Phase layer: Forget Solardach – Tenants need Plug & Play batteries

I rented most of my adult life. I left the house at 6 p.m., bought my first house with 32, fought with a mortgage for three years and then sold it to start solar quotes. It took four years before I bought again – only after solar quotes could do well enough.

So I know what it is like to rent, in particular the frustration, to continue to observe the energy bills without solar, batteries or insulation to be installed to defend yourself.

The installation of solar collectors on rental objects could reduce the electricity invoices from the tenants. Industry and government have tried to do exactly that. Australia has seen well-predicting programs such as Victoria’s Solar Homes Rental Initiative, the Solar of the Queensland government for rentals and startups such as matter, but everyone hit the same wall: landlords.

The large wall of the landlords

Most Australian landlords treat their rental objects as lines in a table. They focus on one thing: expenses and maximizing rental income. Even if the installation of Solar significantly increases the property amount of the property (by increasing the rent or selling of solar energy to tenants), the landlords rarely go for it. Many juggles already close cash flows and no longer spend in advance, unless this is absolutely necessary.

At the same time, tenants are understandably not output thousands to improve property they do not own. Despite his typical repayment of 3 to 5 years, Solar rarely lands on the roofs of the roofs.

But I am here to say that tenants do not need solar collectors above their heads. You can use the excess solar of the neighbors.

And this is because electricity retailers now offer special tariffs to help to absorb the oversupply of solar energy by these neighbors. Io Energy, for example, loads only 8 ° C per kWh from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in SA. Ovo Energy offers free stream from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

However, these plans are equipped with paralyzing prices in the evening (an eye -like 75 ° C for io energy, 65 ° C for ovo). This means that batteries can become essential and the tenants can keep cheap daily energy in order to carry out the extortionate evening tip period.

Batteries that can move the house

The key to the work of this work is affordable, portable batteries. The installation fee for installing a house battery at around 1,500 US dollars is currently beginning, and the tenants understandably do not want to pay this every time they change (to uninstall and then reinstall it).

However, imagine that the switching board of a house would have a simple, standardized battery tank. In combination with a specially designed home battery, the installation of home batteries can be as easy as the plug in an Ev.

Removing backup requirements from this new standardized battery socket1 and mass production of a portable but high capacity tenant battery would keep the costs low.

The tenants could then buy a battery, connect it directly to the updated switchboard and simply take the plug with them and take them with them when they move.

One problem: landlords do not pay the socket upgrade. Realistically speaking, it should be financed for rentals or taxpayers.

Another catch: the battery prices for house batteries are not yet low enough to tempt most tenants – but they fall quickly, with the battery cells have dropped by 90% in the past decade alone. The determination of plug-and-play switchboard standards now positions us perfectly when the battery prices become irresistible.

Forget solar collectors for rentals. Let us help the tenants directly by giving you affordable, portable batteries and easy access to the cheap solar energy that is already flooding Australia’s network. Everyone wins.

Phase shift is a weekly opinion column of the Solarquotes founder Finn Peacock, in which he shares his views on all things at home with electrification.

Further information on the costs for the battery at home can be found in this comprehensive guide or in detail how solar collectors are actually a good investment for landlords. Read this explaner.

Footnot

  1. Perhaps a few emergency 10A sockets on the battery itself replaces

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