Australian Solar Systems Interest Index – January 2018

While the holiday season and lead-up to it had an impact on the number of Australians looking at going solar (as it often does), interest in new solar power installations was still very strong in December.

2017 was a stellar year for small-scale solar energy in Australia on many fronts. Here at SolarQuotes, we welcomed a record number of visitors to this web site during the year; many of whom requested quotes.

Here’s what Australians were wanting in PV during December:

System Size Preference

In December, big systems continued to reign supreme and gained strength, with 5kW solar systems and larger making up 42.1% of quote requests (including those where system size wasn’t specified); compared to 34.6% in November. 1.5kW systems made up less than 1% of requests.

PV Purchase Intent Timeframe

Australians are still keen to install solar panels as soon as possible, with 21.5% indicating they want installation straight away. This was a significant jump from November when 19% gave a time-frame of “immediately”. A further 29% wanted installation within the next 4 weeks.

Price Against Quality

In the battle between price and quality, the trend continues of a balance between both, with 80% of Australians indicating they wanted a “a good mix of quality and price” in a solar power system – this figure has barely moved in the last few months. Those asking for a “good budget system” remained in the minority, at just under 7%.

Battery-Ready Systems

Most Australians interested in going solar still don’t appear to be overly fussed regarding adding battery storage down the track, with only around 13% specifically requesting quotes on battery-ready systems – little change from November.

Concurrent Solar + Battery Storage

While big things have been predicted by some for concurrent solar + battery installations during 2018, there wasn’t a hint of it yet in what we saw in December; with just under 5% of submitters requesting a solar + battery system quote. There was zero interest in the Northern Territory again – that may change with new solar incentives now available.

As always, we like to point out in this section of the report that the SQ quoting system generates a flag when solar + batteries are selected, providing indicative costs and offering the option of proceeding or selecting “battery-ready” as an alternative.

Battery System Capacity

Where a battery size was specified, close to 47% of requests were for solar quotes including energy storage of 10kWh+ capacity. Just over 37% of submitters weren’t sure of what capacity they wanted.

Energy Storage Application

The envisioned application for battery storage was backup in 6% of submissions, minimising grid electricity consumption in 38% and 55% of submitters want to use a battery for both.

Electricity Costs – Quarterly Bills

61% of Australians indicated they had average quarterly electricity bills of $500 or more. This has crept up again since November (60%) and will likely to continue upwards in the near future, particularly given Victorians were lumped with electricity price increases of up to 14.9% from January 1.

About The auSSII Report

Thousands of requests for solar quotes are made via the SolarQuotes web site each month. These quotes are provided by Australian installers pre-vetted by SQ who are participating in our installer network. The auSSII report is based on information provided by submitters during our quoting process.

If you’d like to get 3 quotes from our pre-vetted installers, click here; or browse through our comprehensive database of solar installer reviews .

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