Solar and battery questions we get asked in the Northern Rivers, answered straight

For a straightforward single-storey tin roof in the Tweed or Northern Rivers, Thomson Energy's typical installed prices after the federal STC rebate are: a 6.3 kW system $6,500 to $8,500; a 10.2 kW system $9,500 to $12,500; a 13.1 kW system $12,000 to $15,500. All of those use Winaico panels with a 30-year product warranty and a Sigenergy hybrid inverter that's battery-ready from day one.

Solar plus battery runs $18,500 to $21,500 for 10.2 kW with 9 kWh of storage and $26,000 to $30,000 for 13.2 kW with 18 kWh, including the federal Cheaper Home Batteries discount. Tile roofs, two-storey homes, switchboard upgrades and three-phase supply add to the price, and we tell you how much before you sign. Full packages are on the systems and pricing page.

For most homes in the Tweed and Northern Rivers, yes, provided it's sized to how you actually use power. Feed-in tariffs are now a few cents per kilowatt-hour while evening electricity costs 35 to 45 cents, so solar you'd otherwise export at midday is worth five to ten times as much stored and used at night. With the federal Cheaper Home Batteries discount taking roughly 30 per cent off, and the NSW virtual power plant incentive on top, a right-sized battery in NSW typically pays back in six to nine years and lasts well beyond that.

The other reason is reliability. The 2022 floods and ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred in 2025 left parts of the Tweed and Northern Rivers without power for days. A battery with properly wired backup circuits keeps the fridge, lights, internet and power points running. One of our Tweed customers ran through four days of outages after Alfred on a 16 kWh Sigenergy system.

When it's not worth it: a household that uses very little power at night, or a 27 kWh battery sold to a home that only needs 9. We size from your bill and tell you if the numbers don't add up. More on the home batteries page.

As of October 2026, for homes in NSW and Queensland:

• Federal STC solar rebate. Small-scale technology certificates are created when a system is installed and we claim them as a point-of-sale discount. For a system installed in 2026 in our zone that's worth roughly $270 per kilowatt of panels, so around $2,700 on a 10 kW system. The deeming period drops by a year every January until the scheme ends in 2030, so the rebate shrinks slightly each year.
• Federal Cheaper Home Batteries Program. An upfront discount on home batteries from 5 kWh to 100 kWh, applied by the installer. Since 1 May 2026 it's tiered: around $250 per usable kilowatt-hour for the first 14 kWh, roughly $150 per kWh from 14 to 28 kWh, and a small amount above that, up to 50 kWh. That's about $2,500 off a 10 kWh battery. The rate steps down again on 1 January 2027, and the dollar figure moves with the STC market price. The battery must be on the Clean Energy Council approved list and installed by an accredited installer, which we are.
• NSW Peak Demand Reduction Scheme (PDRS) battery incentive. The original NSW upfront battery rebate ended in June 2025 when the federal program started. What remains is the incentive for connecting an eligible battery to a virtual power plant, paid through the VPP provider, typically a few hundred dollars up to around $1,000 for larger batteries. It can be stacked with the federal discount.
• Queensland. No state battery rebate is currently running; Gold Coast homes get the federal STC and battery discounts.

We apply every incentive you're entitled to on the quote and do the paperwork. Figures above are our best summary at the time of writing; the exact amount is confirmed in writing before you commit.

Yes. A townhouse with its own roof area and its own electricity meter is usually straightforward: the system is wired to your meter only, and you need the owners corporation's approval to use the common-property roof. In NSW, strata law now treats solar as sustainability infrastructure that an owners corporation can approve by ordinary resolution and shouldn't refuse unreasonably, which has made this much easier than it was. We write the proposal for the strata committee showing the roof area, the mounting and the wiring path, and we've done plenty across Kingscliff, Casuarina, Tweed Heads, Byron Bay and the Gold Coast.

Units in a multi-storey building are harder, because the roof belongs to everyone. Options there are a shared system for common-property loads, or an embedded-network or shared-solar arrangement for the whole building, which is a bigger project that we can design. For Queensland bodies corporate the approval path is similar under the body corporate legislation.

On the day: a residential solar system is usually installed in one day by a crew of two or three. Solar plus battery is one to two days. A battery retrofit to existing solar is normally a day. Commercial systems run from a few days for 30 kW to two or three weeks for 90 to 100 kW.

Start to finish: after you accept a quote we lodge the Essential Energy or Energex connection application, which for a standard home usually comes back within one to two weeks, and we schedule the install from there, typically two to four weeks out depending on the season. After the install your retailer swaps the meter, which can take another one to three weeks, and the system is generating from the day it's commissioned. Off-grid systems are usually four to eight weeks from deposit to switch-on because the batteries and inverters are ordered to the design.

The Tweed, and all of the Northern Rivers including Murwillumbah, Tweed Heads, Byron, Lismore and Kyogle, is on the Essential Energy network. Your retailer (Origin, AGL, Red, Enova and so on) sends the bill, but Essential Energy owns the poles and wires and approves your solar connection.

Essential Energy's standard export limit is 5 kW for a single-phase connection and 5 kW per phase for three-phase. You can still install a bigger inverter and array than that; the limit is only on what flows back to the grid, so a 10 kW system limited to 5 kW export loses very little if you use power through the day or have a battery. From late 2026 Essential Energy is introducing flexible export limits for new and upgraded systems, which can go up to 10 kW on single phase when the network has capacity and drop when it doesn't, and we can apply for one where it helps.

On long rural lines in the hinterland, Essential Energy sometimes approves a lower limit, and on single-wire earth return (SWER) lines export may not be allowed at all. We check your line and lodge the connection application before anything is installed. Just over the border, the Gold Coast is on Energex: 5 kW on a fixed connection or up to 10 kW per phase on a dynamic connection.

Yes. Thomson Energy holds Queensland electrical contractor licence 1508141 as well as our NSW licence 490514C, and our electricians are licensed in both states. We install solar, batteries and electrical work across the Gold Coast, from Coolangatta to Southport and the hinterland, on the Energex network, and we take on commercial and off-grid projects further into south-east Queensland. We also hold a WA licence (EC17853) and have built off-grid systems in the Pilbara and Balingup. See the Gold Coast service area.

Winaico panels on every job, with a 30-year product warranty on the residential BDX Midnight range and NCX modules on commercial roofs. Sigenergy hybrid inverters and SigenStor batteries for grid-connected homes. Victron Energy inverter-chargers for off-grid, with Fronius AC-coupled solar on larger systems. Sungrow and Fronius three-phase inverters on commercial sites. XESS and Australian-made MPS lithium iron phosphate batteries, and BYD storage on commercial jobs. Clenergy, RadiantPV and SunLock mounting; Clipsal, Hager and Voltex switchgear. Every brand has a real Australian office, and every one earned its place on our own jobs first. More on the products page.

No. Thomson Energy is a licensed electrical contractor with an 11-person team of our own electricians, apprentices and support staff. The people who design your system install it, and the business that sold it to you is the one that answers the phone when you have a question in year eight. We don't use subcontracted sales reps or install crews. Where Essential Energy requires Level 2 ASP work on the service line, we arrange that with an accredited provider and manage it as part of the job.

Thomson Energy Australia Pty Ltd is at 7319 Tweed Valley Way, Fernvale NSW 2484, ten minutes south of Murwillumbah. Call 0455 415 464, email sales@thomsonenergy.com.au, or use the online enquiry form. Send a recent power bill and your address and we'll come back with a properly sized design and a fixed price, usually after a site visit to check the roof and switchboard. There's no charge for a quote.