How We Slashed Their Power Bills From $200 to $23

A lower power bill doesn’t happen because someone puts panels on a roof. It happens when the system is designed around how the home actually uses power. That’s why this homeowner’s result matters. It’s not a vague savings promise or an industry average. It’s a real before and after story that shows what happens when the right system is matched to the right household. I’m Jason. I’m Cam. We’re the owners of Source Energy Group who have designed and installed countless solar and battery systems for Australian homeowners.

In this episode, we’re breaking down the actual bill reduction, the system behind it, and the decisions that made the difference so you can see what a real solar and battery outcome looks like beyond the sales pitch. Today, we’ve got Jennifer joining us from Nabiac in New South Wales. How are you, Jennifer? Good, thank you. Happy to be here. Give us a little bit of a background about you I guess your household bill and system and everything like that before you you know become approached Source Energy Group and then we sort of go through what you got and you know how it all looks now.

Yes. So my monthly bills were not huge when I compare it to other people, but sort of roughly around $200 per month. That was with an existing solar system. And yeah, as everybody knows, like when you’re making the most most power is when you’re not using the most of the energy. It’s in the evenings when the sun goes down that you’re using most of the energy. And so I had this in so I just bought my house the end of last year and I was making all of this incredible solar energy but my bills were still actually like not as little as I thought they would be.

So that sort of led me into to looking for battery options and that’s where the whole start of my journey began and how I came in contact. Were was it originally it was Dan I believe you were having a talk with? Yeah, I think so. Yes, I got quite a few different quotes with different companies. And what really from the very beginning sort of made me feel very comfortable with Source Energy was Dan took so much time to answer all of my stupid questions because I I realised the the more I got to know about the whole topic of it’s no stupid questions just stupid answers is the same.

But yeah, so the more I got to to learn about solar and batteries, the more questions I had. And so he really offered offered his time many times. He had multiple phone calls, a few back and forth emails just answering all these questions to really try and work out what it was that I needed, what was my situation. And yeah, that’s sort of the was the start of the process.

Yeah. Beautiful. That’s awesome. Really glad Dan was able to sort you out there and answer all the questions. Because there are stupid answers. So it sounds like Dan sorted that out and he didn’t didn’t give any. Bit better than I suppose. I give a few stupid answers sometimes. It’s good Dan spent the time actually size everything according to your household and and not assuming he knew what you wanted.

You know that’s what I’m hearing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Plus, what was additionally really great was then he said that he would like to send person out here to look at everything to really get the whole picture because of course I’m just a lay person thinking this is what I have and thinking this is what I need to answer more questions and to really look at everything on site and that that combination I think was really really helpful to have a real person here a an electrician who knew what he was doing just to answer all my questions and also to know that he will actually give the support afterwards as well as the head office in so yeah you’re based in not Central Coast, the Gold Coast but anyway to have the main office giving me support plus electrician who I knew that I could call at any time that whole combination with suiting like finding a system that would really suit my needs and also the price was interesting It was like a the whole package.

Then I Yeah, I put all of my other quotes just onto the onto the recycle paper pile. You got installation day. I suppose a big Timbo. So he’s we know he’s a lovely fellow, but what was your experience with Tim? Yeah. So he he arrived it was a crisp sort of autumn winter morning and in his shorts. Every tradesman in Australia as in here doesn’t wear trousers.

You got to wear your shorts to stay tough. He was he arrived punctually and really pulled in like the whole day of work and made everything very smooth and yeah it was it was great. And he even came back to to finish off things on a on a Sunday I think. So really put in his personal Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. That brings me back to what I was going to say before you mentioned about obviously Dan went through everything in detail.

But then the next thing that you liked is that we actually had an electrician come out the site before the installation day. Which we feel makes a massive difference cuz there is two parts to it. There is the bill and sizing everything right to make sure you’re going to get the results that you want. But you know sometimes that doesn’t match what you can actually physically do on location.

Hence why we always send out electrician before install day just to make sure that original plan is going to go as as intended. So it’s great to hear that that’s actually something that you found valuable because from our side as a business we we feel it is. Yeah, we know that that is a required part of our business and a big thing that we do a little bit differently than a lot of people or few people are actually starting to follow that trend now.

I’ve seen that up again. Just another thing. Yes. No, it definitely made a difference because there was other companies that were very quick to get back to me, but they had no interest in coming out and having a look and just wanted me basically to sign the papers and say, “Yes, I want you to do the job.” Whereas I still had so many questions and we had to make a few changes to my power board as as well.

So, there was things that really did need to have have a look at on site. So, yeah, there’s a couple changes on the roof as well, I believe. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that was I remember that one. Yeah, the original system and you didn’t obviously install that. You bought the house like that, but we talk about in other episodes all the time when you know now a lot of people adding batteries to systems and whoever installs that battery actually takes on ownership of the existing system.

And one of the things that Tim highlighted when he went to site was the prior installation was actually non-compliant. So we had to bring that up by inserting extra racking and rails in. Yeah. Yeah. That’s right. Yeah. So it was very very happy that he acknowledged that work that had to be done on top of that but also that it was important that that gets updated so that it fits the whole system so that there would be no problems later.

Yeah. That was a very important part to I really like. Yeah. Yeah. So, coming back to the original bill, you said it was just above that $200. Now, I didn’t hear at the start. Was that monthly or was that quarterly? That was monthly, wasn’t it? Monthly. Yeah. Having such a big solar system, I don’t know how much I would produce in the summertime, but at the moment producing about 60 kilowatts per day.

So lots of lots of energy. I’m probably only using about 15 kilowatts. So surprising to have such a big a big deal despite that. Is that a month? Yeah. Oh yeah. So this is in Oh, this is this month so far. Yeah. So we’re looking at so far. Oh, here you go. Yeah. So well energy consumption is or from PV and battery you’ve used 296. And how much from the grid?

That looks like a massive number. 0.08 kilowatts which I just put that down to a reference that wouldn’t actually use anything from the grid. Yeah, that’s yes I’ve used nothing since I’ve been connected to these batteries. I’ve used nothing from the grid. Isn’t that amazing? Yeah. So, it sort of points out what the benefit of battery can do to an existing solar system as well. Yeah. You were able to store that power and use it yourself rather than yeah just sell it back for the very minuscule amount out of interest.

What were they paying you for the power you sold back to the grid? I think it was about 4 cents per kilowatt that fee, right? So now instead of instead of using so I’ve used nothing from the grid since I’ve got the batteries zero from the grid but you still of course have to pay your your daily connection fee which I think monthly my bill just from the connection fees is about 50 bucks.

And now with what I’m feeding in as excess in the daytime from the solar system after my batteries, which are by the way, my batteries are are completely back up to 100% by about 9 9:30 in the morning. My batteries are already full, which is incredible. I’ve managed to from the $50 connection fee per month with that what I’ve been getting back in winter springtime, so it will probably be even more in the summertime.

I get back about half of that from what I fit into the grid. So my monthly bill last month was $23. I think that was just the half of the connection fees. Yeah. Doing better than I am. So from over 200 over 200 a month down to like 20 25 a month. You’re still just on a normal power plan like you haven’t connected to anyone with a VPP or anything like that yet.

That’s still on a standard solar plan. Just cuz I was recommended to to sort of see the first month or two what happens with my electricity bills before I went to look to see what other options, what other companies could offer me things. And I have to say at the moment with $23 bill, I haven’t felt like, oh, now’s the time. I need to go searching for a better company.

I don’t know. That’s probably would be my next next thing to think about. What companies are there things that could offer me more for giving back like I’m still giving back about 700 kilowatts last month I think to the grid so it’s still like a significant amount of energy that I give back but yeah I mean at the moment I’m I’m happy you’re welcome to give Joe a call in the office and she can walk you through the VPP side of things yeah so Joe’s up to speed I’m sure you spoke to Joe but essentially you go to a provider with the VPP It’s just the way that you can take that $25 down to get it as close to zero as possible.

I mean, it’s only $25, so it’s a it’s neither here nor there, I guess. Some people still paying a full supply charge of 100, 150. Those ones are definitely recommend definitely looking at a VPP. But in your case, it’s, you know, I guess it comes down to what’s more important, your time on the phone to a power company or $25 a month. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That’s right.

Yeah. And now I just go on the journey on top of that and have purchased an electric vehicle. So like as I see the the like the petrol prices just the last week or two have been going up again. And I’m just like whoa I don’t even have to look at petrol prices anymore. And I so I’m able to fill up my battery by 9:30 in the morning and then I can charge my car until about 5:00 and that’s enough.

I’ve had the the electric car now for about 3 weeks and I’m still exporting plenty of electricity to the grid which will bring down my monthly connection costs and I’m basically able to drive for free. So it’s an amazing system. Yeah, that’s crazy. Double benefit. Yeah. What Randall was talking about when we had Randall in on an episode. Not only the electricity savings, but the fuel savings as well.

Definitely. Yeah. It was landing down the path of it’s probably better to pay an electricity bill than it is to pay for fuel because realistically, if you if you drive and do a fuel tank of fuel every week, it’d be cheaper to pay for an electricity bill than it would be to pay for a tank of fuel. Yeah. Yeah. I had a conversation with ChatGPT just recently or before I bought the electric car and and they said within 20 years you spend about that much on petrol as it costs to to buy the car.

So just if you look at that it’s like it’s very eye opening how much money we spend over the years on petrol. It’s crazy. It was like 40 45,000 in 20 years at sort of the current petrol prices I would spend on car on on fuel and the purchase price of the car was 50,000. So it’s just incredible when you think of that. Definitely it takes you away from doing the things you you actually do want to do.

It’s stopped me in the past. I wanted to go out to Finke Desert Race with the caravan, but it’s right when the fuel prices went up. And then there was a bit of a fuel shortage as well, so it stopped me from being able to go. It I would have loved to go. It would have been great as the 50th anniversary, but like even if I had an electric vehicle, I suppose I wouldn’t have been able to go and tow the caravan, but would have been a lot easier.

Yeah. Could have a hybrid, make the journey cheaper. Definitely. Yeah. And I think in the future that would be possible to have have cars that are strong enough to to go into the desert with a caravan that that run on electricity. I mean just the the technology 6 months. Yeah. But it just does again it just reinforces everything we say every episode and when we talk to every client about actually sizing properly and you know taking into account are you getting the EV in the future?

Do you have one now? And if your solar and battery is actually sized and accounting for an EV, it’s not only the electricity savings that we we’re talking about, it’s that fuel savings as well. So actually the whole household and you combine those two together, it actually, you know, without sounding all hairy fairy, it actually can be life-changing if it’s done properly. You know, cuz you’re now now putting in your case, you’re putting back over $200 a month in your pocket in electricity alone.

You add on what you’re saving in fuel. It’s actually quite a substantial amount of money, isn’t it? Yeah. You know, and that’s just yourself and one other in the household. You got a young family, mum and dad, two, three, four kids. That’s that’s a lot of savings and a lot of change. It adds up definitely by the change to the quality of life when the cost of living and everything else is going up.

There is things we can do about it. I think it’s also important to choose the right size battery system too for boy what your needs are. That was another thing that I really needed to to think about in the beginning because I’ve got a big battery system which is much bigger than what I actually use. But it was thinking long term if I had an electric car.

Plus, I’m in the process of setting up a ecotourism business on the property, which I’d like to use from the the batteries and the solar system from this house. So, that was all sort of part of the the decision-making process to get the right size batteries to to be able to put that all into place. Definitely future usage is, you know, it’s a big thing that we need to take into account.

Price alone, like power prices have always just gone up historically. So whatever portioning, whether it’s just the supply charge or whether you’ve got a small roof in your house can’t actually have enough solar to reduce the full bill. They’re little things that are going to climb anyway. So and then you got other things like extra devices, more technology coming in the house, people growing like as children grow up, they use more and everything like that.

So this is what we’ve always gone. People size a system for everything exactly how it is today. I personally believe the system’s already under sized. So it is I guess that’s why Dan spent so much time with you is going through this and you had those questions getting answered like probably could have sold you a smaller system which probably matched exactly what you’re doing at that time but then you add this car in that you got now and then it all changes.

So like you say the business you want to add down the track, start doing that well or then it changes again. Right. Definitely. Yeah, that’s right. That was all part of that. Yeah. Great. So you’ve mentioned the app a couple of times. You seem to know your way around it. The usability of it. So, what what do you sort of think on the app and the monitoring side of things for the system?

Yeah, it’s great. It’s very easy to use. I’m not such a technology person. So, it’s really I can definitely vouch for the the ease of the system and it’s really quite fun just to look what’s happening just with a few clicks I can see okay there’s now my batteries are full now I’m making this much and now with the addition of the electric car after looking and seeing when sort of what time I finish making and really that much energy and what time it sort of really picks up I could set the the car to charge within that time, too.

And that’s all because of the app, you can see what’s happening. So, it’s really good. And it’s it’s interesting, too, just sometimes to see now if I turn the oven on, what happens? How much more do I use? Or if I turn the washing machine on, it’s they’re not huge differences, but you can see all of that in the app with a slight time delay. Well, it can help with I suppose say every system like if you’re only producing right now 4.5 kW of solar and you’re doing 2.1 kW of load in the house, you might decide to put a load of washing on and hang it out instead of putting it in the clothes dryer and doubling up your usage that it can help you monitor what you’re doing so you don’t actually pull from your battery or you don’t pull from the grid.

Yeah. Yep. Definitely. But you mentioned before as well like support was a big decision when you sort of going through the process going through quotes and everything like that. Obviously you met Tim and understood that he was going to be the local support in the area and you mentioned obviously head office support. Have you had any dealings with head office? Obviously Joe you would have over the time and you know what’s that been like?

So yeah she was really helpful too. So after everything was installed, she reached out to me and just sort of answered further questions and also told me that she’s I could call her at any stage if there was any problems and they will get get on to it. And that was just such a nice feeling that if something was to happen, I either had Tim who did the installation to come and have a look or he said he would come on site if needed or call head office.

Definitely that’s been very reassuring. I haven’t had to yet called her but maybe I will just to to talk to her about the VPP to understand that a little bit more. And I reached out to Tim just recently to ask him about installing the the EV charger unit on top of the batteries. And that’s been great too how yeah I know that he’s been looking into that and we’ll be making an appointment soon for when he can come and install that.

And that’s just great to have direct access and to know that it’s not just been been installed and then you’re on the on your own cuz it’s quite a complex system. I’m just happy when I can read the app and I know that everything’s happening and it’s all working. But yeah, what happens if it doesn’t work? I have people from both. But I was going to say it wasn’t even as though to pay for that service I had to pay more.

It was your prices were very competitive. So it was like well if I’m paying the same price and getting that support I don’t even have to to think twice about which company I will go for. Yeah that’s awesome. Beautiful. But that is the support is what really sets I guess the businesses apart because end of the day the panels and batteries and inverter they’re all the same.

But the difference is is you know everything’s good until it’s not. So what’s what happens when it’s not? Who Yeah. Who’s there for you when it’s not? Yeah. We’ve got to have something that sets us apart. Support’s a big one for us and it’s got to be there and it should be there standard, but that’s what we focus on. So yeah, it’s good good to hear that you’re getting the benefits and you enjoy it and you understand it.

So that’s awesome. Always love talking to our clients because the feedback shows us that what we’re intending to do and doing as a business is showing through and coming back and we’re hearing that feedback from you guys. So, it’s awesome. Always awesome to hear. Plus, on top of that, they’d like to mention as well that how quickly you could also respond to to my request. There was other companies that were saying, “Well, if you say yes now, we might be able to get your batteries in by the end of this year and yeah, that they just had such a backlog they weren’t able to keep up with their their potential clients.

So, it was nice to also know that you had capacity to deliver that what you were wanting to deliver and have been delivering. It’s not true on all of them, but a lot of the ones that have a big backlog are generally sales companies just selling, selling, selling and they can’t find installers. So, otherwise the other side of that is there is companies that have the installers and they are selling and they are truly backlogged.

But a lot of them is just sales companies selling selling selling and they’re just scrambling around trying to find people to install. Okay. That’s my experience anyway. Oh yeah, definitely. In mind, too. I’m stoked to hear. It puts the wind back in the sails, I suppose. Not that it comes out, but everybody gets busy. Business isn’t easy. Having having customers that have a positive experience is the reason we started this off.

And being able to help help people out and save money and be able to put it back into, in your case, your your property for the eco side of it. That’s that’s awesome. Once you got it all going, let us know. We’ll come up for a look. Yes, definitely. There’ll be a place you can just come and stay. Thank you very much. It’s nice also to see the people to see the people behind behind the business too.

So, thank you for this opportunity for the exchange. Awesome. Thank you. It was lovely to meet you. Yeah, it’s been a pleasure meeting and chatting with you there, Jennifer. And anyone listening or watching, you’ve heard Jennifer’s, I guess, opinion and view and dealings with Source Energy Group. If you’re looking to reduce those bills with through solar and battery or battery, whichever one it may be, reach out, give us a call.