Watch: Solar is cheaper than ever so why aren’t more Kiwis getting on board?

Aucklander Duncan Andrews has been powering his home with solar for almost a year.

He admits being sceptical at the start but says once he crunched the numbers, it was “a no-brainer”.

He signed up as a SolarZero customer, taking advantage of their subscription-based plan.

“There’s no capital you have to pay towards it,” he says.

Solar Zero owns, maintains and insures the kit across a 25-year plan.

“It’s almost like substituting your power bill from your grid retailers with one from SolarZero and leaving it all to us,” SolarZero CEO Matt Ward says.

Cities like Auckland get approximately 2,000 sunshine hours annually with even more in places like Nelson and the Bay of Plenty.

However, the uptake here remains slow when compared to the rest of the world.

Cities like Auckland get approximately 2,000 sunshine hours annually.

“The number of connections is about three per cent solar,” Solar Group Managing Director Roeland Driessen says. “In other countries like Australia, the United States, it’s 30-40 per cent. So we are way behind ball.”

“The United Kingdom now installs 17,000 systems a month which is huge,” adds Ward.

“In New Zealand, we do about 700-800 so we have a little bit of a way to go.”

A big part of the reason is the cost. A solar system for the average NZ home comes with a price tag of about $25,000.

There’s no current Government subsidy on offer either.

For those wanting to buy systems outright, banks are instead coming to the table.

“They have good offers on loans,” Driessen says. “You can get a 3-4 year loan interest-free or 1 per cent interest on that loan.”

The cost of solar is getting more affordable every year with the price of panels and batteries significantly down from 12 months ago.

And as technology progresses the efficiency of panels will continue to improve.

“It is already the cheapest form of power,” says Driessen. “There will be a point where it’s really affordable for everyone.”