Kiwi households could be shaving as much as an average of $17,500 off their power bills over 20 years – by converting to a unique solar energy service, an industry executive says.
Maryanne Smith, chief marketing officer of solar services energy company solarZero, says the figure, calculated last November, is an estimate based on the experience of the company’s 4200 customers throughout the country.
“We guarantee people will save on their power bill in the first year which on average can be around 12 per cent or up to $230,” she says. “From then on savings grow; they build incrementally as inflation and power prices continue to rise and can accumulate as high as 31 per cent (the $17,500 figure) - and that is good for the wallet.”
She says savings of this magnitude, which are calculated after solarZero fees have been taken into account, are important to householders especially in light of a 2017 International Energy Agency (IEA) report which showed New Zealand power prices had jumped 130 per cent in 20 years. The report also revealed New Zealand had some of the fastest growing residential power prices out of 29 countries surveyed.
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Smith says solarZero provides a unique service: It installs solar panels and smart battery systems free of charge and customers only pay a fixed monthly service fee which never increases for the life of a 20-year contract.
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As well the company builds in a price protection cap for grid energy at 8 cents per kWh - which like the solarZero service fee is fixed for 20 years - meaning 80 per cent of a home’s energy cost is fixed.
The solarZero system comes with solar panels and a smart battery (about 3500 customers have a battery, the rest have solar panels only) which intelligently manages and stores energy even when the sun isn’t shining. The battery has a lifespan of about 10 years and the company will replace it once when needed during the 20-year agreement at no extra cost.
Smith says the system is also beneficial during power cuts (in 2017 490,000 New Zealand homes suffered from outages) because the back-up power stored by the battery means people will not be left in the dark during an outage.
It provides automatic back-up power supply of 3.6 kWh in the event of a power cut allowing low-load items to keep running such as fridges, lights, internet routers and TVs, all of which are connected to critical load circuits. The service is triggered as soon as a power outage is detected and will shut down if the load is too high; turning off high power-using appliances will enable the back-up storage to restart to run low-load items.
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Smith says there are also benefits for the environment from using solar. “Our business was built on the mission of helping New Zealand achieve its zero carbon target (the government is aiming to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050). We have 4200 customers now, but want to extend this service to more Kiwi homeowners so we can help New Zealand reach that goal.
“We are still able to install systems at level 3 lockdown and we believe it is important to keep going during this Covid pandemic, not only to help customers save on their power bills, but so we don’t stall our momentum in helping households reduce their carbon emissions.”
In conjunction with OneRoof, solarZero is running a competition for people to go into a draw to win a Panasonic 55” 4k LED TV with HDR Cinema Display. The competition is open until September 20, 2020 and can be entered online through the OneRoof website where simply by submitting your details you’ll go in the draw. Qualified entries will receive a free solarZero assessment for your home.
For more information on solarZero go to: www.solarzero.co.nz
This content has been produced in partnership with SolarCity.
