Joe and Sara are all electric!

7 December 2025

Let’s check in on Joe and Sara Wickert of Marrickville (first profiled by us here), one of the first IWCE members to have a battery installed after the new big government rebate cut the cost of batteries from July 1.

Sara and Joe outside their Marrickville home.

The Wickerts have an 8.36 kilowatt solar system, (that’s pretty big!) and a battery that stores 9.7kWh of energy, enough to power them through the night without drawing on electricity from the grid. How's it performing?

Most days now - as we approach mid-summer - they are well over 95 per cent self-sufficient in electricity. Some days they take nothing from the grid. And they have an all-electric house.

"Since having the panels and battery installed I have a new obsession,” Joe says. “I’m addicted to my SolarEdge app. Throughout the day I can't help bringing the app up to see how much energy my house is creating and to see the tiny trickle of power coming in from the grid. It even shows me how much carbon we've kept out of the atmosphere (2664kg) and equivalent trees planted (52).

Joe with the house battery mounted to a side wall of the house.

“Even with 3 teenagers and countless devices we almost never use more power than we generate. In fact, on most days we are sending 10 times as much energy back to the grid as we take from it. We don't have a "perfect" roof angle, so it’s been a pleasant surprise to see how effective modern solar panels are.

“With the government bringing in free daytime energy, it feels great that our excess power will be helping others and closing down coal fired power stations.”

Thanks for your support, Joe and Sara!