Honey, I Shrunk The Power Bill (by 25%)


When it comes to energy, what are the "going natural" options?

Wind power? Yes.
Tidal power? Yes. They've started doing it in Scotland.
But one of the biggest, most widely available options, is solar power. And that's what we're talking about today... using the energy of the sun to:
...heat (and cool) our homes
...power our electric appliances
...fuel our electric cars.

Did you catch the news this month? Let me bring you up to speed quickly.

1) A new way to harvest the sun on your roof:

You've heard about the Tesla Powerwall 2.0 home battery storage units, right?

The man behind that, Elon Musk, has also developed solar roof tiles. Not only are they cheaper than terracotta and slate roof tiles, they also harvest solar energy!

Very exciting.

I read about it in OneStepOffTheGrid.com.au but it's been widely reported.

Elon Musk said, "It's looking quite promising that a solar roof will actually cost less than a normal roof before you even take the value of electricity into account. So the basic proposition would be, 'Would you like a roof that looks better than a normal roof, lasts twice as long, costs less and by the way generates electricity?' Why would you get anything else?"

2) "Honey, I shrunk the power bill (by 25%)"

Most of the time we are familiar with prices going up.

Not so with the solar + battery storage technology. Prices are going down. Way down.

In South Australia (I'm an Aussie, okay?), they've gone down so far that photovoltaic (PV) cells combined with battery storage is now cheaper than regular electricity from the power grid.

Wow.

Not only can the folks in South Australia "go natural", they can also save money while doing it.

I call that win/win, don't you?

RenewEconomy.com.au has published the analysis and the numbers behind this, for those who want to go deep. For most of us, the headline will do just nicely, thank you. So here it is...

"Solar and battery storage beating best retail offers in S.A. by a quarter".

Might be worth keeping an eye out for similar developments where you live.



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