Days like this makes me appreciate our solar panels

It's pretty hot here this week. Today it's 32C outside, but inside it's a very pleasant 24C. The wonderful thing is that the house is cooled totally with power from the panels on the roof.

The system generates up to 3.3kW and as the panels are on the north west face of the roof (as you can see the hot water panels are on the north face) we get peak power in the afternoon - which works well on days like this.

I calculate that the system will pay for itself in electricity savings and rebates in about eight years but on days like today we normally wouldn't run the air conditioner except that it's free.

Our quarterly power bill is about $240 and I'm told by the state government's plan comparison site that we can save $100 off that by switching plans - I'm a little sceptical but we'll see.

We did look at adding a battery but at the moment the numbers don't make sense given the lifespan.