Being able to maintain power during local outages has given Tairua homeowner Bennet Gage-Brown peace of mind, particularly during and after this year’s summer storms.

Bennet said making the move to a solar energy system meant he wasn’t even aware that power was out across Tairua.

Bennet said once the internet came back on, he was able to check the battery level which was reassuring and seeing the battery back to fully-charged after a sunny day was comforting heading to bed.

He ended up lending his back-up diesel power generator to a friend in town who owned shops to keep their goods frozen during the outage because he didn’t need it.

He said being able to see details around his smart battery usage during the outage was helpful. He could understand how his family used their power and how he could extend the battery life.

“It makes you think twice about what power you use when you only have a limited amount of it.”

Bennet said the decision to get solar from SolarZero was driven by a friend’s recommendation who found their subscription option to be affordable and the solar panels and battery were easily installed when he rewired after a recent renovation.

“Friends in Hamilton got it installed and said to us how cheap the overall package was, then we got into it.”

Bennet said he liked that they didn’t own the solar energy system, instead solarZero would maintain and keep the system up-to-date with technological advances on his behalf.

Learn how to combat power outages and save on your energy bills with our solar subscription here.