Happy Solar Family: Chiswick

Tracey and Vic Arciuli moved into their Chiswick house a few years ago knowing it had a small solar PV system.

But when their quarterly bill hit over $1800 - they do have two teenagers! - they realised their very old PV system wasn’t working well and it was time to upgrade.

After a lot of research, Tracey felt she was making little progress in finding a reliable installer, so she reached out to Inner West Community Energy for help.

“That’s the only place where I started to get traction for information,” Tracey told us. “Before that I was really frustrated.”

We organised one of our preferred installers to quote, he won the job, and they now live under a very large, 30 panel, 13.2 kilowatt solar system.

“And we’ve had a huge drop in our electricity bill,” Tracey says. “Bill-wise, I just got one in for the quarter, and it was $410, compared with $1860 originally.”

With electricity prices forecast to rise from July 1, and prices of panels and batteries falling, it’s a great time to consider rooftop solar as one way to cut the cost of living. Sure, you need to spend to save, but for Tracey’s family, the return on investment for their system was forecast to be 48%. That’s a payback of two to three years.

And having rooftop solar gives you a great feeling of control over your energy bills!

The Arciuli family has changed the way it runs its appliances so the washing machine, the dryer, the dishwasher and the pool filter all go on during daylight, when the solar juice is flowing. .

And they’ve worked out which appliances use how much energy. “You’re actually using a lot of electricity in some of the smaller appliances,” Tracey says. “So I’ve learnt a lot about how to use smaller appliances, and where we’re using it. It’s been really interesting. That solar app, I’m addicted to it.”

If you’d like our help with a quote from our team for solar, batteries, or heat pump hot water, email us at solar@innerwestcommunityenergy.org.au.