- I'm Kash Patridge and I'm the director of KDP Electrical, here in Townsville. We kicked off KDP back in 2004, so been operating 15 years this year. So starting out purely just as electrical play, then adding fibre optics, cabling, comms and solar thereafter. True North as the name, the specialising in solar, that started 2010. So getting, approaching 10 years with the solar game. And now that's pretty much overridden the other parts of the business and probably formulates 60 to 70 percent of our entire business now. So I guess having a company from Townsville, True North Solar installing your solar system, it's not about getting in and installing it as quickly as possible. So we don't care where the system gets installed, we just want to make sure it's in the right spot that's going to produce the most power over a long period. So we're not from out of town, we're not going to come in, slap it up right next to the switchboard, just 'cause we know we can save an hour or two.

So I guess it can be quite alluring to go for a system of say three or four thousand dollars that you might see on TV. Typically there's a lot of strings attached to that installation. It's from a southern company, it's from a sales company, you don't know who the installers are, you'll never see that company again. So I guess operating here in Townsville, we take every installation personally. Sure, you might get charged that few dollars more, but you know it's going to last longer. If you do have any issues, you've got somewhere to come to, and get everything resolved.

As far as sizing a system correctly, for any installation, there's a lot of considerations. The system might be split into two different sides. Some might be facing east, some might be facing west so. A good starting point is looking at someone's power bill. That way we can gauge when they use power and how much they use power. So there's a lot of times we can offset or do some power shifting, especially with a hot water system for instance. So we might install a timer and make sure that comes on during the day, so you get more opportunities to use that power and save more money. Yeah, so generally your return on investment on solar, with the business, the average business out there is paying anywhere from say, 28 cents a kilowatt hour, to 45 cents a kilowatt hour.

So we've had systems as low as a two year, 18 month payback on installation, so it's quite phenomenal. There isn't another investment in the world that you can get that sort of return. So it's quite remarkable. Payback period for your average residential, Mum, Dad, two kids, you're looking at three years. And there may be an extra six months for an LG system, so for the extra money you have to pay to get a high end quality system, you might have to wait another six months to get that money back. But from there on, you've got nothing to worry about. We take a lot of pride in how much power our systems produce, and we want our systems producing more than anyone else. So, it's making sure you do pick the right installer, you want someone that cares about that installation. That way, it's installed properly, it's to the CEC requirements, and you don't have any issues.

- We have chosen them for their electrical services in a high quality environment, for solar, batteries, off-grid. We have seen their work for many, many years and we get a lot of positive customer reviews. We choose our partners specifically for their technical capability and the quality of their work.