Solar panels in Mittagong

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 2575 already taken off. Those are typical figures for a straightforward install, not a fixed price. On larger Highlands blocks the usual additions are a long cable run to a second building and, on older houses, a switchboard upgrade — both belong in the written quote rather than on the day.

No, and this is the most common assumption we have to correct. Mittagong is in STC Zone 3, rating 1.382 — the same zone and the same rating as Sydney. In 2026 a 6.6kW system here creates 45 certificates worth roughly $1,710, and a 10kW system 69 certificates, roughly $2,622 — the same 45 certificates a 6.6kW system creates in Narellan. The certificate calculation uses capacity and postcode zone only; it knows nothing about altitude, fog or how cold your winter is.

Yes, and the annual total is better than people here expect. What is genuinely different is the shape of the year. Mittagong sits about 635 metres above sea level with frost and valley fog through winter, so there is a wider gap between a December day and a June day than there is on the coast. The system still pays; it just earns most of it in the warmer half of the year, and that is a reason to size carefully rather than a reason to hesitate.

Better than they do in the heat, which surprises most people. A panel is rated at a 25°C cell temperature and a typical modern panel loses roughly 0.3% of its output for every degree above that — which is why a black roof in western Sydney in February costs you output. Below 25°C the relationship runs the other way, so a cold clear Highlands day can push instantaneous output above the nameplate figure. Temperature is not what costs you in a Highlands winter.

Daylight. Shorter days, a lower sun angle, and fog that can sit in the valleys until mid-morning. That is where the winter shortfall comes from, and no equipment choice removes it — not better panels, not microinverters, not a bigger inverter. What you can do is favour it in the design: north-facing panels and a steeper pitch capture more of a low winter sun than a flat array spread east and west, if your roof gives you that choice.

Occasional light falls are a lost day of production rather than a problem. A tilted array is smooth and dark, so snow slides or melts clear quickly, and frost burns off with the first sun. Panels and their mounting are engineered here for wind, the same as everywhere else in the state. The only practical effect we plan around is on install day, when a frosted roof moves a start time by a couple of hours.

On a full year of consumption and on how much of it you can actually use during daylight — not on a single good day, and not on a quarterly bill that happened to land in summer. The question that matters more here than anywhere else we work is how you heat the house. A reverse-cycle unit run during the day to get ahead of the evening is a load solar reaches; the same unit at seven on a June evening is not. Give us twelve months of bills and we will size against them.

A battery shifts a day, not a season — this is the honest answer and it is not the one that sells the most storage. On a mild March day your system makes a surplus, the battery holds it, and you use it that evening: that works. In July the system makes less, the house wants more, and there is no surplus to store; a battery cannot manufacture energy that was never generated. Batteries are worth buying here for the same reasons they are worth buying anywhere — self-consumption, and backup if you want it — but not as a fix for a seasonal shortfall.

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. On rural blocks the connection detail worth settling early is the run to a shed, a pump or a second dwelling, because that is sized and priced before install day rather than on it.