After 12 days, I am finally starting to feel as though I am recovering from the nasty respiratory infection which has laid me low. However, there has been a bit of action on the home front.

When we first contemplating selling our previous home we realised that we we be giving up a degree of self-reliance which we had developed over a number of years. We depended entirely on rainwater collected on our property as well as having solar hot water, solar panels and a battery system, although we were not completely off-grid.

As we began our search for a new home, we initially were looking for a property with existing solar panels. However, we soon realised that a home with a suitable orientation would provide us with the opportunity to take advantage of the most up-to-date technology in solar panels and batteries.

Once we had signed the contract of purchase we set about making enquiries regarding the most suitable system for our circumstances.

This week our 8.3 kW system with battery was installed.

This is the very compact modular battery and inverter located near the meter box.

The panels are evenly divided between the east and west facing portions of the roof. They are barely visible from ground level but I managed this glimpse from the corner of the backyard.

Even though it is only 3 weeks from the winter solstice there has been enough weak sunshine each day to fully charge the battery each day. We are still connected to the grid but we are reasonably confident that we will be able to cover our electricity usage for a fair percentage of the year.

There was an existing solar hot water system when we bought the house so our next step is to work out what rainwater storage we may be able to install. The average rainfall is much less here than we have been used to but there is definitely an opportunity to harvest at least some of the rain for use in the garden over the hot, dry summer months.