A call from the cold

M, I and a friend who also goes by the name of M had an early pub dinner last night before a Sydney Writers’ Festival event. While the boys were upstairs ordering food and drinks, my phone rang. It was not a number I recognised but I picked up anyway.

A heavily accented female voice addressed me by name and asked how my day was going. Ah, foreplay…one of my pet peeves.

‘Can you tell me what this call is about?’ I asked, kicking myself for not having swiped the red phone icon when I had the chance.

‘It’s about your electricity bill,’ she said.

I’ve dealt with these callers before and know that their prime purpose is to persuade consumers to switch energy providers to save a few cents. In the past, I’ve thanked them, terminated the call and blocked the number. But this time was different.

‘We don’t pay for electricity,’ I said, imagining the fish mouthing at the other end of the line. Then the boys arrived with drinks, and I hung up.

This week, almost 12 months after we installed an eight-kilowatt solar system on our roof, we’re sitting with credit against our electricity bill. It’s a great place to be, but with winter approaching, that could soon evaporate. Energy providers that purchase surplus rooftop solar power charge three or more times that rate to supply energy during peak times when people run heaters, aircon and cooktops. And, as more households install solar, feed-in-tariffs for people like us are likely to only get smaller.

What is one to do?

Twelve months ago, we chose not to get a battery. The numbers didn’t stack up then and with no subsidies in either the 2024 federal budget or from the New South Wales state government, they don’t stack up now. That’s if one applies the yardstick of payback periods. Recent research shows that there is a green premium of 14.5% on houses and 11.7% on units (apartments) across Australia. It puts into perspective the capital cost outlay of energy- saving devices.

Installing a battery is the next step in energy proofing our home.

O solar mio

The launch of our solar system occurred just as La Nina was officially declared to have exited stage left in early June. Sydney being Sydney, however, rain can happen at any time of the year. After a week of cloudless skies had lulled us into a sense of satisfaction with the daily 20 kilowatt hours coming from our roof, we were appraised of what bad weather does to solar production. 20kWh became less than four.

‘Put as many panels as you can possibly fit on the roof,’ was the consistent advice. We compromised on 20 panels, more than a two-person household needs even in winter (we don’t have reverse-cycle aircon or a tumble dryer). We didn’t get a battery because they’re too darned expensive; also, when our energy provider starts paying for some of the excess power we’re sending to the grid, a battery will become less of a consideration for those periods where we’re not sourcing green energy.

Our solar power supplier – looking directly at me – said that once we were inundated with all this free energy, being anal about powering down lights and appliances would become a thing of the past. On this topic, M and I are polar opposites.

When I first visited his family home, I noticed that lights were switched on in every one of the 10 or so rooms, regardless of whether someone was in them. After I got to know him better, I gently inquired about this disregard for power conservation, to be dismissed with some story about the energy waste involved in constantly switching lights on and off. Having the house lit up like a Christmas tree also didn’t seem to bother my father-in-law, an electrical and mechanical engineer who’d overseen the planning and delivery of high-voltage supply across southern Africa in the sixties and seventies. This stamp of approval, while authoritative, contradicted the view of my father – a man of science, albeit medical – who threatened his children with all manner of deprivation should any of us dare to leave a light on in an empty room.

After we moved in together, M migrated the learnings of his upbringing to our new circumstances. They persisted until very recently, with me following him around the house tapping switches with the same diligence I apply to monitoring his beer consumption.

To my very pleasant surprise, there’s been an emerging sensitivity to power conservation in M since the solar panels were installed. I attribute this to the app that tracks power inflows from the grid and panels, and our consumption over a 24-hour period. So responsible has M become that he’s taken to asking me if I’ve switched off my laptop before we go to bed. Who would have thought?

The usual question about payback periods has come up from the bean counters in the family. Quite frankly, we’re doing this for the planet: since 13 June we’ve saved close to 200kg in CO2 emissions and have planted the equivalent of four trees. There’s also research to show that Australians are willing to pay a premium for energy efficient houses, up to $125,000 in 2022. We won’t have outlaid anything like that in energy proofing our place.