A system sized to that bill
| System size | 7.2 kW, to cover a $180/month bill |
|---|---|
| Before rebate | $7,173 at $1.00/W |
| STC rebate | −$1,596 (42 certificates) |
| You pay | $5,577 |
| Generates | 8,501 kWh a year |
| Saves in year one | $1,337 |
| Pays for itself in | 4.0 years |
| Over 25 years | $37,180 net |
Assumes a $180/month bill and that you use about 40% of what you generate as you generate it — the rest is exported at 9.3c. A battery shifts that balance, and in Tasmania it shifts it a long way.
Median of current single-rate residential offers and feed-in tariffs, Australian Energy Regulator — Consumer Data Right, Product Reference Data, as at 2026-08-23
Why the rebate shrinks every January
42 certificates at $38 each — 7.2 kW × 1.185 zone rating × 5 years deeming. The scheme closes at the end of 2030, so the deeming period — and the rebate — shrinks every January. Certificate price is market-set and assumed conservatively below the $40 Clearing House ceiling. Installing a year later on the same system costs you roughly $319 in lost rebate.
Computed at build time from the SRES deeming rule · certificates assumed at $38, below the $40 Clearing House ceiling
The only state where a regulator still sets the rate
Tasmania is the exception to everything above. The Tasmanian Economic Regulator sets a regulated feed-in tariff annually, and from 1 July 2026 it is 9.276 c/kWh — a rise driven mainly by higher loss factors and wholesale costs. That is not a benchmark or a suggestion; it is the rate. It is also why the median in our own data lands within a rounding error of it: with effectively one retailer and a regulated price, there is nothing to average. Exports here are worth roughly a third of what power costs to buy, against a national-market norm nearer a twentieth.
Sources: Office of the Tasmanian Economic Regulator — feed-in tariffs · Aurora Energy — how the solar feed-in rate is set
What's different about Tasmania
There is no retail market here to shop
Every residential offer in this dataset comes from one retailer, Aurora Energy. Comparing plans is not the lever it is on the mainland, so the saving has to come from using less and generating your own — which is the whole case for solar here.
Flat rates still dominate here
Only 2 of 12 offers are time-of-use, so the single-rate median below describes most households rather than a shrinking minority. Every kilowatt-hour you avoid buying is worth the same, whatever hour you avoid it in.
One solar zone, so this figure holds statewide
Unlike most of the country, Tasmania sits entirely inside STC zone 4. There is no regional postcode that earns more certificates than Hobart, and none that earns fewer — the rebate below is the rebate anywhere here.
The least sun of the six — and it matters less than you would think
At 1,185 kWh per kW a year this is the weakest solar resource on the national market. It still pays back, because what decides payback is the price of the power you stop buying, not the amount of sun falling on the roof. A dear state with modest sun beats a cheap state with plenty of it.
The best export deal of the six states
Exports are worth 37% of retail here — comfortably the highest on the national market, where the average is a few percent. The usual Australian advice to size a system to your daytime use applies less strictly here than anywhere else.
The market here
These figures are medians across 10 single-rate residential offers from 1 retailers, with 2 time-of-use offers set aside as not comparable. Hobart sits in STC zone 4.
The retailers whose current offers feed these figures are Aurora Energy. That is who is actually selling power to households here this week — not a list of every licensed retailer, and not the same list as the state next door.
The honest verdict on Tasmania
The least sun of the six and comfortably the best export deal in the country, which makes Tasmania the one state where the usual Australian advice — size to your daytime use, ignore exports — applies least. A regulated rate worth about a third of retail means a kilowatt-hour you sell is not a wasted one. Against that, there is no retail market to shop: one retailer, a regulated price, and therefore nothing to gain from switching. What you save, you save by generating.
The other states
Compare every state side by side →
Where these numbers come from
- Power price — Median usage rate across 10 single-rate residential market offers from 1 retailers. Time-of-use offers are excluded — they are not comparable to a flat rate without a household load profile. (measured, as at 2026-08-23)
- Feed-in tariff — Median flat solar feed-in rate across 12 residential market offers. Time-varying feed-in tariffs are excluded. (measured, as at 2026-08-23)
- Solar yield — Clean Energy Regulator STC zone 4 rating (1.185 MWh/kW/yr) for Hobart, postcode 7000. A deemed radiation-based figure used to calculate certificate entitlements, not a measured or simulated output. (modelled, as at 2020-01-01)
How every one of these numbers is worked out →
Sources: Australian Energy Regulator — Consumer Data Right, Product Reference Data, Clean Energy Regulator — postcode zone ratings for solar PV systems.