cheap solar

Why to avoid cheap solar panels (they cost you more in the long run!)

WHILE diving into a “cheap solar” deal can seem like a great idea at the time due to perceived initial cost and energy savings, as a wise man once said:

“The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten.”

Currently there are only 2 solar panel suppliers in Australia that provide a full 25-year parts and labour warranty, but they are not cheap, and rightly so. All other panel suppliers provide a 10 to 12-year warranty but advertise a 25-year “performance” warranty, which is simply meaningless and offers nothing in the way of a useable warranty as the onus of performance proof falls onto the customer and the cost of that proof can outweigh the replacement cost of the cheap solar panel. Sadly, solar is still a race to the bottom for some companies. A cheap drill will not last on a tradesman’s ute as it is simply not built to. It’s the same as cheap solar panels: they are not built to last.

You only get one solar rebate, so make sure you use it wisely!

We recently priced up a 5kW system with 6kW of panels and the payback period was 4-5 years with a return on investment of a whopping 398%, as well as a return on cash invested of 31%. However, these figures only stack up if the system lasts.

If you start changing the inverter every 5 years or the panels break down (both very common faults with cheap solar panels), while still producing power, these cheap solar panels will only be producing half the power and therefore dollars of the quality solar panels. There goes the reason for installing solar panels. If the payback using your power savings is 3 years for cheap solar panels and 5 years for the “Rolls Royce” of solar panels and you consider that we can install them for free (if you use our payment plan, same idea as a mobile phone plan), there is no reason to even consider the cheap option that will end up costing you a whole lot more over 10 years. And while paying for your install up front is ideal, if you don’t have the money at the time, using our payment plan for your solar install will see your power bill savings exceeding your repayments, so in reality the power company is paying your plan off – how good is that!?

Contact us today for a free, no-obligation quote on a quality, long-lasting solar solution.