From solar generation to smarter energy savings
For many households, solar is no longer just about generating electricity, it’s about getting the most value from every kilowatt produced.
With feed in tariffs continuing to decline, the real value of solar now comes from maximising self consumption. The smarter approach is to use more of your solar energy within the home, especially on the appliances that consume the most power.
One of the biggest opportunities? A solar optimised heat pump for your hot water.
Hot water typically accounts for around 25–30% of a household’s total energy usage, making it one of the largest ongoing energy costs in the home. Yet many homes still rely on outdated systems that consume large amounts of electricity or gas every day.
If you are installing solar and not addressing hot water at the same time, you are leaving significant savings and system optimisation on the table.
Traditional hot water is an energy drain
Most homes are still running inefficient hot water systems:
Gas hot water: 12 kWh per day equivalent energy use
Electric resistance systems: 8 kWh per day
These systems either burn energy continuously (gas storage systems), or use large amounts of electricity in short bursts (electric tanks). They rarely align with solar generation.
That means:
- Solar is exported at low feed-in tariffs
- Energy is bought back later at peak rates
- Household running costs remain unnecessarily high
In other words, your home may be generating clean solar energy during the day that it is not using while still relying heavily on expensive grid energy at night.
Heat Pumps: A smarter way to heat water
Heat pumps completely change the way hot water works within a modern energy-efficient home.
Rather than generating heat through resistive elements, they transfer ambient heat from the air, delivering significantly higher efficiency and transforming hot water into a flexible, solar-aligned load.
The result:
- Typically 3 to 4 times more efficient than conventional electric storage systems
- Capable of reducing energy consumption by up to 80 percent, with the potential to optimise to 100% reduction in operating cost when optimised with solar
A heat pump can reduce this to approximately 1 kW per day, representing an immediate and measurable reduction in household energy demand, while creating an ideal opportunity to absorb excess solar generation.
With a solar optimised heat pump, the operating cost of hot water can become incredibly low, in some cases approaching zero.
Heat why solar optimised heat pumps are an important asset
Heat pumps are one of the few major household appliances that can be intelligently timed to operate during peak solar generation hours, making them uniquely suited to maximise the value of solar generation.
This means your home can:
- Use more of the solar energy it produces
- Reduce reliance on grid electricity
- Store excess solar energy as hot water for later use
- Improve overall solar system efficiency
Heat pumps already operate at a fraction of the cost of conventional systems, and when powered by solar, the marginal cost of hot water can approach zero.
Given hot water typically accounts for 25–30% of household energy use, this creates immediate, visible savings for customers and significantly shortens payback periods.
Taking it further: Intelligent optimisation with Solar Soaker
The real value is unlocked when solar is not just installed, but actively optimised.
Emerald’s Solar Soaker technology helps maximise self-consumption by intelligently directing excess solar energy to controllable household loads such as:
- Emerald Heat pumps
- Air conditioning systems (via AC Link where applicable)
By automatically detecting surplus solar generation and prioritising appliance operation during these periods, Solar Soaker helps ensure more of your solar energy is used within the home instead of being exported at low value.
The benefits include:
- Higher solar self-consumption
- Lower grid reliance
- Reduced running costs
- Fully automated energy optimisation
- Improved whole-home energy efficiency