Solar options for home in 2022

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#3463773 23-Feb-2026 15:20

@HarmLessSolutions

For some reason i couldn't quote you but you said:

"Re: financing: Probably because it always seems to be the banks that win out with any sort of credit arrangement. So - too right, unless I was adding it to another loan (e.g. I needed to tkae out a mortgage to build a new house), I would not take out a loan to put on solar, even if the financials looks appealing. If it was a government-backed incentive, then they'll have to be subsidising the loan providers - presumably the banks - in some way to provide favourable loan terms, and you can be sure they'll have their snouts in the trough."

All the banks are offering interest free loans for a solar install - paying back over five years so to me taking such a loan is a no brainer as I will be paying less than my electricity bill is reduced by.

HarmLessSolutions

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#3463775 23-Feb-2026 15:30

cshwone:

@HarmLessSolutions

For some reason i couldn't quote you but you said:

"Re: financing: Probably because it always seems to be the banks that win out with any sort of credit arrangement. So - too right, unless I was adding it to another loan (e.g. I needed to tkae out a mortgage to build a new house), I would not take out a loan to put on solar, even if the financials looks appealing. If it was a government-backed incentive, then they'll have to be subsidising the loan providers - presumably the banks - in some way to provide favourable loan terms, and you can be sure they'll have their snouts in the trough."

All the banks are offering interest free loans for a solar install - paying back over five years so to me taking such a loan is a no brainer as I will be paying less than my electricity bill is reduced by.

It wasn't me you were quoting. It was from this post of @kangaroo13 's.

BTW I agree with you.

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

cshwone

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#3463781 23-Feb-2026 16:21

HarmLessSolutions:

cshwone:

@HarmLessSolutions

For some reason i couldn't quote you but you said:

"Re: financing: Probably because it always seems to be the banks that win out with any sort of credit arrangement. So - too right, unless I was adding it to another loan (e.g. I needed to tkae out a mortgage to build a new house), I would not take out a loan to put on solar, even if the financials looks appealing. If it was a government-backed incentive, then they'll have to be subsidising the loan providers - presumably the banks - in some way to provide favourable loan terms, and you can be sure they'll have their snouts in the trough."

All the banks are offering interest free loans for a solar install - paying back over five years so to me taking such a loan is a no brainer as I will be paying less than my electricity bill is reduced by.

It wasn't me you were quoting. It was from this post of @kangaroo13 's.

BTW I agree with you.

Thanks, my error

kangaroo13

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#3463792 23-Feb-2026 17:31

cshwone:

All the banks are offering interest free loans for a solar install - paying back over five years so to me taking such a loan is a no brainer as I will be paying less than my electricity bill is reduced by.

I'm not sure where you get that from. While there are some favourable loans around for solar installs - by way of example, ASB offers 1% solar loans, up to a maximum of 3 yrs, and only for existing loan holders.

Hence my original comment - I'd consider adding to a house loan, but I wouldn't take out a loan just for solar. And I think banks have worked diligently for years to earn their distrust from prospective customers. I'm very suspicious of fish-hooks. I doubt I'm alone on this, and so sadly, I don't feel that financing deals are an effective way to significantly drive up residential solar uptake across NZ.

dantheperson

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#3463794 23-Feb-2026 17:39

kangaroo13:

cshwone:

All the banks are offering interest free loans for a solar install - paying back over five years so to me taking such a loan is a no brainer as I will be paying less than my electricity bill is reduced by.

I'm not sure where you get that from. While there are some favourable loans around for solar installs - by way of example, ASB offers 1% solar loans, up to a maximum of 3 yrs, and only for existing loan holders.

Hence my original comment - I'd consider adding to a house loan, but I wouldn't take out a loan just for solar. And I think banks have worked diligently for years to earn their distrust from prospective customers. I'm very suspicious of fish-hooks. I doubt I'm alone on this, and so sadly, I don't feel that financing deals are an effective way to significantly drive up residential solar uptake across NZ.

Westpac have 0% for 5 years. I figure they offer them as it makes you a bit more sticky to them. But as you can repay in a lump sum whenever you want, it shouldn't prevent switching. If there are fish hooks i've missed id be interested to know.

HarmLessSolutions

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#3463797 23-Feb-2026 17:43

kangaroo13:

cshwone:

All the banks are offering interest free loans for a solar install - paying back over five years so to me taking such a loan is a no brainer as I will be paying less than my electricity bill is reduced by.

I'm not sure where you get that from. While there are some favourable loans around for solar installs - by way of example, ASB offers 1% solar loans, up to a maximum of 3 yrs, and only for existing loan holders.

Hence my original comment - I'd consider adding to a house loan, but I wouldn't take out a loan just for solar. And I think banks have worked diligently for years to earn their distrust from prospective customers. I'm very suspicious of fish-hooks. I doubt I'm alone on this, and so sadly, I don't feel that financing deals are an effective way to significantly drive up residential solar uptake across NZ.

If your solar is returning 15% of its cost per year then paying 5% interest on a loan to finance it seems like a bargain. Basic maths.

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

fastbike

448 posts

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#3463820 23-Feb-2026 18:44

kangaroo13:

I'm not sure where you get that from. While there are some favourable loans around for solar installs - by way of example, ASB offers 1% solar loans, up to a maximum of 3 yrs, and only for existing loan holders.

Hence my original comment - I'd consider adding to a house loan, but I wouldn't take out a loan just for solar. And I think banks have worked diligently for years to earn their distrust from prospective customers. I'm very suspicious of fish-hooks. I doubt I'm alone on this, and so sadly, I don't feel that financing deals are an effective way to significantly drive up residential solar uptake across NZ.

We were not eligible for a "green" loan from ANZ (3 years @ 1%) as I did not have one invoice from an installer, having done much of the work myself, and supplied the hardware. I figured out the saving via the sweat equity and keen pricing was better than tying myself to the bank ...

... so I used the 1% ANZ loan to buy an EV, and kept the cash I had saved invested with ANZ on term deposit at 6% for 5 years. I'm not sure what game the banks are playing, but gather it is down to either the Yen carry trade providing very cheap financing (shortly to unwind), or the marvels of fractional reserve banking.

But back to the theme of providing finance, I have several colleagues who are using a Westpac 5 year cheap loan to install solar, and Mike Casey is looking at how local bodies could become a conduit for solar financing.

Otautahi Christchurch

sen8or

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#3464062 24-Feb-2026 15:47

So the quotes have started to come in, they are all similar but different -

Different products (Sigen vs Tesla inverter / battery), different No of panels, different output per panel (440W, 485W ETC)

How can I do a comparison back to a common figure?

Should I look at total expected production (they have given me output per day in each month so easy enough to calculate a rough figure) and bring that back to a $ per KW based on pricing?

Expected payback period? Obviously battery vs non battery will be significantly different.

I was also shown a "new tech" panel yesterday that didn't lose power in the same way. I can't remember the name but the technician explained that in a chain of panels, if 1 is shaded, they all default to the lowest output in that chain (is this factual?)

Sometimes too much information isn't a good thing....

Also, home show is coming up in a few weeks in Christchurch, thoughts on show deals (anyone with experience here?)

Thanks

Sen

MikeAqua

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#3464069 24-Feb-2026 16:18

sen8or:

Different products (Sigen vs Tesla inverter / battery), different No of panels, different output per panel (440W, 485W ETC)

How can I do a comparison back to a common figure?

I looked at $/kWhr for both generation and storage.

For generation, I worked out the expected life and the expected average annual generation at my site (Taking account of declining efficiency of older panels). That gave me a total generation figure, which I divided the cost by

For storage I divided $/by KWhr storage capacity.

Mike

richms

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#3464070 24-Feb-2026 16:18

sen8or:

I was also shown a "new tech" panel yesterday that didn't lose power in the same way. I can't remember the name but the technician explained that in a chain of panels, if 1 is shaded, they all default to the lowest output in that chain (is this factual?)

Sometimes too much information isn't a good thing....

That is either micro inverters, where the inverter is on each panel, or optimizers which are an individual MPPT device for the panels that then has all of those in series to make a closer to constant current supply to the inverter.

Microinverters only work for AC coupled batteries since you have 230v AC coming down from the roof, but free you from the problems of DC cabling and ugly isolators etc, but at a much higher cost. The inverter will cost more than the panel it connects to now so they have really gone out of style. Optimizers were all hype for a while but also seem out of favour when you can just plan your strings better to make them in groups that will shade together at the same time.

Richard rich.ms

kangaroo13

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#3464159 24-Feb-2026 19:15

richms:

sen8or:

I was also shown a "new tech" panel yesterday that didn't lose power in the same way. I can't remember the name but the technician explained that in a chain of panels, if 1 is shaded, they all default to the lowest output in that chain (is this factual?)

Sometimes too much information isn't a good thing....

That is either micro inverters, where the inverter is on each panel, or optimizers which are an individual MPPT device for the panels that then has all of those in series to make a closer to constant current supply to the inverter.

Microinverters only work for AC coupled batteries since you have 230v AC coming down from the roof, but free you from the problems of DC cabling and ugly isolators etc, but at a much higher cost. The inverter will cost more than the panel it connects to now so they have really gone out of style. Optimizers were all hype for a while but also seem out of favour when you can just plan your strings better to make them in groups that will shade together at the same time.

Another things to add to what @sen8or has said - modern panels can cope with irregular shading much better due to bypass diode technology.

I agree with the key takeaway - unless you have a particularly difficult roof and/or limited space, panels are relatively cheap now so you're probably better going for a few extra panels on a string to make up for some loss of capacity from shading, rather than investing in microinverters.

Microinverters are popular in the USA, in part because the biggest vendor is Enphase, who are American headquartered (with a design centre in Christchurch - legacy of Eaton and Switchtec / Dennis Chapman), and also because the wiring rules are different in the USA in relation to DC voltages on the roof and rapid shutdown for safety of first responders.

timmmay

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#3464160 24-Feb-2026 19:21

IMHO unless you have a well defined and well understood need for battery such as having frequent outages, the key thing to evaluate is payback period. We're not getting solar panels for the fun of it, we want them to save us money and also help the environment. If you do need a battery, make sure it works when the power is out - not sure how easy that is to do, or if it's even possible - I can't recall what my installer said but I think it was either difficult or not practical.

fastbike

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#3464163 24-Feb-2026 19:31

timmmay:

IMHO unless you have a well defined and well understood need for battery such as having frequent outages, the key thing to evaluate is payback period. We're not getting solar panels for the fun of it, we want them to save us money and also help the environment. If you do need a battery, make sure it works when the power is out - not sure how easy that is to do, or if it's even possible - I can't recall what my installer said but I think it was either difficult or not practical.

Each to their own. I find it fascinating that people get so hung up on ROI and payback, whereas other large purchases such as a new car, overseas holiday are seldom viewed through the same lens .

Wrt the battery backup you need a hybrid inverter with a backup port, as well as the normal grid port. If you live in an area with a reliable supply, then ask your spark to wire it to a double outlet socket . In the event of an outage then plug your freezer etc in along with some lamps and the internet router. Or for a more permanent setup get a switch installed that can power essential circuits directly .

Otautahi Christchurch

timmmay

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#3464166 24-Feb-2026 19:44

Cars and holidays have particular functions, benefits or features, whereas solar panels just give you what you already have in a slightly different way.

Twincamr2

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#3464197 24-Feb-2026 20:29

timmmay:

Cars and holidays have particular functions, benefits or features, whereas solar panels just give you what you already have in a slightly different way.

One could argue that new cars and holidays also give you what you already have in a slightly different way. 😋

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