Should You Wait for Solar Prices to Drop?

Short answer: probably not. Solar panel hardware has already done most of its falling, and the savings you give up by waiting almost always outweigh the small price drop you might catch. A fully installed 5kW system in New Zealand runs roughly $9,000 to $13,000 in 2025 (around $1.70 to $2.20 per watt), based on current installer pricing and the kind of figures EECA uses in its guidance. The panels themselves are now one of the lowest-cost parts of that number. Meanwhile a typical system saves a household somewhere in the order of $1,500 to $2,500 a year off the power bill, so every year you wait for a hypothetical discount, you are handing that money back to your retailer.

It is a completely fair question to ask. We have all watched the price of solar tumble over the past fifteen years, and nobody wants to be the mug who buys the day before a price crash. So let's deal with it properly: what has actually happened to prices, what is likely to happen next, and what the maths of waiting really looks like when you run it honestly.

Why "prices will keep dropping" feels true (and where it stops being true)

The instinct comes from a real history. The cost of a solar panel has collapsed over the last decade and a bit. That is genuinely true, and it is why solar went from a rich-greenie novelty to a mainstream home upgrade.

But here is the part the headline misses: the panel is no longer the expensive bit. On a modern New Zealand install, the bare panels might be 20 to 30 percent of the total. The rest is the inverter, mounting hardware, cabling, switchgear, scaffolding, the electrician, the certification, and the installer's time and margin.

Those costs are mostly local labour and local compliance, and they do not fall the way Chinese panel factories drove module prices down. If anything, the labour side drifts up with wages. So even if panel prices halve again from here, the effect on your final installed quote is modest, because you are only halving a quarter of the total.

The unique bit nobody tells you

Here is the insight the sales process quietly skips. When panel prices fall, installers do not always pass the full saving on to you. They often hold the retail price steady and improve their margin, or they upgrade you to a bigger or better panel for the same money instead of cutting the bill. So the "panels got cheaper this year" story rarely shows up as a smaller number on your driveway. It usually shows up as more watts for a similar price, which is a different thing entirely. Waiting for the saving to land in your pocket assumes a discount that often never reaches the homeowner.

The real cost of waiting: a worked example

Let's make this concrete with a realistic scenario. Take a four-person household in Hamilton on the WEL Networks patch, with a power bill running about $3,200 a year. They are weighing up a 6kW system at roughly $12,000 installed, which would knock around $1,800 a year off their bill through a mix of self-consumption and buy-back credits.

Say they decide to wait two years for prices to fall. Here is the rough ledger:

• Savings given up: 2 years x $1,800 = $3,600 of bill savings they will never get back.
• Price drop they're hoping for: realistically, installed prices might soften by a few percent, call it $500 to $800 on a $12,000 system, and that is optimistic.
• Power price movement: retail electricity prices have trended up, not down. The Electricity Authority's market data and Stats NZ's consumer price figures both show household power costs rising steadily over the past several years, which actually makes solar more valuable the longer you wait.

So our Hamilton family waits two years, saves maybe $700 on hardware, forgoes $3,600 in bill savings, and walks into a market where power is more expensive than when they started. They are several thousand dollars worse off for waiting. That is the trap in plain numbers.

We run the full version of this maths, including finance and payback periods, over here if you want to see every line: the true cost of going solar in NZ.

What has actually happened to NZ solar prices

Globally, panel manufacturing has kept getting more efficient, and that flowed through to New Zealand for years. But the local installed price has largely flattened out recently rather than continuing to plunge. A few reasons sit behind that:

• Shipping and import costs rose sharply through the early 2020s and have not fully normalised.
• Labour and compliance costs in New Zealand keep climbing. A grid-tied install needs a licensed electrician and lines-company approval, and that is a fixed local cost.
• The exchange rate. Panels and inverters are imported and priced in US dollars, so a weaker New Zealand dollar quietly pushes hardware costs back up even when the factory price is falling. This is the lever most homeowners completely miss: you can be waiting for a panel price drop that gets entirely eaten by the currency.

The upshot is that the era of dramatic annual price falls is largely behind us. We track where the per-watt number actually sits today, and how to read it on a quote, over here: the current cost per watt for NZ solar.

Power prices are the variable that actually matters

This is where the "wait and see" thinking gets it backwards. The single biggest driver of whether solar pays off is not the install price, it is what you would otherwise pay the retailer for power.

New Zealand retail power prices, across Genesis, Mercury, Contact, Meridian and the rest, have been on a long upward march. Stats NZ tracks electricity in the Consumers Price Index, and the trend has been consistently upward for years, with some sharp lifts as wholesale market pressure and network charges feed through.

When power gets more expensive, every kilowatt-hour your panels generate is worth more. So the value of a solar system tends to rise over time, even if the hardware never gets a cent cheaper. Waiting for a lower-priced system while power prices climb is like waiting for a cheaper umbrella while it rains harder.

The technology "wait" is usually a false economy too

The other version of waiting is "I'll hold off until the tech gets better." Batteries, in particular, tempt people into this. And it's true that battery prices have come down and chemistry keeps improving.

But two things are worth sitting with. First, you do not have to wait for batteries to install panels. A grid-tied solar system without a battery is the most cost-effective version of solar in New Zealand right now, and you can add a battery later once they pencil out for your specific household. Most modern inverters are battery-ready.

Second, whether a battery is worth it depends far more on your usage pattern than on next year's technology. We dig into exactly when a battery makes sense and when it is dead money in our wider look at whether solar panels are worth it in NZ.

The self-consumption point most people get wrong

Here is a subtlety that matters more than panel price. Your savings hinge on how much of your own generation you use directly, instead of exporting it for a low buy-back rate. Two identical houses, one with someone home during the day and one empty until 6pm, get wildly different returns from the same system.

That means the smart move is often not "wait for cheaper gear", it is "size the system to your actual daytime usage". A homeowner who waits two years and then over-sizes their system can easily end up worse off than one who bought a right-sized system today. The buy-back rate you get from your retailer is part of this puzzle, and it varies a lot, so it is always worth checking current rates before you sign anything.

When waiting genuinely is the right call

We are on the homeowner's side, so let's be straight: there are real situations where holding off makes sense. Solar is not a yes for everyone, and pretending otherwise would be exactly the sales nonsense we exist to push back on.

Consider waiting, or not bothering at all, if:

• You're planning to move within a couple of years. The payback period on most NZ systems runs well beyond that, and solar does not reliably add its full cost to a sale price. If you'll be gone before it pays back, the maths is shaky.
• Your roof is heavily shaded. A 1950s place in a leafy Dunedin suburb with a big established oak over the north face will generate far less than the brochure figure. Shade is a generation killer, and no future price drop fixes a bad roof.
• Your home is empty all day and you can't shift usage. If nobody's home and you can't run the dishwasher, hot water, or an EV charger during daylight, you'll export most of your generation for a modest buy-back rate, and the return drops.
• You're renting. Obvious, but worth saying. The investment and the savings sit with different people.
• A major reroof is coming. If your roof is due for replacement in the next year or two, do that first. Pulling panels off and refitting them is an avoidable cost.

Notice that none of these are "wait for a lower price". They are about timing the rest of your life, not timing the solar market. That is the honest version of "should I wait".

What about waiting for a subsidy or a scheme?

Some people are holding out for a government rebate, the way other countries run. Be careful basing a decision on this. New Zealand does not currently run a broad household solar purchase subsidy the way some overseas markets do, and you should never reference an overseas scheme as if it applies here.

What does exist is low-interest green lending from several of the main banks, which can make going solar now far more workable than waiting and paying cash later. You can get a quick read on whether you'd qualify using our green finance qualifier.

There was also a period where zero-upfront subscription models were popular, before the best known provider hit trouble. If a no-money-down arrangement is what's really tempting you to wait, it's worth understanding what happened and what the alternatives look like now: zero upfront cost solar and what happened to SolarZero.

How to act smartly instead of waiting

If the maths says "now" for your situation, the way to protect yourself is not to delay, it is to buy well. Here is how to make sure you are not the one being squeezed:

• Get three quotes, properly compared. Prices for the same system vary by thousands between installers. Comparing is how you capture a "discount" today, far more reliably than waiting for the market to deliver one.
• Check the per-watt figure. Divide the total install price by the system size in watts. If you're well above $2.20 per watt for a standard install with no complications, ask why.
• Look at the inverter brand and warranty, not just the panel. The inverter is the component most likely to need replacing first. A low-cost inverter is a false saving.
• Read the warranty clauses carefully. Some installer contracts quietly void the workmanship warranty if anyone but them touches the system, or if you add a battery later through someone else. Know this before you sign.
• Confirm who handles the lines company application. Your install needs approval from your network (Vector in Auckland, Orion in Canterbury, Wellington Electricity in the capital, Aurora in Dunedin and Central Otago, and so on). A good installer manages this for you.
• Size it to your daytime usage, not to your roof. Bigger is not automatically better in New Zealand, because export buy-back rates are modest. Match the system to how and when you actually use power.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will solar panels be cheaper next year?

Possibly a little, but not enough to be worth waiting for. Panel hardware has already done most of its price falling, and panels are now only 20 to 30 percent of an installed system. The labour, compliance and inverter costs that make up the rest are local and steady or rising, so installed prices in New Zealand have largely flattened rather than continuing to plunge.

Are NZ solar prices still dropping?

The dramatic annual falls of the past decade have largely levelled off. Import shipping costs, local labour, lines-company compliance and a weaker New Zealand dollar have all worked against further big drops in the installed price you actually pay. The bare module may keep getting cheaper, but that rarely shows up as a smaller total on your quote.

How much do I lose by waiting a year?

Roughly a year of bill savings, which for a typical household sits around $1,500 to $2,500 depending on system size and usage. Any price drop you might catch in that year is usually a few hundred dollars at most, so the maths of waiting almost always runs against you.

Should I wait for batteries to get cheaper before going solar?

No need to. You can install grid-tied panels now and add a battery later, since most modern inverters are battery-ready. Whether a battery pays off depends far more on your own usage pattern than on next year's prices, so there's no reason to delay the panels themselves while you think the battery decision over.

Does the exchange rate affect what I pay for solar?

Yes, and it's the lever most homeowners overlook. Panels and inverters are imported and priced in US dollars, so a weaker New Zealand dollar pushes hardware costs back up even when factory prices are falling. You can easily be waiting for a panel price drop that the currency quietly cancels out.

Is there a government subsidy I should wait for in NZ?

New Zealand does not currently run a broad household solar purchase subsidy, so basing your timing on a hoped-for rebate is risky. What does exist is low-interest green lending from several major banks, which can make buying now more affordable than waiting and paying cash later.

Will power prices keep rising in New Zealand?

The long-term trend has been upward. Stats NZ tracks electricity within the Consumers Price Index, and household power costs have risen steadily for years. Because rising power prices make every unit your panels generate more valuable, solar tends to become more worthwhile the longer you wait, not less.

What's a fair installed price right now?

In 2025, a standard install with no complications sits roughly between $1.70 and $2.20 per watt fully installed, so a 5kW system lands around $9,000 to $13,000. If a quote sits well above that range without a clear reason like difficult roof access or a premium battery, ask the installer to explain it.

The Bottom Line

Waiting for solar prices to drop made sense ten years ago. Today it mostly means giving up a year or two of real savings in exchange for a discount that may never materialise, all while power prices keep climbing. The smarter move is not to time the market, it is to time your own situation, then buy well by comparing quotes and checking the per-watt number.

If you're still weighing up whether it stacks up for your home at all, start with our honest look at whether solar panels are worth it in NZ, and then run your real figures through the true cost of going solar. Those two together will tell you far more than watching the market ever could.