Full Home Electrification in the Northern Rivers: The Order to Do It, From the Switchboard to Getting Off Gas

Written and checked by our licensed electricians: November 2026

On this page: The short answer · The order to electrify, at a glance · Step 1: the whole-house plan and the switchboard · Step 2: solar sized for the electric home · Step 3: the battery · Step 4: hot water · Step 5: cooking · Step 6: heating and cooling · Step 7: the EV charger · Step 8: the gas comes off last · How much load going all-electric adds · Northern Rivers specifics · Rebates and finance · Your electrification checklist · Who does what · Questions we get asked

The order to electrify, at a glance

1. Plan the whole house and check the switchboard: One plan, one board upgrade, spare circuits for everything still to come.
2. Solar sized for the electric loads: Size the roof for the house you are heading to, not this year’s bill.
3. The home battery: Carries the evening cooking and heating, and the house in a blackout.
4. Hot water heat pump: Usually the biggest gas load and the easiest win; runs at midday on solar.
5. Induction cooking: A dedicated circuit, the right pans, and the bottle-run ends.
6. Reverse-cycle heating and cooling: Replaces the gas heater and cools in summer.
7. EV charger: Charges from the roof by day and the battery or off-peak by night.
8. Gas off: Disconnect last, once everything electric is working.

Why this order? The switchboard and the plan come first because every big electric appliance needs its own protected circuit, and doing the board once is cheaper than doing it three times. Solar comes before the appliances so it is sized for them, and because the federal solar and battery rebates step down over time. The battery follows the solar it charges. The appliances then go in as each gas one wears out, and the gas is the last thing to go, so there is never a week without hot water or a way to cook.

Some guides say to swap the appliances before adding solar. Both can work; what matters is that the solar is sized for the electric home, whichever comes first. If your gas hot water dies next month, replace it next month: the plan still holds.

Step 1: the whole-house plan and the switchboard

Start with what you have. List every gas appliance (cooktop, oven, hot water, heater, pool or spa heater, barbecue on the line), its age, and whether it runs on bottled LPG or mains gas. Grab twelve months of electricity bills. Then write down what is coming: an EV in the next few years, a pool, a granny flat, a home office, a family that is growing.

Then the switchboard. Three questions decide the electrical work:

1. Can the board take new protected circuits? Current wiring rules require safety-switch (RCD) protection on new and altered circuits. A board of old ceramic (rewireable) fuses cannot take one, so it is replaced with circuit breakers and RCBOs (a breaker and safety switch in one for each circuit). A modern board with spare room only needs the new circuits added.
2. Are there spare ways for everything? A full-size induction cooktop usually wants a dedicated 32 A circuit, a heat pump its own circuit with a timer, an EV charger its own circuit, and the battery and solar their own protection. Plan the spaces for all of them now, even for the appliances that are years away.
3. Does the main supply have room? Most Northern Rivers homes have a single-phase supply, often about 63 A. Because the cooktop, heat pump, air conditioner and car rarely all run flat out at once, most homes carry the lot without an upgrade. When one is needed, your electrician lodges the application with Essential Energy. A home battery also helps here, by covering the evening peaks from storage.

Our own electricians check the board, the main switch and the supply on the site visit we do before every install, and the board work is in the quote up front, never added on the day. More in switchboard upgrades and RCBOs before solar or a battery and single-phase vs three-phase solar and batteries. Swapping a gas cooktop first? The induction cooktop switchboard checker gives you a first answer in a few taps.

Step 2: solar sized for the electric home

The most common mistake we see is solar sized for this year’s bill, then outgrown the moment the hot water, the cooktop and a car move onto electricity. Size the roof for the house you are heading to.

• Work from kWh, not dollars. Take the daily use from your bills, then add the electric loads still to come (the load table below has typical figures).
• Each kW of panels makes about 3.8 kWh on an average Northern Rivers day, more in summer and less in July. Going all-electric with a car typically adds 2 to 4 kW of solar to the design.
• Daytime loads love solar. A heat pump timed for midday, pre-cooling the house on a hot afternoon and charging the car at home on a weekend all run straight off the panels.
• Export limits and the inverter. Essential Energy sets how much a home may export. With a battery on a hybrid inverter, the panels can usually be sized up to twice the inverter rating (within the limits the inverter maker sets) and the whole array still earns STCs, which suits an all-electric home well.

Run your numbers in the solar and battery price calculator, and read how big a solar system do I need, solar export limits in the Northern Rivers and the Northern Rivers solar panel buyer’s guide. Already have solar? See adding more panels to an existing system and upgrading or replacing an old system.

Step 3: the battery

An all-electric home uses more of its power after dark: dinner on the induction cooktop, heating on a winter evening, the car plugged in overnight. The battery stores the midday solar for exactly that, and keeps the house running in a blackout.

• Size it to the evening and overnight load once the cooking and heating have moved to electricity. Many all-electric homes we design land on 18 to 27 kWh (two or three 9 kWh modules); homes charging an EV overnight or wanting long blackout backup go larger.
• Backup. A typical install backs up the whole house. A single-phase battery system supplies about 5 to 10 kW at once, so in an outage you cook on one or two zones at a time and stagger the big loads.
• Brands. We install premium Sigenergy through to mid-tier GoodWe, and more, sized to your bills rather than a package.
• Already have solar? A battery can usually be added to it: AC or DC coupled, depending on the inverter.

Read the Northern Rivers home battery buyer’s guide, what size battery do I need, blackout backup batteries and adding a battery to existing solar. The battery runtime calculator shows how long a battery would run your house.

Step 4: hot water

Hot water is usually the biggest gas load in the house and the easiest to replace well. A hot water heat pump works like a fridge in reverse: it moves heat from the air into the water, so it uses a fraction of the electricity of an old electric element, typically about 2 to 5 kWh a day for a household. Our mild climate suits them, and a timer set for the middle of the day runs it straight off the solar.

The electrical side is a dedicated circuit and a timer; the water side is a plumber’s job. Heat pumps can earn STCs and a NSW Energy Savings Scheme discount off the price.

The hot water heat pump buyer’s guide and sizing calculator compares the brands sold in Australia, noise, refrigerants, tank sizes and the rebates in detail. Got an electric tank and plenty of spare solar? A solar diverter or a midday timer can be the cheaper first step: see smart electric hot water or a heat pump on solar.

Step 5: cooking

Induction heats the pan directly with a magnetic field: it is fast, precise, easy to clean, and there is no flame or gas indoors. It typically uses about 0.5 to 2 kWh a day, nearly all of it in the evening, which is the battery’s job.

• The circuit. Most full-size 60 and 90 cm cooktops want a dedicated 32 A circuit, hard-wired. Low-current models run on 20 A. A house that has always cooked on gas has no cooking circuit, so a new cable runs from the board to the kitchen.
• The pans. If a fridge magnet grips the base firmly, the pan works on induction.
• The oven. A gas oven is swapped for an electric one on its own circuit; the cooktop and oven can often share a circuit if it is sized for both.

Full detail, including what the switchboard needs, in the getting off gas guide and induction cooktop switchboard checker.

Step 6: heating and cooling

For the cold weeks of a Northern Rivers winter, reverse-cycle air conditioning replaces the gas heater: it moves several units of heat indoors for each unit of electricity it uses, and it cools the house through summer. Split systems suit most homes room by room; ducted suits a bigger open house. On a hot afternoon it can pre-cool the house on solar; on a winter evening it is exactly the load the battery is there to carry.

The air conditioning on solar and a battery guide and calculator shows what each size of system asks of the solar and the battery. Unflued gas heaters are worth retiring early: they release combustion gases straight into the room.

Step 7: the EV charger

An electric car is usually the biggest single new load in an all-electric home, and the one that suits solar best when it is parked at home in the day. As a rough planning figure, a car driven about 40 km a day needs around 6 kWh, which about 1.5 to 2 kW of panels makes on an average day.

• A dedicated charger circuit and a 7 kW wall charger cover most households on single phase. A solar-aware charger tops the car up from surplus solar rather than the grid.
• Overnight charging comes from the battery or an off-peak rate; if the car charges every night, allow for it in the battery size or leave the charger off the backup circuits.
• We install EV chargers for homes with or without solar.

See home EV charger installation in the Northern Rivers, the EV buyer’s guide for home charging and solar, do I make enough solar to charge my EV? and charging your EV from solar and a battery.

Step 8: the gas comes off last

Keep the gas connected until every electric replacement is working, then disconnect it in one visit. In NSW, disconnecting a gas appliance, regulator or cylinder is gasfitting work and needs a licensed gasfitter.

Bottled LPG (most of the Northern Rivers). The gasfitter disconnects and caps the lines, removes the regulator and issues the compliance certificate. Then you ask your LPG supplier to collect the bottles and stop the rental or service fee. There is no abolishment fee for bottled gas.

Mains gas (Tweed Heads and Banora Point). Ask your retailer for a disconnection (the supply stopped at the meter, reversible, the cheaper option) or an abolishment (the connection and meter removed for good). Since 1 October 2026 every east-coast gas distributor must offer abolishment as a standard service. Get the fees in writing first, and time the gasfitter visit with the distributor’s work.

Once the last appliance is off, the gas standing cost ends: the daily supply charge on mains gas, or the bottle rental and deliveries on LPG. That is the one saving every household gets.

Step by step for both, in the getting off gas guide.

How much load going all-electric adds

Less than most people fear. Typical daily figures for a Northern Rivers household (rough planning figures; your appliances and habits decide the real ones):

So a home going fully electric with one car typically adds about 8 to 15 kWh a day, much of it in the evening. That is why the design is solar sized for the extra load plus a battery big enough for the evening, rather than either one alone.

Northern Rivers specifics

• LPG country, with one mains-gas corner. Mains gas reaches only Tweed Heads and Banora Point. Everywhere else, from Murwillumbah, Mullumbimby and Byron Bay to Ballina, Lismore and Evans Head, gas means bottles, which makes the case for going electric stronger: no supply network to pay into once the bottles go back.
• Essential Energy. Our grid is Essential Energy’s: it approves solar and battery connections, sets export limits and handles supply upgrades. We lodge the paperwork. Its smart meter and time-of-use tariffs shape when it pays to run the big loads: see smart meters, controlled load and time-of-use tariffs.
• Floods and blackouts. After the 2022 floods and ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred in 2025, backup matters here. An all-electric home with a battery keeps cooking, hot water and the fridge going through an outage; a gas bottle keeps only the hob. In flood-prone spots, the battery and inverter go above the flood line. See generator or home battery for blackouts and battery IP ratings, storms and floods.
• Rural and hinterland homes. Older boards, long cable runs from the meter to the house, bore and tank pumps, and sheds on the same supply all come into the plan. See solar and batteries for rural and hinterland properties.
• Off-grid. Many hinterland homes are already all-electric by necessity. The design starts from the worst week of winter, not the best day, so the cooktop, hot water and pumps keep going through a run of cloudy days. See off-grid solar and battery systems and off-grid battery days of autonomy.
• Coastal homes. Salt air changes where a battery and a heat pump can go: see solar and batteries near the coast.
• Building new? Design it all-electric from day one: BASIX, solar and batteries for a new build.

Local pages: Mullumbimby, Byron Bay, Ballina, Lismore, Murwillumbah and the Tweed Valley, Tweed Heads and Kingscliff, Banora Point, Lennox Head, Pottsville and the Tweed Coast.

Rebates and finance

• Solar: federal STCs, taken off the price at the point of sale; they step down every January. We do the paperwork.
• Battery: the federal Cheaper Home Batteries rebate, built into every design, set by the install date and stepping down on 1 January and 1 July 2027. See who qualifies and how to claim, the battery rebate step-down explained and the battery rebate calculator.
• Hot water heat pump: STCs and the NSW Energy Savings Scheme hot water upgrade; current detail in the heat pump guide.
• Virtual power plants: the NSW Peak Demand Reduction Scheme pays some incentives for batteries that join a virtual power plant. Whether one suits you is a separate choice: should I join a VPP?
• NSW Home Energy Saver 0% loan: up to $15,000 over up to 10 years for eligible NSW homeowners with a combined taxable household income of $150,000 or less, through Brighte. Rebates come off first and the loan covers the rest; the price is the same whether you use the loan or pay yourself. With rebates plus the loan, many customers start with no money down. How the NSW 0% loan works.

0% p.a. (comparison rate 0% p.a.). Brighte loans. Eligibility and lender approval apply.

Rebate rules and amounts change, so we check what applies on the day of your quote and show it on the quote.

Your electrification checklist

Gather these before anyone quotes, and the plan can be done in one conversation:

• Twelve months of electricity bills, and the gas bills or LPG delivery dockets
• A list of every gas appliance, its age and fuel (bottled or mains)
• What is coming in the next five years: an EV, a pool, a granny flat, more people at home
• A photo of the switchboard with the door open, and of the meter box
• Single or three phase, and the main switch rating if it shows one
• Roof: which way it faces, shade, the roof type (tin, tile, Klip-Lok)
• Backup: which circuits matter most in a blackout, and how long outages run where you live
• Order and timing: which gas appliance is likely to fail first
• Rebates: install dates for solar and the battery before the next step-down

Send us the bills and the switchboard photo, and our electricians will tell you what the board needs and how big the solar and battery should be for the electric home you are heading to. No charge for the look.

Who does what

Sun Connect Solar is a licensed NSW electrical contractor (licence 343044C), based near Mullumbimby, and an SAA-accredited solar and battery installer. Our own in-house electricians do the switchboard, the new circuits, the solar, the battery and the EV charger. We use no subcontractors, we visit every home face to face before install day, and our installation work carries a 25-year workmanship warranty.

We do not sell air conditioners or cooktops and we do not do gasfitting or plumbing. For those we work with licensed local partners: if you ask us to pass your details on, we may receive a referral fee for the introduction, which does not change the price you pay.

Real homes: a Huonbrook home with solar, a Sigenergy battery and a DC EV charger, a Federal home electrified in two stages with an EV, an off-grid Mullumbimby hinterland home and a three-phase home near Woodburn. More on the map of our installs.

Questions we get asked

What is full home electrification?

It means running everything in the house on electricity instead of gas, bottled LPG or petrol: an induction cooktop instead of a gas hob, a heat pump for hot water, reverse-cycle air conditioning for heating and cooling, and an electric car charged at home. Done well, it comes with rooftop solar sized for the extra load and a home battery for the evening and for blackouts, so most of that electricity is made on your own roof.

What order should I electrify my home in?

Plan the whole house first and start with the switchboard, because every big electric appliance needs its own protected circuit. Then solar sized for the electric home you are heading to, then the battery, then hot water, cooking and heating as each gas appliance comes due, then the EV charger, and the gas is disconnected last, once everything electric is working. You do not have to do it all at once; you do have to plan it once, so the board and the solar are not done twice.

Do I need a switchboard upgrade to go all-electric?

Often, in an older home. A cooktop, a heat pump, an EV charger and a battery each want their own circuit with safety-switch (RCD) protection, and a board of old ceramic fuses cannot take a protected new circuit, so it is replaced with circuit breakers and RCBOs. A modern board with spare room may only need new circuits added. Our electricians check the board, the main switch and the supply on the site visit we do before every install, and any board work is in the quote up front.

Do I need three-phase power for an all-electric home?

Usually not. Most Northern Rivers homes run an all-electric kitchen, a heat pump, reverse-cycle and an EV charger on a single-phase supply, because these loads rarely run flat out at the same time. Three phase becomes worth looking at when a large home stacks ducted air conditioning, a fast EV charger, a pool and an induction cooktop on a small supply. If a supply upgrade is needed, your electrician lodges the application with Essential Energy.

How much solar do I need for an all-electric home?

Work from the electricity you will use, not the bill you have now. Induction cooking typically adds about 0.5 to 2 kWh a day, a heat pump about 2 to 5 kWh, reverse-cycle heating a few kWh on cold evenings, and an EV driven about 40 km a day roughly 6 kWh. Each kW of panels makes about 3.8 kWh on an average Northern Rivers day, so going all-electric with a car typically adds 2 to 4 kW of solar to the design. Our free calculators size it from your own numbers.

What size battery does an all-electric home need?

Big enough to carry your evening and overnight load, which grows when the cooking and the evening heating move to electricity. Many all-electric homes we design land on 18 to 27 kWh (two or three 9 kWh modules), and homes charging an EV overnight or wanting long blackout backup go larger. The battery size comes from your bills and your plans, never from a package.

Will an all-electric home keep running in a blackout?

With a home battery set up for backup, yes. A typical install backs up the whole house: lights, fridge, hot water, cooking, fans and air conditioning. A single-phase battery system supplies about 5 to 10 kW at once, so in an outage you cook on one or two zones at a time and skip running everything at once. Without a battery, grid-connected solar switches off in a blackout by design.

How much does it cost to electrify a home?

It depends on how many gas appliances you are replacing, the state of the switchboard and the size of the solar and battery, so we do not publish one figure. Many households spread it out, replacing each gas appliance when it wears out. For solar and a battery, our free price calculator shows a typical figure after the federal rebate, and a firm price follows a look at your bills and a visit to your home.

Will going all-electric save me money?

We do not promise savings, because they depend on how much gas you use, your electricity plan and how much of the new load runs on your own solar. The one saving every household gets is the end of the gas standing cost: the daily supply charge on mains gas, or the bottle rental and deliveries on LPG. Heat pumps, induction and reverse-cycle are all far more efficient than the gas appliances they replace, and solar and a battery cut the cost of the electricity that runs them.

What rebates are there for electrifying a home in NSW?

For solar and batteries, the federal solar STCs and the Cheaper Home Batteries rebate come off the price at the point of sale and we do the paperwork; both step down over time (STCs every January, the battery rebate on 1 January and 1 July 2027, set by install date). Heat pump hot water can earn STCs and a NSW Energy Savings Scheme discount. The NSW Home Energy Saver program offers a 0% loan of up to $15,000 for eligible homeowners. Rebate rules change, so we check what applies on the day of your quote.

Can I use the NSW 0% loan for electrification?

The NSW Home Energy Saver 0% loan is up to $15,000 over up to 10 years for eligible NSW homeowners with a combined taxable household income of $150,000 or less, for energy-saving upgrades such as solar and batteries; the lender decides which products it will fund. We offer it through Brighte. Rebates come off first and the loan covers the rest, and the price is the same whether you use the loan or pay yourself. 0% p.a. (comparison rate 0% p.a.). Brighte loans. Eligibility and lender approval apply.

How do I get off gas in the Northern Rivers?

Most of the region has no mains gas, so for most homes it means replacing the gas appliances and sending the LPG bottles back: a licensed gasfitter disconnects and caps the lines, then you close the account with your gas supplier. In Tweed Heads and Banora Point, which have mains gas, you choose between a disconnection (reversible, cheaper) and an abolishment (the connection removed for good); since 1 October 2026 every east-coast distributor must offer abolishment as a standard service. Disconnect last, once the electric replacements are working.

Can a rural or off-grid property go all-electric?

Yes, and many already are by necessity. On the grid, rural homes often have older boards, long cable runs and pumps to account for. Off the grid, the design starts from the worst week of winter rather than the best day: the solar, battery and any backup generator are sized so the cooktop, hot water and pumps keep running through a run of cloudy days. Our off-grid guides cover sizing and approvals.

Do I have to do it all at once?

No. Most people electrify in stages over a few years, replacing each gas appliance when it reaches the end of its life. What pays to do once is the plan: deciding the whole electric load up front, so the switchboard upgrade, the spare circuits and the solar design allow for everything still to come.

Who does the work?

Sun Connect Solar is a licensed NSW electrical contractor (licence 343044C) and SAA-accredited solar and battery installer. Our own in-house electricians do the switchboard, the circuits, the solar, the battery and the EV charger; we use no subcontractors. We do not sell air conditioners or cooktops and we do not do gasfitting or plumbing: for those we work with licensed local partners, and if you ask us to pass your details on we may receive a referral fee for the introduction, which does not change the price you pay.

Sources

NSW Climate and Energy Action, “Home Energy Saver loans” and “Switch to electric”; Australian Energy Market Commission gas abolishment determination (2026) as reported by SolarQuotes; NSW Fair Trading, gasfitting requirements; APA, Allgas gas distribution network; CHOICE, switching from gas to induction (March 2026); Clean Energy Regulator, Cheaper Home Batteries and STCs; NSW Energy Sustainability Schemes (ESS and PDRS rules from 1 July 2026). Daily load figures are our own planning figures from those sources and our installs; your own appliances and habits decide the real numbers.

More from Sun Connect Solar

• Home electrification calculator
• Smart electric hot water or a heat pump on solar?
• All our free guides
• All our free calculators
• Getting off gas: induction cooktop switchboard checker
• Hot water heat pump buyer’s guide
• Home battery buyer’s guide
• Switchboard upgrades and RCBOs
• Home EV chargers
• Off-grid solar
• Home battery installation in the Northern Rivers