Solar panels in Bella Vista

As an estimate, a 6.6kW system starts from $7,410, a 10kW system starts from $10,300 and a 13.2kW system starts from $11,250 (with battery prices starting from $4,290), with the STC discount for postcode 2153 already taken off (incl. GST for metro areas; regional areas subject to freight and travel costs). Those are starting estimates for a straightforward install, not a fixed price. Homes here are large and mostly newer, so the install itself is usually simple — the number that moves is the size, because a house with ducted zones, a pool and a three-car garage is not a 6.6kW house.

Bella Vista is in STC Zone 3, rating 1.382. In 2026 a 10kW system creates 69 certificates, worth roughly $2,622 off the price, and a 13.2kW system 91 certificates, roughly $3,458. From 1 October 2026, systems between 100kW and 1MW can also create STCs, with a fixed five-year deeming period, or use large-scale certificates instead. That matters for a commercial roof, and we explain it at the site visit rather than on a web page.

Not unilaterally, and this is the first thing to establish. In a leased commercial building the roof is almost always the landlord's, and often it serves several tenancies, so a single tenant cannot simply put a system on it. There are three workable paths: the building owner installs and the benefit flows through outgoings, the owners corporation installs for common property loads, or a tenant negotiates roof access into the lease — usually with a make-good position on what happens at the end of the term. We are happy to put the technical case in writing for whichever conversation you are having.

Offices are a better match than people expect, and a worse one in a specific way. Better, because the load is almost entirely daytime — lighting, computers, and air-conditioning that peaks exactly when the sun does — so very little generation is exported at a low rate. Worse, because a multi-storey office has a small roof relative to the floor area beneath it, so the system rarely covers the whole load the way a single-storey warehouse roof can. A medical suite or a showroom usually sits between the two. The right way to decide is against an interval meter reading, not a rule of thumb.

The distribution network that owns the poles and wires in your street approves it — not your retailer — and we lodge the application for you. That network also decides how much your system may export: on a flexible export connection, eligible customers can send up to 10kW per phase back to the grid most of the time, while a fixed export limit caps exports at 1.5kW. Commercial sites are assessed individually rather than approved automatically, and larger connections take longer.

For a house, usually not — in NSW most rooftop solar is exempt development and needs no development application from The Hills Shire Council. Commercial buildings are assessed differently depending on the site and its zoning, and a large system can need approval. We deal with that as part of the quote rather than handing it to you.