16 ms·
Australia has so much solar that it's offering everyone free electricity
- cowboy_henk 11mo ago* only in the middle of the day, when the real price of that electricity may be negative, so it's still sold at a profit
- willvarfar 11mo agoYes the article talks about consumers scheduling things like washing machines during the day, or even filling up a battery.
- mikeyouse 11mo agoThey could also run their AC to below where their normal set point would be to “bank” some of the free electricity. I wonder if we’ll start seeing other more passive energy sinks… if you lived in a hot area and could rely on several hours of free electricity each day, it enables all sorts of interesting options like turning on a secondary cooling system to “charge” a large boulder or hunk of metal that you could then pass air over to cool your house when energy is expensive again.
- ch4s3 11mo agoIf you built homes with a lot of thermal mass, you could cool the internal thermal mass when energy is $0 and have that mass absorb heat the rest of the day. This is sort of the principle a lot of traditional architecture uses where evaporation, wind over a courtyard, or nighttime lows cool thick walls.
- mikeyouse 11mo agoYep, our house was built like this but in a cooler climate (large windows facing south with the all of the stone flooring and surfaces getting direct sunlight in the winter). But since most houses in the Aussie suburbs aren’t really optimized for this, you’d have to retrofit many million houses to take full advantage. Opens up some interesting opportunities for sure.
- ch4s3 11mo agoYeah, for sure. Building for 0 carbon AC and electric resistive heating will probably look a little different.
- bobmcnamara 11mo agoThis is how the cold storage caves work in the Midwest. They run their ammonia loops harder in the off hours and let the cave mass handle it(provided a large enough area is kept frozen, otherwise thermal expansion cycling can cause a carve out in the ceiling).
- BtM909 11mo agoMore countries where there's a surplus, are advising people to charge or use electricity during the day.
- bee_rider 11mo agoThis is the “smart grid” idea, right? We just haven’t fully explored it yet. Something I firmly believe is that there’s a ton of low hanging fruit for timing our energy use better. It is just hidden by the desire to present a uniform energy price. Like why not run our water heaters when power is cheap? Then if that became a thing, we might even be interested in larger water heater tanks. Batteries cost per volume, you only pay for the surface are of a metal tank!
- naIak 11mo agoPower at peak times is cheap because load is distributed throughout the day. If everybody ran their heaters at the same time, power wouldn’t be so cheap and we’d reach the same situation we’re in.
- bee_rider 11mo agoIf power wasn’t cheaper, there’d be no incentive to run our heaters at the same time. I’d expect the market to work this out, and price power down during unexpected over-supply, rewarding nimble workloads. Then there arrives a reward for being nimble, which is something we should incentivize I think.
- bryanlarsen 11mo agoPower at peak times is cheap because it's the time of highest insolation.
- naIak 11mo agoYou’re missing the other side of the equation.
- tstrimple 11mo agoThink of being able to set a price on Amazon Spot instances where it's low enough to charge your home battery for "free". When the price is right, you recharge your batteries as much as possible. When the price falls outside the range, you leverage your battery to offset the higher electricity prices. This would be part of the "smart" in "smart grids".
- ch4s3 11mo agoThis seems like a great way to encourage the behavior you want, which is conserving when energy is emitting more carbon by shifting consumption. Do your laundry, charge a car, charge a whole house batter, run laundry, crank the AC, run your own aluminum smelter, whatever.
- RobinL 11mo agoIn the UK, you can go on an agile tariff that does exactly this. I'm on one. It's quite fun (and educational) with the kids to work out when to put the car on to charge, when to run the dryer etc, looking at the few days ahead forecasts. Last month, we paid 11p per kWh on average, which is less than half what you'd pay on a standard tariff, and it's nice to be doing something good for the environment too. It's particularly satisfying to charge up the car when tariffs go negative. Here's today's rates (actuals): https://agilebuddy.uk/latest/agile https://agilebuddy.uk/latest/agile Here's a forecast: https://prices.fly.dev/A/ https://prices.fly.dev/A/
- hexbin010 11mo ago> It's quite fun (and educational) with the kids to work out when to put the car on to charge, when to run the dryer etc, looking at the few days ahead forecasts. As if we aren't busy enough. I see this as just yet _another_ job the government/business is making us do instead of them. Is it too much to ask for my government to provide sensibly and simply priced energy so we can get on with our day, working, studying, raising kids etc? IMO this is just setting us up for insane surge pricing for those people who don't do the good citizen thing of becoming nocturnal
- RobinL 11mo agoI think it's best to view this from an economics point of view - in a nutshell price signals are usually the most powerful way to create behavioural change; in this case, we want people to shift demand away from peak times. Nobody is being forced to, they just have to pay more for the convenience of not bothering. > IMO this is just setting us up for insane surge pricing for those people who don't do the good citizen thing of becoming nocturnal It actually costs a lot more to produce marginal energy at peak times, the cost just reflects the cost of production. It doesn't seem unreasonable for me for the consumer to bear the cost, and also get the benfit if they choose to put their car to charge overnight rather than at peak time. This also has a nice secondary benefit: anyone on agile tariffs who shifts demand away from peak time actually benefits those who don't want to bother, because the peak price/cost goes down, and so the overall average price of electricity goes down. > I see this as just yet _another_ job the government/business is making us do instead of them In most other market, people are expected to respond to price incentives. When local apples are cheap relative to imported cherries, people don't complain that government/business is making us do a job to push demand in the direction of apples. > Is it too much to ask for my government to provide sensibly and simply priced energy so we can get on with our day, working, studying, raising kids etc? The free market price _is_ the agile price. The government intervention is actually in the direction of fixing prices (e.g. by the energy price cap, which is sometimes below the free market price at peak times). In general, markets do not work very well when the government fixes the market When you let the market clear and send out price signals, markets almost always become more efficient (which means that consumers benefit overall)
- notatoad 11mo agostill sounds like an incredible way to incentivize consumers to buy small-scale storage. if i knew i could get free electricity for an hour or two each day (or even each week) it'd be a very easy choice to drop ~$1000 on a home battery.
- loeg 11mo agoYou'd spend $1000 to save $0.20 on electricity every day?
- byefruit 11mo ago7.3% return, not bad. As battery prices drop it will get even better.
- marcosdumay 11mo agoIt's not 7.3% return rate. There's some depreciation you need to add there.
- WheatMillington 11mo agoIf you're going to depreciate the battery then your return will be substantially greater than 7.3%. You can't use BOTH the capex AND the depreciation as your denominator, choose one.
- testing22321 11mo agoThe average price of power in Australia is 34 cents per kWh. The average Aussie spends A LOT more than $0.20 per day.
- loeg 11mo agoGP isn't talking about a full day's use, but "free electricity for an hour or two each day (or even each week)."
- gpm 11mo agoThe real price of solar electricity is never negative. Unlike something like oil wells (which really have driven the price of oil negative) you can just turn solar off. Prices have gone negative because of things like subsidies - which in the short term is a good thing IMHO - it subsidizes industries developing systems to make use of that free (but not negative cost) energy...
- marcosdumay 11mo ago> you can just turn solar off Somebody has to go and turn it off, and having this person available overwhelms all of your operational costs. Or alternatively, you need the infrastructure to do it automatically, what is currently expensive. (But there aren't intrinsic reasons for that being expensive, it's probably due to lack of scale.) If it's just slightly negative, or just rarely so, it's not worth it.
- testing22321 11mo agoBasically every home in Australia, and certainly every home and business solar setup, has a smart meter that is grid connected and can be remotely shut down when needed. Or they even just limit the amount that can feedback to the grid if required I.e you’re making 8kw of solar, but it will only let you feed in 2 if the system determines that. There is not “person” turning things on and off.
- viraptor 11mo agoSince this year, you're also forced to have the remote kill switch on the new solar installations at home.
- quickthrowman 11mo agoCommercial solar fields are entirely automated, nobody is going to the site to throw a disconnect switch lol. For sites without hardwire internet, there’s 4G or satellite connectivity. A 4G cell comm module is a few hundred dollars. Adding in remote operations control is probably a tiny fraction of a percent of a solar field project.
- senectus1 11mo agoand only in a few states. My home state of WA is not a part of the same power netwrok.
- willvarfar 11mo agoIgnoring the politics, we have to say that China has done the world collectively as a whole a major service in strategically developing and mass producing super cheap solar panels.
- hangonhn 11mo agoIt really is a huge service not just to the developed world that needs to decarbonize but also a huge service to the developing world. Solar can be put up quickly and cheaply and is good for about 2 decades and can be paired with cheap LiFo batteries to give round the clock electricity. Both of these are relatively portable. It can really bootstrap the economies of local communities where infrastructure hasn't been built out. Then combined that with portable Internet connection via something like Starlink or one of the competitor networks, we can really enable the available human capital in developing nations to realize their potential. It's all very exciting I think.
- jacquesm 11mo agoThe biggest bottle neck to really solving the energy problem is now the price and fragility of high voltage DC long haul connections. Between those and solar you can have energy anywhere any time.
- svara 11mo agoGreat point, you might dream of long range connections sending solar energy from the day into the night around the world. But, what exactly do you mean by fragility? In what way are they fragile?
- jacquesm 11mo agoThat they carry massive amounts of power so they'll help you to destruct themselves once the barrier is penetrated, are actually quite complex and can be sabotaged easily. This is a nice text on the underwater version: https://europacable.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Introduction-to-HVDC-Subsea-Cables-16-July-2012_.pdf https://europacable.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Introducti...
- BtM909 11mo ago> The Australian government is floating a scheme that would share the benefits of solar power with everyone on the grid, offering totally free electricity to ratepayers in the middle of the day, when the sun is shining the strongest. > Australia proposes letting everyone benefit from negative wholesale rates I know more countries have this now, so that's a good initiative that hopefully will spread to other countries (with negative rates).
- Leherenn 11mo agoIt might not be as reliable in other places to do it every day, even just in summer. Still, there's clearly a trend globally towards more dynamic prices.
- almosthere 11mo agoFor some reason when I read that I thought it was offering anyone in the world free electricity, and I started imagining the USA setting up a giant undersea cable... then I realized the voltage drop would be too high, then finally realized they meant it for Australians only!
- freedomben 11mo agoNow I'm imagining drilling through the Earth to get the shortest possible line from Australia to my house. I like this
- bombcar 11mo agoWe can repurpose the burrito tubes.
- boldlybold 11mo agoIf you're already down there, set up some geothermal!
- smallerize 11mo agoThe core is mostly iron and nickel already, so you don't have to drill the whole way!!
- ZeroGravitas 11mo agoThere is one project for an undersea cable to Singapore. As solar efficiency goes up, and prices of solar and batteries come down and make local installation easier, an already audacious project seems less and less likely to complete. I think they're pivoting the giant solar farms they were building for this to AI or green hydrogen now.
- wussboy 11mo agoIt's almost like that idea where the first people to leave in generational star ships will arrive at their new home to find the people who left in the third or forth generation ships already there for some time, technology having advanced so much in that time. By the time they get the cable to Singapore, it will just be cheaper to generate it in Singapore.
- vondur 11mo agoWish they would do this in California where wholesale power can go negative for the same reason.
- trollbridge 11mo agoAnd they actually charge you a fee if you generate. My brother in law unhooked from the grid because back feeding was charging him $100 a month. To give away power.
- mock-possum 11mo agoIs that a California thing? In OR it’s like ~$15 to interlink (or whatever the term is)
- danans 11mo ago> And they actually charge you a fee if you generate. My brother in law unhooked from the grid because back feeding was charging him $100 a month. To give away power. Which utility and plan is this? I'm not aware of any California residential rate plans that charge you for putting power back on the grid, much less $100/month. That said, wholesale electricity rates are set by high frequency supply/demand markets. Recent residential net metering rates are closely aligned with wholesale supply/demand based rates, so most utilities will compensate your brother in law near $0 when you are pushing power to the grid when wholesale rates are <= $0, because there are not enough buyers of the power he is generating. He is using the grid as a battery, which comes at a cost. This is of course changing as more grid connected storage comes online and creates demand for off peak electricity. In that case, you actually get paid for selling power back to the grid during high grid stress periods. I get paid a few hundred dollars a year in CA for doing that with my measly home backup battery.
- vondur 11mo agoI think they’re referring to the fact that if you’re connected to the grid, you may be charged a base fee of around $100 per month, even if you don’t use any power. Previously, homeowners received credits for the excess solar energy they sent back to the grid, but the state has since ended that program.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- shevy-java 11mo agoBut it is so damn HOT there. And Australia has the most vicious animals and plants too. It is like an alien continent.
- choeger 11mo agoYeah. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that even the electrons are poisonous there...
- mywittyname 11mo agoZapbears
- nandomrumber 11mo agoAs an Australian, I’ve found the electrons toxicity to be very dose dependent. Definitely watch out for the severe acute toxicity variants.
- kulahan 11mo agoI'm pretty sure they get snow sometimes in NSW. AUS is big enough you can find many climates there! You're not wrong about the plants and animals though. It's basically an island, and islands always end up with super weird flora and fauna - there usually just aren't many (any?) predators, so the competition takes species in weird directions.
- testing22321 11mo agoThere are many ski resorts. The biggest has 44 lifts. Yes, it snows.
- georgebcrawford 11mo agoI’ve lived here 15 years and seen two snakes, zero deadly spiders, zero crocs. Yes, I’m on the city fringe. Like millions of others here.
- 11mo ago
- somanyphotons 11mo agoWith free power for 3 hours a day, I'd skip installing solar and I'd buy a ~30kwh battery (2x Ruixu Lithi2-16) and a big inverter. Charge the batteries in the free time and then use the stored power the rest of the day.
- ZeroGravitas 11mo agoAustralia will give you a 30% discount on that purchase, they have a fund of 2.3 Billion Australian dollars available for this purpose called the Cheaper Home Batteries program.
- chankstein38 11mo agoMan as someone paying a premium for power in the US, Australia is sounding really nice
- jjcm 11mo agoI took a job with Atlassian out there and got my citizenship. Best 5 years of my life. I'm back in the US now temporarily, but there's zero doubt in my mind I will end up back in Aus. I've lived in 8 cities now(1), and Sydney was the highest quality of life I've had out of any of them. Great infrastructure, great work-life balance, great culture, and fantastic weather. Only downsides are the distance and the lack of ozone layer (do not fuck around with the sun in Australia - there's a reason why they have over 10x the global average of melanoma). Happy to answer any questions about it or the process for getting citizenship. (1) Cities lived for comparison: San Diego, LA, Honolulu, San Jose, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Sydney
- SoftTalker 11mo agoWhat about the spiders?
- somanyphotons 11mo ago
- shadyKeystrokes 11mo agoJit chemical processes, refinig and metal melting?
- scotty79 11mo agoMine bitcoin ffs, sell bitcoin and build more solar. That's the only way we ever get ahead of the climate change, through the power of greed and waste. Clean electricity must cost nothing. At no point ever human civilization developed reasonably and in conscious moderation. Don't bet on us avoiding apocalypse by the only way that never happened in the history of development of our species. We won't suddenly get any smarter, we never did. And now it's important.
- someone4958923 11mo agoSshhh… Don‘t tell the AI companies :P
- larusso 11mo agoI still wonder who came up with the charge your car during the day / use it as a batterie. I don’t have the luxury’s of owning two EVs that I can charge and use at the same time. If my car stand unused at home so I can charge it would mean I use it during the night? I understand that there could be useage pattern where someone works from home once or twice a week and waits with the charge during these peek hours. But the generalization of just charge your car during the day is weird. Unless that also counts when the car could charge for free at the workplace of course.
- jeffbee 11mo agoEverything about the push to convert the whole fleet to EVs falls apart under even the slightest rational scrutiny.
- bdcravens 11mo ago"the push to convert the whole fleet" Is that anything like the "_ agenda being pushed" I keep hearing about, but can't seem to see anywhere?
- jeffbee 11mo agoWell, to me the EV conversion push, which undeniably exists and has many government policies supporting it, does represent an agenda, and that agenda is "Cars Über Alles". The obviously more practical approach to the problem is to support the conversion of transportation demand to less energy-intensive modes such as trains, buses, bicycles, and feet. It isn't very practical to say we're all going to have an EV and we'll have plenty of megawatt-scale chargers for everyone.
- testing22321 11mo agoWhy not? We extract, refine, transport, store and pump billions of litres of toxic chemicals everyday to power our cars now. We could do the same with electricity if we wanted to, and use a fraction of the energy.
- crmd 11mo agoIf my 208V,200A service here in New York City were free for 4 hours a day, I might buy a ~30kW chiller to run during free time and store its output in a big thermos or ice cube. Assuming a COP of 2.5 (small, air cooled), that would be around 300 kW or 1M BTU of cold storage per day, which is around 42 kBTU or 3.5 tons of raw cooling capacity running 24x7. I imagine if commercial buildings with support for larger and vastly more efficient chillers did this we could take a huge chunk out of NYC’s ~50 TWh power bill. Ok, I’ve convinced myself. ConEd, please update when the free electricity program is activated.
- Razengan 11mo agoSo just to fantasize for a bit, Suppose fusion power becomes a thing, and after handwaiving some issues let's assume it can power everything indefinitely. Does that make things like heating, cooling, travel, ocean desalination, bandwidth, AI, Bitcoin mining, permanently free? Shouldn't all of humanity be homing in on that holy grail? I read here and there that geothermal could be the next best thing. Maybe HN can say more on that. (P.S. terrestrial fusion may also explain why nobody bothers to build Dyson spheres out there)
- hdivider 11mo agoIn short: yes. It can be done. Clean, almost limitless energy, funded in a way to provide effectively free electricity for ordinary people. Restrictions would have to be in place to prevent true excess, but regulations already handle such matters in other areas. The ambient vibe of our time, and here on HN, is often really pessimistic. I don't believe such pessimism is realistic. Commercial grade fusion power will come, and we should push very hard to make it happen. It will change the equations at the core of the economy and open up whole new paths for technology -- far beyond the pure digital.
- seanw444 11mo agoThen some very rich and powerful people become very unrich and unpowerful. And they could never let that happen willingly.
- Ekaros 11mo ago
- hollywood_court 11mo agoDamn that's a big difference when compared to how the State of Alabama treats solar energy. You get penalized for having solar panels here in Alabama the Beautiful.
- andrewinardeer 11mo agoOn the flip side here in Australia the government for years encouraged us to get panels put on our house by selling it as, "You can export power and create a small income exporting the surplus you create". So many people did so that at one point last year the government said, "So many people are exporting it now, and the surplus is so great on the network we may have to charge you for exporting it". Wholesale power prices become negative during peak solar times - but retail companies will still charge you for using it!. Obviously, that didn't go down too well and this is the response - free electricity during peak solar hours. That said, my understanding is that free electricity is only for people who are on the "default offer" from the electricity companies - that is effectively the highest tier of pricing. Most people are not on the default offer.
- hexbin010 11mo agoGovernments do this all the time. And wonder why there is resistance and have to roll out the "why do you want your grandchildren to die" propaganda for the next eco green net zero thing du jour.
- jay_kyburz 11mo agoI haven't look into the details, but It sure feels like a slap in the face to those of us who invested in panels. I think this is about battery sales for those that can afford it. Fill a battery up for free and use the power during peak hours.
- viraptor 11mo agoThere's currently a significant rebate on batteries in Australia. (Or maybe just Victoria?) So that's definitely one attempted solution. People are getting it for costs paying off in under 5 years.
- jay_kyburz 11mo agoI got this email from from our local provider the other day.. "For a limited time only, we're offering a $500 upfront electricity bill credit* with every eligible home battery system (Tesla Powerwall 2 & 3, LG Chem HV, SolarEdge batteries only) purchased through Electrify with ActewAGL and installed by one of our approved installers - plus a further $100 credit* every year for the next five years, so long as you stay connected to our Virtual Power Plant. Join the thousands of households across across Australia taking advantage of the Cheaper Home Batteries Program. Over 100,000 systems have been installed since July 2025, and with the rebate scheduled to decrease as installations rise, now is the time to act."
- asdefghyk 11mo agoThe relatively EASY part is building large arrays of solar panels ..... The HARD PART is 1) STORING this electricity ( Storage is very expensive and technology changing) 3) Getting this electricity from the storage to where its wanted - is EXPENSIVE and requires many $BILLIONS of new transmission lines ....
- Razengan 11mo agoTaking cues from some sci-fi: Could "broadcast power" be a thing? Wireless power on a medium if not mass scale.
- wewewedxfgdf 11mo agoSolar power benefits the rich in Australia. Renters, as usual, rarely get it.
- testing22321 11mo agoDid you read the article? It clearly said the free electricity will be for renters too.
- wewewedxfgdf 11mo agoYou are not allowed to say that on this site! PLEASE respect the rules As I said........ In Australia - solar power overwhelmingly benefits the rich over renters. A few hours a day of free electricity for all does not wipe that out. Solar power is a rich persons thing in Australia, remains very very strongly true.
- testing22321 11mo agoThe article isn’t even really about solar. But in any case, let’s say I agree with you. A ton of rich people have solar and are getting really cheap power. Cool. Now EVERYONE is going to get free power for a few hours a day, and the “poor” didn’t have to spend a cent to get it. Sounds like a benefit for everyone to me, regardless of how rich they are. How is it not?
- eduction 11mo agoDoes not make economic sense, there is still the cost of panels and transmission. There might be a surplus now but dropping the price to zero will increase use (demand). I was surprised the story does not even specify "residential," it really says "everyone." That's a great way to exhaust existing supply. Entrepreneurs can presumably be quite creative in the shape of businesses they set up if unlimited free power is on offer during the day.
- NedF 11mo ago[dead]
- eeasss 11mo agoI have been thinking that you have data centers that follow the day around the globe and which are powered by solar power this could be a great business model.
- asdefghyk 11mo agoIts only for residences ( not business ) Only available in some parts of Australia
- zacthedev 11mo agoMeanwhile in Great Sydney Area, Australia, my current energy rate is 60c (peak) 45c (shoulder) 32c (off-peak) / kWh. That's totally fraud
- petermcneeley 11mo agoplease dont post the same comment twice
- zacthedev 11mo agoMeanwhile in Great Sydney Area, Australia right now, my current energy rate is 60c (peak) 45c (shoulder) 32c (off-peak) / kWh. That's totally fraud
- byhemechi 11mo agoYeah you definitely should not be paying that much. Throw your NMI into https://www.energymadeeasy.gov.au/ https://www.energymadeeasy.gov.au/ and it'll show you the most cost effective option from your actual usage. I'm also in Sydney and pay 29c flat/ 18c secondary circuit
- shirro 11mo agoMeanwhile also in part of Australia where the states public electricity utility was sold in a fire sale to foreign investors. The owners gold plate the network so they can get away with charging some of the highest electricity prices in the world despite generation prices often going negative thanks to renewables. I would bet over time the supply charge and non-free hours will increase in price to compensate and overall bills will be the same. It will shift some load to the middle of the day with people setting timers on appliance and it will take pressure off generation which will be politically convenient when another poorly maintained coal plant falls over but I will be shocked if it will be a win for consumers. Poorer home owners and rentals that don't have solar pv and can't afford to buy new appliances that might be able to take advantage of being set to run during the cheap hours are going to be left further behind. The country is full of monopolies, duopolies and price gouging and the regulators are useless.
- nandomrumber 11mo agoAnd for pointing out the obvious, you’re just being negative. A right-wing nut job conspiracy theorist. No, I just run the numbers. The numbers they provide.
- librasteve 11mo agoso, like Norway, Australia is squeaky clean (just don’t look at the coal they export for burning in China & India)
- amai 11mo agoWhen it is day in Australia it is night in Europe. If one could transport electricity from Australia to Europe and vice versa this would be a win-win situation.
- lysp 11mo agoMike Cannon-Brookes is involved with a company (Sun Cable) which plans on exporting Australian Solar to Singapore via a 4200km undersea DC cable.
- ksec 11mo ago292 comments and yet no one have asked what I thought was the obvious question. Why AUS ( or specific part of AUS ) dont built battery grid and store those energy for the cheap instead?
- asdefghyk 11mo agoThere are Australian media articles predicting that this so called "free electricity offer" will result in price increases for other customers.