase-hybrid-inverter/

Same as what I use personally, can highly recommend it.

I got a Solis 10kW 3 phase hybrid inverter with a ten year warranty for $4k + GST ($4.5k incl) from Tony at Hummingbird. TD have the 10kW 3 phase Deye at the same price.

I went with the Solis because of the 4 independent MPPT inputs which suited my setup better as we have 3 strings with different orientations (Deye has 2 independent MPPT), also I wanted support for a HV battery as the battery is 15m away from the house.

Likewise I'd buy another if I was doing a new job.

My current task is writing some automation to keep my exports within the 10kW cap that Meridian put in my contract for the 17c FIT (even though lines co are happy for 15kW)
The high level plan is to export power between 7am and 10am to run the battery down to around 20% and then only start battery charging when the grid meter shows I'm approaching the 10kW export this skimming the peak of the PV production into the battery.

Requires parsing Solcast API data for the day's predicted PV output, reading the export meter to get current values, reading and writing to the inverter and battery BMS to control discharge/charge.

Edit added inverter info.

Otautahi Christchurch

boland

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#3419990 30-Sep-2025 11:01

fastbike:

Requires parsing Solcast API data for the day's predicted PV output, reading the export meter to get current values, reading and writing to the inverter and battery BMS to control discharge/charge.

Do you have Home Assistant? Seems like a perfect candidate. There seems to be an integration for Solcast: https://github.com/BJReplay/ha-solcast-solar

HarmLessSolutions

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#3420436 1-Oct-2025 22:38

For those of you with PowerCo as your lines company check out their website statement regarding a 10kW export limit. No change yet to their T&Cs but our installer is on the case and is hopeful that we will be able to open up our 8.2kW inverter without restriction, plus we have a 5kW inverter going into our other phase.

https://www.harmlesssolutions.co.nz/

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