The Poor Man Pays Twice: Why Cheap Solar Costs More

The old saying goes that the poor man pays twice — he buys the cheap boots, and then he buys them again. Rooftop solar is one of the purest examples of that idea you will find, because a solar system isn’t really a product. It’s a 20-year relationship with a piece of electrical equipment bolted to your roof, and with whoever installed it.

This is a free community guide written by a Tasmanian solar team, not a government page and not a sales pitch. What follows is our honest reading of the evidence, so you can judge the quotes in front of you yourself.

What actually fails first on a solar system?

The inverter. SolarQuotes’ Good Solar Guide describes it as the component most likely to fail in the first 10 to 15 years — panels tend to sit there quietly for decades, while the inverter is the one doing hard electrical work every single day.

The research backs that up. A Bern University of Applied Sciences study of 2,121 inverters found 65% had no yield-relevant fault by year 15 — which also means roughly a third did. CHOICE advises an inverter should ideally last 10 years or more, yet typical inverter warranties run just five years. That gap between “how long it should last” and “how long it’s covered” is where cheap quotes live.

So when you compare two quotes, you’re not really comparing panels. You’re comparing the odds of a dead inverter in year seven, and who will be around to deal with it.

What does a failed inverter actually cost to fix?

Replacing a failed, out-of-warranty central inverter costs at least $1,200 according to SolarQuotes — and the whole system is offline until it’s fixed. No generation, no self-consumption savings, nothing, while you keep paying full retail for every kilowatt-hour.

Now put that next to the price difference. SolarQuotes puts the gap between a premium and a budget inverter at only about $700 to $1,000 per system. That’s the maths behind the title of this article: the cheapest quote can save you a few hundred dollars today and hand you a four-figure repair bill plus weeks of lost generation later.

What happens if my installer has gone broke by then?

This is the bigger risk, and it’s not rare. Analysis of ASIC notices commissioned by LG Solar counted more than 600 solar companies liquidated or deregistered between 2011 and early 2019, with the Consumer Action Law Centre estimating around 650,000 “solar orphans” — households whose installer no longer exists. CHOICE reported a similar figure in 2018, and it was still being cited in 2026. There’s no official count; treat it as an industry estimate.

It still happens. The ABC reported on 30 September 2026 that a Sydney installer founded in 2015 had gone into liquidation. Eight customers told the ABC they feared losing deposits of $1,500 to $17,600 for systems never installed. The company had charged some customers 50% upfront — NSW home-building law limits deposits to 10% — and NSW’s Building Commission was investigating after more than 100 complaints, having previously fined the company $4,000 over an excessive deposit and missing insurance cover. The liquidator’s report showed almost $3.4 million owed to more than 79 unsecured creditors and over $420,000 owed to 16 former employees. The ACCC confirmed it has several investigations under way into solar and battery installers’ sales practices.

Who honours my warranty if the company has closed?

Your rights under the Australian Consumer Law are automatic consumer guarantees — they can’t be excluded, they have no fixed time limit, and a seller can’t simply fob you off to the manufacturer. That protection is real and it’s strong. The practical problem is that it’s only as useful as the business standing behind it.

Here’s how it generally shakes out:

Workmanship warranty (usually around five years) — this sits with the installer. If they’ve closed, it’s typically lost.
Product warranties — these sit with the manufacturer or its Australian importer, so they can often survive the installer’s collapse.
If the company has collapsed entirely — CHOICE notes customers may simply be unsecured creditors, with no practical free-repair path.

Which leads to the single most useful filing job you can do: keep the brand, model and serial numbers of your panels and inverter, plus every warranty document, invoice and the installation certificate. Put them somewhere you’ll find them in 2034.

What are the warning signs of a cheap solar deal?

energy.gov.au advises being cautious of cold callers, door-knockers, and cheap, heavily advertised or telemarketed solar deals. If someone is spending that much on getting to you, that cost is in the price — and it usually comes out of the equipment or the install.

What to compare	How the cheapest quote often looks	What’s worth paying for
Inverter warranty	5 years, unfamiliar brand	10+ years cover, in line with CHOICE’s advice on expected life
Roof design	A generic layout reused from the last job	A real panel plan for your roof, pitch and shading
Sizing	Whatever fits the advertised price	Headroom for an EV, heat pump or induction later
Deposit	Large percentage upfront	A modest deposit, clearly documented
Who comes back	A crew passing through	A local business with a service history
Paperwork	Thin	Serials, certificates, warranty terms in writing

Does this matter more in Tasmania?

Arguably yes, because of where Tasmanian savings come from. With Aurora Energy’s regulated feed-in tariff sitting at 9.276 c/kWh from 1 July 2026 (up from about 8.8c) against a retail import price of roughly 28–30 c/kWh, the value is overwhelmingly in self-consumption — using your own power rather than exporting it.

That means every day your system is dead is a day you’re buying power at the expensive end instead. It also means design matters more than a headline price. On Tariff 93 — the time-of-use tariff every new or upgraded residential connection has been assigned to since 1 July 2024, with peaks on weekdays 7–10am and 4–9pm (8–11am and 5–10pm in daylight saving) — a system designed around your actual household pattern behaves very differently to one sized to hit an advertised number.

A sensible, future-proof default for most Tasmanian homes heading toward an EV, heat pump or induction cooktop is around 13kW of panels on a 10kW inverter, using the 133% oversizing rule. TasNetworks allows a 10kW single-phase inverter here, so most homes don’t need three-phase. If your usage is genuinely low and you have no electrification plans, a smaller system may suit you better — and a good installer will tell you that.

The practical takeaway

Get three quotes, then do one thing most people skip: write down the inverter brand, model and warranty term from each, and ask each company how long they’ve been trading under that name and who attends a fault in year eight. The quotes will stop looking equivalent very quickly.

Paying once for quality usually costs less than paying twice for cheap. That’s a judgement, not a promise — but it’s the one the evidence above supports.

This guide is written by the Tasmanian solar team at Solar Generation Tasmania, who are always happy to answer a question from a fellow Tasmanian trying to make sense of their quotes.

#solargentas #solargen #solargenerationtasmania

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