Should I buy batteries with my solar?

Despite the hype about solar battery storage, any honest solar installer will give you the same advice: Batteries will not pay for themselves - yet.

Be wary of installers who blend the payback times of solar panels and batteries to make battery storage look more economically attractive than it really is

At the moment, a decent amount of battery storage will cost you around $10,000 to install, and will take about 15 years to pay back. Most battery systems have a 10 year warranty.

You do the maths.

Unfortunately, all the hype in the mainstream media about batteries has made people question the viability of solar without batteries - to the extent that people are waiting for 'affordable batteries' before they invest in a solar power system.

But even though the cost of solar battery storage is projected to decline year-over-year, it makes no sense to wait to get solar.

Every day you don't have solar is another day you do have to pay high electricity bills. A well designed solar system without batteries can give you tiny bills.

Waiting 2, 3 or 4 years for batteries to become affordable means another 2, 3 or 4 years of high bills.

One day, batteries will make lots of sense - and when that day comes they can easily be added to any existing solar system using a method called AC coupling. 

So don't lose years of savings waiting for cheap batteries to arrive.

Consider going solar now - with the knowledge that you can easily retrofit batteries later when they will pay for themselves - not before.