Is this the daftest solar power promotion in Australia?

Watching the late movie on TV last night the most ridiculous ad for solar power I have ever seen came on.

I nearly fell off my sofa when I saw that if you buy a 1.5kW solar system from these guys, they’ll throw in a ‘free’ 50″ plasma TV.

Large Plasma TV’s are, of course, the most energy inefficient form of watching telly known to man. Apart from maybe hiring your own multiplex cinema every evening.

Let’s do some sums:

Having a quick look on energyrating.gov.au tells me that a typical 50 inch plasma with typical usage patterns will suck about 850kWh of electricity per year.

So that’s 2.3kWh of electricity per day.

A good quality 1.5kW solar system in Adelaide will produce approximately 6.6kWh per day.

So that ‘free’ plasma is going to reduce the output of your $10,000 (gross of all rebates) solar power system by 35%.

And if you were planning on exporting that 2.3kWh of electricity to take advantage of SA’s generous net Feed In Tariff then you would be losing $503 per year thanks to the ‘free’ plasma TV.

What a great offer!

P.S. The number one sign of a great solar panel installer is that they actually care about your current and future electricity usage so that you will get the maximum benefit and maximum payback from your shiny new solar panels. If the installer doesn’t care about energy efficiency, quickly move on to someone that does.