'This car can...' Check out our new campaign
The savings from solar are very compelling on their own, but there are many who don’t want to invest because they may not be planning to stay in the home for very long. It’s a reasonable concern given the average time spent in a house is now just over five years. But a new paper shows that solar can be a good investment when it comes to house prices.
We have heard plenty of anecdotal evidence that solar has this effect, but the paper by Chad Harland and Yvonne Matthews called Power in the Pitch has put a number on it.
“Results show that solar homes are marketed through lifestyle, rural and quality cues rather than explicit sustainability framing, suggesting that PV is bundled with broader amenity signals rather than positioned as a distinct attribute. PV-equipped homes command an average sale price premium of 1.34%, with no significant difference in days on market. Effects do not vary with solar irradiance or local solar penetration, indicating limited salience of site-specific energy benefits in buyer decision-making.”
As Kristy Hoare from MySolarQuotes wrote:
“On a $900,000 home that’s over $12,000 - approximately the initial cost of a 6kW system. And that’s before you factor in the power savings while you’re living there. This matters for the solar industry because we hear this all the time: 'I’m not planning to stay here long-term, so what’s the point of going solar?' If solar is a capital improvement, not just a bill saver, that objection starts to fall apart.”
"National’s Home Energy Fund has the potential to be energy’s KiwiSaver moment. Offering New Zealanders low-interest, long-term loans for electric upgrades paid through the rates is a huge win and will offer guaranteed relief from rising energy bills."
Read moreDownloadLightforce Solar is one of the bigger players in the national solar scene and it's doing a great job of normalising the technology and ramping up the neighbourhood effect with its Barrett-heavy ad campaign. Now it's seen the light and opened up a hub in the rapidly growing Central Otago region. Solar enquiries have been off the charts in recent months as energy security becomes more of a dinner-table discussion and more homes electrify their transport. As consultant Sam Risbrook told Mike Casey at Electrify Queenstown, there's a lot of demand in the residential sector down south and farms are the next major focus, something close to Casey's heart (Lightforce Solar has recently inked a partnership with Federated Farmers).
Read moreDownload
