Auckland is Thermalay’s biggest market by population, but it isn’t the sunniest region we serve – Auckland averages around 2,122 sunshine hours a year, slightly behind both Waikato and Northland. What Auckland has instead is density and grid reliability, which changes the calculation: most Auckland installs are grid-tied hybrid systems – solar plus battery, still connected to the grid – rather than fully off-grid.
The exception is the city fringe: lifestyle blocks and baches around Franklin, Rodney and the Gulf islands see genuine off-grid demand, for the same reasons as our rural customers elsewhere – distance from the network, high connection costs, or simply wanting to be independent of it.
Auckland Council also runs a low-interest home retrofit loan scheme that can apply to solar installs – worth checking current terms before you budget a system.
Average household power bill in the Auckland region currently runs around $2,450/year (Electricity Authority regional data).