We’re here to simplify the solar industry! 

Local Bunch was founded with a simple idea. Make the solar industry simple and give power back to the consumer. Providing well-researched information that readers could trust and recommend to friends and family.

We do this because, like you, we wrestled with the idea of adding solar panels to our homes.

Through it all, we discovered that the solar industry is muddled with so much jargon, it was discouraging. And, when we finally got to a level where we were ready to invest, we found it even harder to find trustworthy installers. 

Since then, Local Bunch has grown to become a popular website with a variety of guides, blog posts, videos, and tools to help people navigate the solar, battery, and EV charger market.  

How we got here:

It started when we, Chris and Bec, grew tired of the rising energy prices. Here in Perth, the prices have gone up by 30% between 2003 to 2013 alone. This year, prices are set to increase by another 13% despite the government’s best efforts. 

You see, we love the outdoors but we spent so much of what we had on utilities that we didn’t get to go on adventures as much as we wanted to. 

That longing for freedom is what made us consider adding solar panels to our home. 

Lo and behold, it didn’t take long before we ran into problems. 

Bec and I didn’t start as “experts” in solar power. No, we had very different careers back then. I worked offshore in the oil and gas industry; Bec worked in a women’s refuge.

Needless to say, at that time, we hardly understood the words and numbers we were seeing. It was discouraging, to say the least. We were almost ready to give it all up to find other ways to save money. 

Enter Kevin. He’s Bec’s dad, an experienced electrical engineer, and a genius Solar inventor.

Kevin has 40+ years of experience as an electrical engineer. Super impressive but, trust us, that’s not even the best part about him. He’s a mad inventor, too! 

In fact, he created a super-efficient inverter that helped the grid and other commercial projects manage huge amounts of renewable energy. 

Despite spending decades of his life in electrical engineering, though, Kevin’s true and lifelong passion has been solar. He’s so passionate about it that, just recently, he invented a solar battery that’s more efficient than even Tesla’s very own. 

Kevin was — and still is — a big part of our solar journey. He dumbed down everything that we couldn’t understand. And, to this day, I believe he explained it so well that even a 12-year-old would get it. 

Without Kevin, we probably would have never gone through with installing solar panels, nor would we have the confidence to share what has now also become our mission to simplify the solar industry. 

Our next problem was finding an installer. 

As it turned out, finding one that we can trust to do a remarkable job while giving us a fair price wasn’t that easy. 

The more we talked to other owners of solar systems, the clearer it got that most of their problems were rooted from poor workmanship. So, if we were to get our money’s worth, we had to be picky. 

After a few weeks of calling and meeting with installers, we eventually found one that we could trust. It has been 5 years since we had our solar panels installed and so far, it’s been nothing but good. 

The gruelling process of us getting our own system up and running opened our eyes to just how complicated the solar industry is. We’re on a mission to change all that. 

Local Bunch is here to help you understand all there is to know about solar power. 

Our team makes easy-to-understand articles that are all about solar systems. We try our best to not flood our articles with jargon while still giving you all the information that you need. 

We do this because, as Australians, we live in the best continent for harnessing solar energy and we want more of us to benefit from this. 

According to Geoscience Australia, Oz has the highest solar radiation per square metre compared to all of the world’s continents. We get 58 million petajoules of radiation which is 10,000 times more than we consume. 

Sadly, we have all that potential power but it only accounts for 0.1% of our total consumption. We can’t take that number higher without more of us installing solar panels – which brings us to the next half of our service. 

Local Bunch has a network of pre-vetted installers that YOU can trust. 

Simplifying solar slang only solves one problem. We solve the next problem – finding trustworthy installers – by offering you multiple options when you’re ready to take the leap. 

Right away, we can get you 3 quotes from 3 different installers. We’ve already screened them for you but giving you multiple options gives you the power to choose which one you think is best. 

Full disclaimer, though, we get a small payout if you choose to hire any of the installers in our network. That being said, we fully trust our people. Before we even have them as part of our network, we check: 

• If they’re CEC accredited. This is to make sure that you enjoy all of the government’s incentives as well as top-tier installation. 
• If they have a good reputation. CEC-accredited installers are skilled but we also want our circle to be filled with good people.