M More Power To You Solar panels and battery storage are integral to our winning home-design build.
As electricity prices bite, it pays to be smart about energy options when you build or renovate. At My Ideal House, H&G’s innovative new build, solar panels and battery storage are part of the package.
Energy price rises and power-supply shortfalls are ongoing issues in Australia. That our politicians handle them like hot potatoes shows that having reliable, affordable power matters very much to homeowners.
Certainly, anyone who’s building or renovating now will be thinking about ways to reduce the energy it will take to run their home comfortably. Building regulations enforce mandatory energyefficiency standards, but good planning and design can deliver efficiencies that go well beyond the minimum.
“Whenever I talk to new clients, I suggest installing photovoltaic panels,” says Caroline Pidcock, director of Pidcock Architecture+Sustainability. “This is to ensure we don’t build obsolescence into their homes and in turn empower them by helping homeowners make as much of their own energy as possible.”
A 2017 Australian Bureau of Statistics report reveals that Australian households used an average of 117 gigajoules of energy in 2014–15. “If you build in energy efficiency and install photovoltaic cells on your roof, you can reduce that pretty much to zero or even become energy positive,” says Marc Bernstein-Hussmann, director of Melbourne Design Studios. “Some European countries are making nearnet-zero-energy homes mandatory in the next few years. It may not be compulsory in Australia, but this is clearly the way to go. You’ll see the rewards every month on your energy bill.”
It was this way of thinking that inspired Sydney homeowner Nick Pfitzner to install photovoltaic panels and a Tesla Powerwall 1 – a lithium-ion battery that stores the excess energy generated by his rooftop solar panels – about 18 months ago. Today, the question he gets asked most often is, “How much is your power bill?” It’s one he takes great delight in answering. “Our annual power spend is about $300 now,” he says. “Previously, it was $2300.”
The Pfitzner family should see a return on their $16,790 investment in the panels and battery system in about eight years – “possibly sooner, if electricity prices continue to go up”. The way Nick sees it, the return is significantly better than if he’d put that amount of money into his mortgage offset.
“I have a fairly nerdy interest in it all,” he says, laughing. “I love reading the Powerwall usage data and using the information to adjust the way we use our home. Knowledge is power.”