A roof full of panels, a big battery, and no power bill ever again. The Conduction Company installs solar and battery systems across Auckland, and this is the honest version: what running a house on solar alone takes, and when going fully off grid is the right call.
The short answer. For most Auckland homes, no, and The Conduction Company would not set one up that way. A family house can get most of its power from solar and a battery, but the grid stays as the fallback, and keeping it lets the system be smaller and cheaper. Fully off grid suits remote rural sites far from the network.
Can a normal Auckland house run on solar alone?
Not really, and not in a way The Conduction Company would recommend. With a very large roof and a lot of battery it can be made to work, but for a standard family home the grid stays connected. Even when the house barely draws from it, the grid is the fallback if the solar system is ever out of action. Nobody wants to lose all their power because one part has failed.
The government's energy agency lands in the same place. EECA's guide to planning a home solar system says: "For most homes, it's more cost effective to maintain a grid connection, unless you live somewhere where the connection needs to be established."
Why stay connected to the grid even with a battery?
Because the grid lets you buy a smaller system. Staying connected means The Conduction Company can size the panels and battery much smaller, which saves a lot of installation cost up front and leaves a low ongoing bill. It also gives you room to move. Say three people live comfortably on solar. Host a family gathering and the load jumps, and the grid quietly supplies the extra. Off grid, that whole evening comes out of the battery.
What a grid-connected system does in a power cut is its own question, and The Conduction Company answers it in how solar power works for a New Zealand home .
What does going genuinely off grid involve?
A much bigger battery, a lot more panels, and a design built around your worst week, not your average day. For an off-grid home, The Conduction Company usually installs a stack of battery modules joined to a large solar array, sized from your expected daily use and your peak use so the house never runs out. Its preferred battery is Sigenergy's SigenStor, because it is modular: if you need more storage later, more modules go on the stack fairly simply.
The battery has to carry the house through several overcast days in a row. What you do not want is a five-day stretch of bad weather and a flat battery because the heaters ran hard all week.
The standards call an off-grid system a stand-alone power system, and it is built to a different standard. Under regulation 60 of the Electricity (Safety) Regulations 2010, a stand-alone system must also meet AS/NZS 4509.1, where a grid-connected one is installed to AS/NZS 4777.1. Like every solar system, it is high-risk electrical work under regulation 6A, so it is not complete until it has a certificate of compliance and a record of inspection (regulation 65). At The Conduction Company, Jordan Statham, its registered electrical inspector, inspects off-grid systems in-house, on work he did not carry out, supervise, or certify himself. Where he did, an outside inspector does it.
What does an Auckland winter do to it?
It cuts your supply when you need it most. The sun sits lower and the days are shorter, so far less solar energy reaches the panels. The Conduction Company sizes an off-grid system on winter supply, set against how much power you use, when you use it, and how much battery storage you have. The design standard for stand-alone systems, AS/NZS 4509.2, has a name for that month: the "worst month", "the month for which the energy available from renewable energy generators is lowest in comparison to the load for that month".
How big a battery does a family need to get through the night?
Less than you might think, if cooking and hot water run on gas. The Conduction Company's worked example: a family drawing about 4 amps through the night at 230 volts is using 920 watts. Over 12 hours that is about 11 kWh, enough for lights, TVs, the odd kettle, standby overnight, and the morning before the sun is back on the panels.
A 12 kWh battery covers that night with a little to spare. Sigenergy's modules come in 5.2, 6.0, 7.8, and 9.0 kWh of usable storage, up to six on one controller, so two 6 kWh modules give exactly 12 kWh. Off grid, The Conduction Company oversizes so you never run out: two 9 kWh modules for 18 kWh, and another on top if the house is shaded or sits under hills. After four overcast days in a row, it is that extra capacity that keeps the lights on.
What drains a battery fastest at night?
Anything that makes heat. A plug-in fan heater is resistive heating and pulls a lot of power from the wall. Electric hobs, induction included, draw a large amount while they are on. Heat pumps are far more efficient, but they are still high-draw appliances, especially ones heating the whole house. TVs and LED lights barely register; they are background load. In The Conduction Company's experience, heating is what decides the battery size.
Can I go off grid with a 10kW solar system?
First, ten of what? Panels are rated in kW, the inverter (the unit that turns solar power into household power) is rated in kW, and the battery is rated in kWh, the energy it stores. Jordan Statham, director of The Conduction Company, answers it as a 10 kW inverter.
For a small household with gas appliances, no EV charging, and a large battery, a 10 kW system will likely take it off grid. Add several high-draw appliances, or an EV charger, and 10 kW probably will not cover everything. There The Conduction Company recommends staying connected to the grid.
The EV is the big one. Most system sizes run a heat pump and hot water at the same time without trouble. A 32 amp home EV charger adds about 7.4 kW on its own, so running all three together takes a very large system, a very large roof, and a massive battery.
Why is a generator part of most off-grid setups?
It is the third supply, after the panels and the battery. The Conduction Company might size a system to run the whole house through five overcast winter days, and then a seven-day grey stretch arrives.
"You can have a stretch of seven days of just overcast weather. It does happen." Jordan Statham, director of The Conduction Company and a registered electrical inspector.
When the battery runs low and the panels are not keeping up, the generator tops it back up until the next sunny day. The Conduction Company fits them with automatic start and an automatic transfer switch, so it starts when it is needed, runs until the battery and panels can carry the house again, then shuts itself down. In New Zealand the generator is installed to AS/NZS 3010, the standard AS/NZS 4509.1 points to for generating sets. The same team handles standby generator installation in Auckland for grid-connected homes too.
What does off grid cost compared with staying connected?
We quote on facts, not guesses. Before we give you a price, we carry out a proper assessment of your property and how you'll use your solar and battery system. That way you know exactly what you're buying and the total cost, with no surprises. Clear expectations from the outset, start to finish.
The estimates below are for standard installation of an off-grid solar and battery system. The Conduction Company confirms final pricing after a property assessment.
Off grid against grid connected. The Conduction Company allows for at least double the cost of a grid-connected system, comparing both including GST. The panels and the battery are the main cost, and both have to be sized up a long way to take a house fully off grid. What a grid-connected system costs is in The Conduction Company's guide to solar panel cost, size, and payback in Auckland .
Where the sums flip. A house a long way from the street is different. Getting power there can mean heavy aluminium cable down a long farm lane from the point of supply (where the network's cable ends and yours begins), plus Vector's charges if the network has to be extended, and some rural sites need their own transformer. Jordan Statham's illustration: say all of that would cost $20,000 including GST. Then The Conduction Company would look seriously at a full off-grid package, because you skip the cable run and stop paying power bills. That figure is an example, not a cut-off; every site is worked out on its own numbers.
Who should go off grid, and who should not?
Off grid suits remote, rural sites. If the house sits a long way down a farm track from the point of supply, with no cabling in place, The Conduction Company sees off grid as ideal: the money that would have gone into cable goes into the solar system instead, for the same or a little more, and the power bills stop. It suits households that use little power, cook and heat water on gas, and have no EV.
A small bach in a developed area is the opposite. The point of supply is very likely close by, and if the house is less than about 20 metres from it, the cable is a simple job. Vector's charges for a new connection still come to a few thousand dollars, but grid connection usually makes sense there. From southern Papakura through Pukekohe and Waiuku the network is Counties Energy, not Vector, with its own charges.
Jordan Statham has put in off-grid systems for rural clients of The Conduction Company, and they have worked really well. Those clients still call the team back to check the system, update firmware, and clean the panels, and they like showing friends on the app how little the generator has had to run. The Conduction Company sizes every off-grid system from a full assessment, never a rule of thumb, as part of its solar power and battery installation in Auckland .
What does disconnecting from Vector involve?
It is a paid, permanent step, and The Conduction Company's advice is not to take it lightly, because getting the grid back later costs far more than leaving it. Here is how it works on Vector's network, from The Conduction Company's check of Vector's published pages in October 2026.
The fee. Vector charges $795 including GST to permanently disconnect a home at a pillar or service pit. It has charged since 22 April 2026; before that it was free.
What Vector does. It makes the supply safe at its connection point at your boundary or pole, and removes none of its own equipment. Taking away a pole or pillar is a separate, paid request, and the line on your own property is yours.
The meter. Your power company, not Vector, takes the final meter reading and arranges for the meter to go back to the company that owns it. That is a separate fee: $130 to $169 including GST for an urban home at Mercury, Meridian, or Contact.
Getting it back. A permanent disconnection retires your connection for good, and leaving the lines up does not keep it. Getting power back later means applying for a brand new connection, even if Vector's pit or pillar is still at your boundary. Vector's published charges for a new home connection, from 1 April 2026, start with a $300 assessment fee and a $3,193 development contribution for a standard single-phase home, both including GST, before the connection work itself, which Vector prices per job. A simple new connection usually takes six to eight weeks.
If you, or a future owner, might want the grid back, talk to us first, and ask your power company whether a retailer disconnection suits you better. That keeps the connection on the books, and reconnecting costs $14 to $220 including GST at Mercury, Meridian, or Contact. There are two catches. Once a house has been off for more than six months, regulation 74 of the Electricity (Safety) Regulations 2010 requires a certificate that the installation is suitable for continued use before the power goes back on. And Vector's contract with power companies lets it retire a connection that has gone six months or more without supply, so a switched-off connection is not guaranteed to stay available. The Conduction Company can lodge a permanent disconnection request with Vector and tell you exactly what to arrange with your power company.
In short
Most Auckland houses are better off keeping the grid, even with a big battery, because the connection is the fallback and it lets the solar system be smaller and cheaper. Going fully off grid means sizing the panels and battery for winter, adding a self-starting generator for long grey spells, and allowing at least double the cost of a grid-connected system. That is The Conduction Company's view, from Jordan Statham's work as an installer and inspector, and it changes on remote rural sites where getting the grid to the house would cost a lot. Disconnecting from Vector costs $795 including GST and is permanent, and getting the grid back later means paying for a brand new connection.
Frequently asked questions
How long will a 10 kWh battery last?
It depends on what is running. In The Conduction Company's worked example, a household drawing about 4 amps at 230 volts uses 920 watts, so 10 kWh of usable storage lasts roughly 11 hours. Heating is what shortens it: a fan heater, an electric hob, or a heat pump draws far more than lights and TVs.
Do I need a generator if I go off grid?
The Conduction Company includes one on most off-grid setups. A system might be sized for five overcast winter days, and a seven-day grey stretch does happen. A generator with automatic start and an automatic transfer switch tops the battery up when it runs low, then shuts itself down once the battery and the panels can carry the house again.
Which appliances are hardest to run on solar alone?
Anything that makes heat, and an EV charger. In The Conduction Company's experience, plug-in fan heaters, electric hobs, and heat pumps heating the whole house drain a battery fastest at night. A 32 amp home EV charger adds about 7.4 kW on its own, so running it with a heat pump and hot water takes a very large system.
Can I keep the power lines in case I want the grid back?
You can, but it does not keep the connection. A permanent disconnection retires the connection for good, and getting the grid back means applying for a brand new connection, even if Vector's pit or pillar is still at your boundary. Vector's published charges for that start with a $300 assessment fee and a $3,193 development contribution, both including GST, before the connection work. If there is any chance you will want it back, The Conduction Company suggests asking your power company whether a retailer disconnection, which keeps the connection in place, suits you better.
Does an off-grid solar system need to be inspected?
Yes. Under the Electricity (Safety) Regulations 2010, installing a photovoltaic system is high-risk electrical work, so it needs a certificate of compliance and a record of inspection before it counts as complete. An off-grid system must also meet AS/NZS 4509.1, the standard for stand-alone power systems. The Conduction Company certifies every system it installs. Jordan Statham, its registered electrical inspector, inspects off-grid systems in-house, on work he did not carry out, supervise, or certify himself. Where he did, an outside inspector does it.
