Solar panels and a battery

Another project knocked off - 28 solar panels up on the roof and a 27KW battery hooked up to them on the side of the house. In theory, for the amount of electricity we use, the battery should soak it up during the day and cover what we use at night ... although the theory has been falling down since we had them installed because it's been cloudy and rainy. 

Our contribution was to admire the balance of the young people doing the installation (all over the roof, didn't even blink, utterly unafraid) and fork over vast sums of money. In theory it should pay for itself in eight or so years but we will see. It's nice to have protection for the blackouts that we get once or twice a year and our bore pump runs on electricity so it's good bushfire protection too. 

We were a bit worried that it would spoil the look of our cute little house, but it's much less intrusive than we thought. A nice low profile on the roof and the black isn't that different from the tin. We have six facing east, six facing west and sixteen facing north - all shaded by the pines but between them they should give us enough juice if the sun is shining. 

The battery has an app that shows how much electricity we use, how much the panels produce, how much the battery has and how much we are pulling from the grid or putting back into the grid ... it is one of the horribly mesmerising things like a weather station or flight radar that you get obsessed with even though it is objectively very dull.