Home solar question, what upgrade path?

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Loismustdye

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#324406 4-Apr-2026 16:29

To avoid trawling through the solar mega thread….

We are waiting on some pricing for solar for our home but we’re just wondering the logic of what upgrade path to take first.

house is 2009 build, double glazed etc of approx 200 sqm excluding the attached garage.
The main reason for this is to remove our reliance on gas, as we currently have a gas fireplace (currently with a fault so we use our 2 heat pumps instead ( installed after winter last year), gas cooktop (free standing oven but is 90cm wide so will be spendy to upgrade to induction) and gas infinity hot water. Our gas usage is 2-300 kw monthly outside of winter and over winter that jumps to over 1000 kWh monthly - last years winter bills were over $100 extra a month for gas alone, this years will be more due to the price increases. And that $70 a month connection fee for gas grinds my gears :-)

2 adults and 2 teens in palmy, and with contact for both gas and power using the nightly free power 9pm - 12am.

I am assuming the solar will come in around 20 ish panels and a battery.

With those of you that have made the move, did you get rid of it all at once or piecemeal? And in our situation what would you upgrade first outside of the solar install? To manage costs a wee bit we were looking at the install first and then replace either the oven or the infinity water as finances allowed.

Is it worth swapping to a different power company with buyback rates once installed or stick with the above until the gas appliances completely removed?
I should add my wife works for an electrical firm so our costs will be a little less than that of the public.

Thanks

RunningMan

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#3478041 4-Apr-2026 17:33

Hot water and heating are usually the highest energy consumers. Given you're already using electricity for the heating, then a move to electric water heating would probably be the next thing to do, especially if the teenagers use a lot of hot water.

A larger cylinder will store more energy; if you put it on a timer or other logic to heat during the day when the sun is out that will probably get the best return.

EDIT: Consider if your cooktop can be modified to use bottled gas and that will drop your monthly connection fee.

timmmay

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#3478043 4-Apr-2026 17:38

A year ago I paid about $15K for 21 panels with no battery. With a battery it'd be more like $25K+. I'm not sure a battery is worthwhile, it depends how much you get paid for power and how much you pay - we pay something like 22c/kwh and get paid 18c/kwh, the 4c/kwh differential means payback time is high. We use the grid as a battery.

Hot water tank is where I'd start, it's easy to schedule it to heat when it's sunny, even a basic timer will be good enough. Heat pump hot water... maybe for a new purchase. Their reliability is probably improving. Double win there, solar and 3X efficiency.

Indoor heating is pretty easy too, a timer can pre-heat the house in winter.

At that point you'll be paying $70 a month just for the hob so it becomes easier to justify replacing, or maybe using bottles. I find cooking only partly uses solar, by the time we want to cook the sun is down or weaker and the oven uses a ton of power, a battery would be helpful here but just use the grid.

Loismustdye

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#3478269 5-Apr-2026 13:04

RunningMan:

Hot water and heating are usually the highest energy consumers. Given you're already using electricity for the heating, then a move to electric water heating would probably be the next thing to do, especially if the teenagers use a lot of hot water.

A larger cylinder will store more energy; if you put it on a timer or other logic to heat during the day when the sun is out that will probably get the best return.

EDIT: Consider if your cooktop can be modified to use bottled gas and that will drop your monthly connection fee.

Thanks. I hadn’t considered moving to lpg for the cooktop, the oven has been in since the house was built so it may be a bit more difficult but will check my options.

we would be looking at the biggest cylinder we could get and ideally heat it during the day with the panels.

Loismustdye

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#3478273 5-Apr-2026 13:21

timmmay:

A year ago I paid about $15K for 21 panels with no battery. With a battery it'd be more like $25K+. I'm not sure a battery is worthwhile, it depends how much you get paid for power and how much you pay - we pay something like 22c/kwh and get paid 18c/kwh, the 4c/kwh differential means payback time is high. We use the grid as a battery.

Hot water tank is where I'd start, it's easy to schedule it to heat when it's sunny, even a basic timer will be good enough. Heat pump hot water... maybe for a new purchase. Their reliability is probably improving. Double win there, solar and 3X efficiency.

Indoor heating is pretty easy too, a timer can pre-heat the house in winter.

At that point you'll be paying $70 a month just for the hob so it becomes easier to justify replacing, or maybe using bottles. I find cooking only partly uses solar, by the time we want to cook the sun is down or weaker and the oven uses a ton of power, a battery would be helpful here but just use the grid.

We would likely head down the hwhp path with as big a cylinder as we could get ideally with an integrated app to set up timers etc.

interesting about the battery as I have wondered whether it’s of much use based on a 10kw only having $3 or so of stored power in it and whether it would be better to save that $10k and put it somewhere else.

We got mhi heat pumps installed with the associated app so can set daily timers for them both to make use of the sunlight hours. Once the gas goes we will swap out the gas fireplace for a floor console from them as well.

the $70/month just for the connection is my main reason for wanting to get rid of it, that $70 would be more useful imo in going towards the solar install or even towards electricity costs.

the post above yours mentioned converting to lpg so we will have a look at that although if that’s going to be a few thousand $ then I would likely just put that into a whole new oven (likely around $6k or so to fit our space).

Stu1

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#3478293 5-Apr-2026 15:29

your gas heating has a fault so worth replacing , unless your infinity is broken wait to it breaks. HWP are a tough ROI at least 10 k to install and often need replacing in 7 years. You could get three infinity’s for that price even with gas prices I will convert to bottles over losing my continuous hot water . Just not worth it unless it’s at end of life. The money you save on solar covers can offset your gas charge