Solar panels in Cameron Park

As an estimate, a 6.6kW system comes to about $3,990, a 10kW to about $5,490 and a 13.2kW to about $7,990, with the STC discount for postcode 2285 already taken off. Those are typical figures for a straightforward install, not a fixed price. On the newer estates here the roofs are generally straightforward; the variables that move the number are roof type, two-storey access and whether the switchboard needs work.

Cameron Park is in STC Zone 3, rating 1.382. In 2026 a 6.6kW system creates 45 certificates, worth roughly $1,710 off the price, and a 10kW system 69 certificates, roughly $2,622. It is a discount applied at the point of sale, not a grant you apply for afterwards, and it depends on capacity and postcode only.

It can, and the useful thing is that there is a published standard for how much. Certified modules are tested by firing ice balls 25mm across at about 23 metres per second at eleven separate points on the panel, including cell centres, edges and corners. To pass, the module must show no visible damage and lose no more than five per cent of its output. There is also a severe-weather class tested with 75mm ice. So an ordinary hailstorm is something panels are explicitly built for; the severe end of Hunter weather is where the question becomes real.

Look at the monitoring before you look at the roof. The damage that matters most is often invisible: hail can leave microcracks in the cells behind glass that is still perfectly intact, and the only sign is output that is quietly lower than it used to be. Compare the week after the storm with comparable weeks before it, allowing for weather. A visual inspection from the ground will reassure you about nothing, and a clean-looking panel is not evidence. If the numbers have moved, that is when to get someone up there.

More than a look. An accredited installer can compare the output of each string against the others, which localises a problem quickly, and carry out electrical tests including insulation resistance that find faults you cannot see. They should also check the mounting — the fixings, rail joints and clamps — because the forces a storm applies to an array are mostly about wind rather than ice. We will do this on a system we did not install, and we would rather tell you nothing is wrong than find you a reason to buy.

No. A wet roof after a storm is one of the more reliable ways to be seriously injured, and the array is live whenever there is daylight on it regardless of what is switched off at the board. If glass is visibly broken, keep people away from the area underneath, do not touch anything, and call someone qualified. The system can wait a day; nothing about it is urgent enough to be worth the alternative.

Usually, and you should confirm it rather than assume it. A rooftop system is typically insured as part of the building rather than as contents, which means the figure that matters is your building sum insured — and it may not have been revised since you added twenty-odd panels and an inverter to the house. Storm cover is standard on most home policies, but the excess and the specific wording are yours to check. Keep the original invoice and the compliance paperwork, because a claim is far easier when you can state exactly what was installed.

The distribution network that owns the poles and wires in your street approves it — not your retailer — and we lodge the application for you. On a flexible export connection, a complying system up to 30kW is automatically approved to export up to 10kW per phase. On a fixed export connection, the approval is 3kW per system. If your home has no reliable internet, exports are limited to a static 1.5kW per system until a connection is available.