An almanac for kiwi home solar
Home solar, costed in plain English.
Run the numbers on your own roof in under a minute, then compare regional installers without sitting through a showroom pitch. NZ-specific assumptions, no upsell.
- EECA-aligned assumptions
- Every NZ region
- Battery + grid-tied
The almanac
Run your own numbers, before anyone runs them at you.
Three inputs, four readings, every assumption shown. The point isn’t a precise quote — it’s knowing whether your home is in the comfortable-payback zone or the borderline zone before you invite an installer over.
- NZ-specific sun-hours per region
- EECA / GenLess-aligned conventions
- Assumptions printed at the bottom
Solar Payback Almanac
Auckland · 5.5 sun-hrs/day
Inputs · 01
Tell us about your house
Reading · 02
Your rough numbers
- System size
- 6.5 kW
- Upfront cost
- $14,300 – $18,850
- Annual generation
- 10,178 kWh
- Annual savings
- $2,137
- Payback period
- 7.8 yrs
This is a comfortable payback for NZ in 2026 — the maths works on a grid-tied install without needing a battery.
Assumptions used
Retail electricity $30c/kWh · Buyback $12c/kWh · Self-consumption 50% · System efficiency 78% · Install $2,200–$2,900/kW · Auckland 5.5 peak sun-hrs/day
Rough heuristic only — your real numbers depend on your roof, your retailer plan, and how much power you use during the day. Treat this as a starting point, not a quote.
The directory
A few installers worth knowing
Different regions, different specialties — grid-tied, hybrid, off-grid, lifestyle-block, heritage-roof. Browse the full directory by region.
Sunward Coastal Energy Ltd
Sunward Coastal
Marine-grade installs for Northland's salt-air coast, from Mangawhai to Doubtless Bay.
Whangarei
- Grid-tied
- Battery hybrid
- Marine-grade
Pae-o-rangi Solar Ltd
Pae-o-rangi Solar
Bilingual whānau-owned installer working across Te Tai Tokerau iwi housing schemes.
Kerikeri
- Battery hybrid
- Off-grid
- Lifestyle block
Tāmaki Solar Company Ltd
Tāmaki Solar Co.
Auckland's mid-market installer of choice — efficient quotes, no theatre, fixed pricing.
Mt Eden
- Grid-tied
- Battery hybrid
- EV integration
Harbour Bridge Energy Ltd
Harbour Bridge Energy
North Shore specialists — known for tidy installs on awkward 1970s tile roofs.
North Shore
- Grid-tied
- Battery hybrid
- Heritage roofs
By region
Find an installer near you
Regional sun-hour averages and the local installers we’d send you to. Pick your patch.
Why this site
Solar in NZ is genuinely good — and genuinely over-pitched.
The economics work for most kiwi homes. But the showroom playbook is to oversize, oversell and bundle a battery you don’t need. We try to undo that, in plain English.
01
Real NZ numbers
Every figure on this site is anchored to NZ retail electricity prices, EECA case studies, and regional sun-hour averages — not US or Australian copy-paste.
02
No showroom theatrics
Installers we list quote in writing. No three-hour kitchen-table sessions, no 'special today only' framing, no $20k systems disguised as $99/month.
03
Battery is optional
Most NZ homes pay back faster on a grid-tied system without a battery. We say so, and the calculator shows the gap so you can decide.
04
Independent listing
Installers don't pay to appear here. We add and remove them based on customer reports, not advertising spend. Paid placement, if it ever exists, will be tagged.
The long reads
Reading before you install
Practical, NZ-specific writing on home solar — without the showroom gloss or the off-grid-ideology hype.
Long read · 7 min · 26 April 2026
How NZ home solar actually pays for itself
Plain-English maths on payback periods for kiwi homes — what an average install costs, what it actually saves, and where the calculator's numbers come from.
Read article →
Long read · 6 min · 26 April 2026
Battery vs grid-tied — which one pays back in NZ?
When a battery genuinely earns its place on a NZ home, when it doesn't, and the three questions that decide for you.
Read article →
Long read · 5 min · 26 April 2026
Are EECA grants and the warmer-kiwi-homes scheme worth chasing for solar?
What the current government schemes actually fund (and don't fund) for residential solar, and where to look instead for genuine financial help.
Read article →
Get installer quotes
Ready for written quotes?
One form. Two or three written quotes from vetted installers in your region. No phone tag, no pressure, no spam from us.
- Takes under 60 seconds
- We review each installer before they quote
- You pick who to talk to — or no one at all
Form · 02
Get tailored installer quotes
Tell us your suburb and roof size — we'll pass it to two or three vetted installers in your region. No follow-up calls from us.