If we could only say the same for electricity bills! The price of solar power has dropped a whopping 70% since 2010.
The figure, cited in a report from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, coincides with Clean NRG Perth‘s calculations. For example, in 2010 a 5kW system would cost in the vicinity of $20,000. Now, the market price for a 5kW system with better, more efficient technology is under $7,000! However, with the Australian dollar falling, we don’t know how long this will last.
“It is incredibly exciting to see this amount of growth in the solar industry!” says Craig Donohue, Managing Director of Clean NRG. “We are passionate and determined to help W.A.’s households and businesses significantly reduce rising electricity bills.”
To date, almost over 15% of Perth homes have installed solar. Not bad for an industry with no large-scale presence within Australia just a decade ago. Solar panels currently contribute only less than 5% of W.A.’s electrical generation capacity, but lower solar costs are helping with the expansion of large scale projects, with only around 1% of businesses installing solar. Considering businesses pay more for their power and use power during the day the return on investment is even better. The money businesses save by installing solar can pay for the system in less than 4 years, so you either pay the electricity company for the rest of life or install Solar.
The current government incentives (Small-scale Technology Credits) return approximately 30% of a solar system’s cost to the buyer. The looming expiration of the incentives has lent urgency to the solar industry’s efforts to bring down prices, now at their lowest ever. Industry sources say it’s never been a better time to buy solar.
Over the solar systems life, the average price of electricity generated by solar is less than 5 cents per kilowatt-hour, Synergy’s residential customers are paying almost 25 cents/kWh and businesses in some cases are paying over 30 cents with more price rises expected.
“Although approximately 20% of W.A. homes have chosen to go solar, only 1% of businesses have installed solar despite the faster paybacks!” says Donohue. “With most businesses using the majority of their power during the day, we are confident that these figures will increase exponentially.”