Solar and Battery in Launceston: A Guide for Northern Tasmanian Homes

For most Launceston-area homes with decent daytime use — or use that can be shifted into daylight — yes, it generally stacks up. But the savings come from using your own power rather than selling it, so the real question isn’t “how much will I export?” It’s “how much can I stop buying?”

Northern Tasmania has four genuinely distinct seasons. Summer gives you long days and a big harvest; winter in the Tamar valley brings fog, short days and those cold, clear mornings. Panels actually run more efficiently in the cold than in heat — the limiting factor in a Tasmanian winter is daylight hours, not temperature. Size and judge a system across the whole year, not off one sunny January week.

Why does self-consumption matter more than exporting?

Because buying power back costs several times what exporting pays. The regulated feed-in tariff Aurora Energy pays is 9.276 c/kWh from 1 July 2026 (up from 8.782 c in 2025–26), while importing costs roughly 28–30 c/kWh. On those rates, a kilowatt-hour you use yourself is worth around three times one you send to the grid.

That changes how you live with a system. The cheapest habits are usually:

Run the dishwasher and washing machine on a daytime timer instead of overnight.
Pre-warm the living areas with the heat pump mid-afternoon, before the evening peak starts.
Put hot water on a daytime heating window rather than the middle of the night.
Charge an EV while it’s parked at home in daylight, where your routine allows.

Which Tasmanian tariff will I be on, and does it matter?

It matters a great deal, because peak hours decide when importing hurts. If you install solar, your connection will almost certainly sit on Tariff 93 — since 1 July 2024, every new or upgraded residential connection in Tasmania is assigned to it.

Tariff	What it is	Status	Time periods
31	General light and power, flat rate	Legacy — closed to new installations 30 June 2024; existing homes may stay	Not time-of-use; no peak periods
41	Separately metered, lower flat rate for hard-wired heating and hot water	Legacy — closed to new installations 30 June 2024	Not time-of-use; no peak periods
93	Residential time-of-use, whole-of-home	Default for new or upgraded connections since 1 July 2024	Peak weekdays 7–10am and 4–9pm (8–11am and 5–10pm during daylight saving); everything else off-peak, including all weekend
97	Opt-in residential consumer energy resources (CER) tariff for homes with solar, a battery or an EV	Available depending on your retailer’s plans	Peak weekdays 7–10am and 4–10pm; super off-peak midnight–4am every day including weekends; all other times off-peak; excess demand charge above 8.5 kW

Two things worth noticing. Tariff 97 is the only Tasmanian residential tariff with a super off-peak rate, which suits a battery or EV that can be told to charge between midnight and 4am. But its evening peak runs an hour longer than Tariff 93’s, and it carries an excess demand charge above 8.5 kW — so it rewards households that genuinely shift load, and penalises ones that spike.

Also, Tariff 97 is not a controlled-load or hot-water tariff. That’s Tariff 41, and it’s a different thing entirely. Whether a Tariff 97 plan is even on offer depends on your retailer.

What size system should a northern Tasmanian home get?

For most households that expect to electrify over the next decade — an EV, a heat pump, induction cooking — around 13 kW of panels on a 10 kW inverter has become the sensible, future-proof default, a clear step up from the old 6.6 kW. TasNetworks permits a 10 kW single-phase inverter, so most homes do not need three-phase power.

That pairing works because of the 133% inverter oversizing rule: you’re allowed to fit meaningfully more panel capacity than inverter capacity, which lifts output on dull mornings and through the shoulders of a winter day — exactly when a Tasmanian house is drawing power.

Being honest, though: this isn’t universal. A low-use household with a small or awkward roof, no battery, no EV and no electrification plans may be better served by something smaller. Oversizing a system for a home that will never grow into it just adds cost.

What rebates apply, and for how long?

Two federal schemes, and no separate Tasmanian state battery rebate. The Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme (SRES) discounts the up-front cost of a solar system through STCs — Tasmania sits in STC Zone 4 — and the Cheaper Home Batteries Program, running since 1 July 2025, takes roughly 30% off an eligible battery.

For the battery program, where your equipment and installation meet the program’s rules, the discount in 2026 works out at around $250 per usable kWh at the full rate for the first 14 kWh, then about 60% of that rate for 14–28 kWh and 15% for 28–50 kWh, capped at 50 kWh. The battery must be paired with solar, and the rate steps down each year through to 2030. Eligibility is assessed per installation, so treat it as conditional until an accredited installer confirms it against the current rules rather than assuming it.

Is a home battery worth it in Tasmania?

Less compelling here than on the mainland, and it’s fair to say so plainly. Tasmania’s comparatively cheap power and reasonable feed-in tariff leave a smaller gap for a battery to work with, so the battery portion of a system typically takes considerably longer to pay off than the solar does.

There’s also no vendor or retail VPP program operating in Tasmania, so you can’t lean on VPP payments the way mainland households sometimes do. Wholesale price exposure does exist through spot-passthrough retailing, and with automated control a battery can charge when spot prices go negative and sit out the evening peak — Solar Generation runs exactly that setup on its own systems. For a typical household on an Aurora tariff without spot exposure, the honest value proposition is evening self-consumption plus backup when the power goes out.

How long until it pays for itself?

Discussion in the Tasmanian market generally lands on roughly four to six years for the solar portion and something closer to seven to twelve years for a battery, but those are ranges, not promises — your result depends on your tariff, your consumption pattern, how much of your own generation you actually use, and what you paid. Treat any figure put to you as a modelled estimate tied to stated assumptions, and ask to see those assumptions.

What’s the single most useful thing to do first?

Before you look at a single panel, pull out your last four quarterly bills and work out two things: which tariff you’re on, and how many kilowatt-hours you’re importing during peak windows. That one piece of homework tells you more about whether solar suits your house than any brochure will.

From there, a short checklist:

Confirm your tariff in writing with your retailer, and ask whether a Tariff 97 plan is available to you.
Note your roof orientation and any winter shading — morning fog and low sun angles matter in the north.
Decide honestly whether an EV, heat pump or induction cooktop is realistically coming, since that drives sizing.
Get any rebate eligibility confirmed by the installer against current program rules before signing.
Ask for modelling based on your own bill data, not a generic household.

This guide is put together by the Tasmanian solar team at Solar Generation Tasmania — locals who are always happy to answer a question from a fellow Tasmanian, whatever you end up deciding.

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Published by Solar Generation Tasmania. General information current as at publication — rebates, tariffs and prices change, so confirm current figures before deciding.