One Year With Solar vs Without Solar - Our Real Power Bills
Before we start, a little disclaimer…
This post isn’t written by Bjorn (the actual electrician, the solar nerd, the numbers guy).
It’s me, Rachel.
The other half of Zeus. The photographer. The marketing + behind-the-scenes person.
I’m not an electrician. I don’t understand kWh or wattages and if you asked me how the sun turns into electricity… I’d probably just smile and slowly back away 😅 But I do understand power bills, family budgets, and that little sting when the monthly bill lands.
So this isn’t technical, it’s just our real story.
Real bills.
Real numbers.
Nothing fancy.
I’ve been meaning to write this post for several months now, partly because life is busy (kids, work, laundry… you know how it goes) but mostly because I didn’t want to talk about solar in a “salesy” way. I just wanted to share what actually happened in our own home.
And I know!!! Some of the dates we are looking at here are from 2023 which I was going to update to be more current as power prices have risen by 21% over the past 3 years so the comparison would have been even more impressive but I decided to leave them so show the value even with old power pricing.
Because before we installed solar, I was constantly wondering…
“Does it actually make that much of a difference?”
So we tracked it. One full year without solar and one full year with solar and a battery.
Same house. Same family. Same habits and honestly… I was impressed.
So a year with and without Solar in Hawke’s Bay
Lets start by sharing a bit about our little townhouse life. We’re a family of four living in a 100sqm townhouse here in Havelock North, nothing super modern or energy-efficient either.
We have a fireplace that we use through winter, a heat pump for really cold mornings or hot summer days, an oil heater in our little ones room, gas hot water, only some double glazing (I would say a quarter of the house), one parent working from home full time and one part time
We “try” to run appliances during the day… but sometimes the dishwasher goes on at 9pm because life is chaos and that’s just reality 😅
So I’d say we’re pretty normal.
Not extreme energy savers. Not heavy users. Just… average.
Jan 2023 → Jan 2024 The year before Solar
We used: 5,263 kWh
We paid: $2,171.20
Which, to be fair, wasn’t terrible. It was actually slightly under the NZ average but still… over two grand a year just disappearing into power bills felt like a lot and every year the prices seemed to creep up a little more.
Fast forward to mid 2024
After chatting to the bank (and Bjorn nagging for, let’s not say how long) we were approved for a Green Home Loan to have Solar installed.
I mostly nodded and said “sure” while he talked specs 😄 All I cared about was if it will actually save us money?
$26k later we installed 18 solar panels, a 5kW inverter and 10kWh battery
March 2025 Power Bill
Jan 2024 → Jan 2025 The year after Solar
Grid power used: 1,281 kWh
Total power bills: $173.77
We also exported 5133 kWh of power back to the grid and our account was credited $844.33 over the year.
So when everything was added up… There was a $670 difference.
Not “zero bill” or “reduced bill” The power company actually owed us money!
Of course the savings are amazing and I definitely felt like a better human to our planet for having panels on our roof but something else happened too.
Thanks to the multiple subdivisions going up everywhere in Havelock North. There were several days this year where our street lost power. And, I am not talking we lost it if for an hour or two. I am talking hours… Even a few 9am - 6pm power cuts and we didn’t even know had happened! The battery quietly handled it.
Now looking at the long term reality if we hadn’t installed solar, we’d likely spend around $21,700+ over the next 10 year and that’s without price increases (which happened in April 2025 and another one happening again in April 2026).
That’s a lot of money for something you don’t even get to keep, now instead we’re making our own power.
Somewhere along the way, I stopped thinking about solar as “technology” and started thinking about it more like… growing veggies.
Stay with me here 😄
When you grow your own food, you’re not magically eating more, you’re just not paying the supermarket every time you’re hungry.
You plant it once, you look after it and then it quietly feeds you for years.
Solar feels exactly the same.
We’re not using less power, we’re just making our own first.
So instead of paying the power companies forever, our roof does the work during the day and we store what we don’t use for later.
It’s kind of like having a little veggie garden… just on the roof.
So do I think it was worth it?
From someone who doesn’t understand the tech side at all…
Yes. Completely.
Because I don’t need to understand the watts or the wires, I just see tiny bills, credits instead of charges and a home that still works when the street is out and that’s enough for me.
Every home is different. Different roofs, different families and different routines.
So there’s no one perfect system.
But if you’re curious to know what solar might look like for your place, we are always happy to run the numbers… and by we I mean Bjorn
No pressure, just honest advice.
Because sometimes seeing your own bills side-by-side is all you need.
Rach
P.S Since writing this we have also switched Power Companies to Ecotricity as they had a much better Solar buy back rate
