Is an All-Electric Home Worth It?

Billy and Tosca were on the the first 60 householders in the Electrify 2515 Community Pilot. Their toddler has asthma, so it was important to them to stop burning gas in the house. Once they started to replace the old gas appliances with efficient electric ones, they began to see the economic benefits of using solar and a battery to run their newly electrified home.

“I reckon this year we will probably save about $2000 a year on our electricity bill, so the investment that we've made is being paid off and much quicker than we thought.”

Billy: “Being part of the electrified 2515 program has been great for me and my family.”

Tosca: “We already knew we needed to get gas out of our home because our kid sort of had some early asthma signs and, we knew that having gas in our homes could exacerbate his asthma. He's 2.5. When we found out about the pilot, it kind of gave us a little bit of an extra push to go further and to get a battery and get solar panels, and electrify the house.”

Billy: “We removed the old gas hot water system and put in a great new electric heat pump, that's much more efficient, it's really quiet to run, and it runs off of the solar that we also put in, and we added a battery on with that. They are amazing. We run our house for free in the middle of summer, with aircon on, with an induction stove, with electric hot water, all the time.”

Tosca: “So much of the motivation was economical around reducing our costs ongoing and we're seeing that every day, not only saving money but often making money from the grid on a really sunny day.

Billy: “It sort of opened me up to a world of new information. There's so much great technology out there, and now you can see how much energy you're using, how much energy you're saving, and how much we're making when we feed it back in and watching that battery tick up throughout the morning is great cause you know it's free from then on in.

“Last year we probably spent between $2500 and $3000 annually on our electricity bill. I reckon this year we will probably save about $2000 a year on our electricity bill, so the investment that we've made is being paid off and much quicker than we thought, which is really exciting.”

Tosca: “It's just been a no-brainer the whole time. It increased our comfort levels in our own home, we're paying less for our energy bills, and we feel more connected to the community as being part of the pilot.”