A Bundeena Electrification Case Study

Ken and Paddy Heskett

Back in 2016 we began looking into reducing our energy bills. Coming from Scotland where we had a centrally heated, double glazed and well insulated home we were used to a warm house even in the coldest conditions.  Initially we were heating our Bundeena house during the winter using radiant and convection electrical heaters and our bills were quite high.

Solar seemed to be the obvious way to go but we did not find it easy to find suppliers and reviews of systems and local suppliers back in 2016.  However the consumer advocacy group Choices carried some articles with positive consumer feedback. Based on that feedback we sought a quote from Natural Solar and were offered a 3 KW solar system together with a 7.5Kw Tesla battery.  We chose a to install a 4KW system (bigger would have been better) with the Tesla battery.

Overall the system has proved very beneficial in reducing electricity bills but it is quite small by current standards. At the time our annual average daily electricity usage was 29 kWh and we estimated the cost of the system would be paid back in about 10 years. Today our annual average daily electricity usage is 12 kWh which suggests that at todays electricity prices we have saved approximately $18,000  and the cost of the system has already been paid back.

Overall the system has performed well the only reservation being that the company Natural Solar have been very slow to respond to minor servicing requests.

In addition we have sought to electrify further and have installed reverse cycle air conditioners and LED lighting through much of the house, and recently we tried to find an Induction Cooktop that would fit into our “engineered stone” kitchen worktop without modification but no luck so far.  Also a switch to a hot water heat pump was not economic given that out existing electrical off peak system is only two years old.

 A couple of years back we test drove an EV but when we weighed up the cost versus keeping our existing car and the fact that we travel less as we get older the EV was difficult to justify on a financial or sustainability basis.  

Once we can use the car battery as a house battery (V2G) the incentives change and our next step will be to upgrade our solar system and get an EV.