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Australian energy retailers must offer three hours of free daytime electricity

291 points by i2oc 3mo ago

gridmatters 3mo ago
[flagged]
BLKNSLVR 3mo ago
Edited to add: Clarification required in the title that the free energy is only between 11am and 2pm Very interested to see how this turns out. Ultimately we want the transition to benefit both consumers and producers / distributors (the industry). The problem from the rapid uptake of solar in Australia has been an over-supply during this 10/11am to 2/3pm period. If that over-supply is suitably encouraged to be soaked up then hopefully consumers can reduce their power bills whilst the industry has less effort in managing the oversupply and less stress on infrastructure. It's also about time that those who lack the means or situation to have solar panels of their own can get some advantage, in a 'herd immunity' kind of way. I'm in the privileged position to have had solar panels for over a decade, and now have a battery as well, and it was very obvious to me at the time that, in regards to solar, it cost money to save money, so if you couldn't afford it then the savings are inaccessible. This change hopefully helps those who need it, at least somewhat.
- Havoc 3mo ago
  Surprised they’re putting everyone on same timeslot. Would have expected some staggering to be helpful
  - defrost 3mo ago
    From elsewhere: this applies to NSW, South Australia and part of Queensland. so NSW and South Australia will be staggered in real time as they are in different time zones. As for everybody in the same time zone .. they are all seeing the same sun angle at noon (more or less) and all sharing the same over supply of power from all the grid connected solar power rooftops and farms. It's free surplus power during that time frame.
    - Havoc 3mo ago
      Yeah i get that they're all seeing similar but you'd still want to align this new demand with the output curve in some form of approximated pattern. Plus also prevent the sharp spike you'd get from everyone turning on their stuff at a coordinated hour. You're gonna have a bunch of stuff on timers all hit this at the same time. That makes life hard for the people balancing the grid's supply & demand. Bit like in the UK they had issues with everyone watching popular TV shows and then turning on the kettle after in a perfectly syncronized timing across the country
  - aragilar 3mo ago
    There's too much available power then (curtailment/negative prices are fairly common now on sunny days), and not enough during the evenings, so it's an incentive for those who don't have/can't get batteries (e.g. renters) to shift their habits. It also can be spun as a cost-of-living action.
- pydry 3mo ago
  I find it amusing that back when solar and wind were niche and expensive the coal + oil lobby would lobby for "let the free market decide what to build". When solar + wind plunged in price they stopped saying it. Now that the market has driven down the price of solar, wind and storage, market based mechanisms have become ideal for solving the problem of what to do with surplus electricity.
- stubish 3mo ago
  The change certainly brings in some weirdness too. For instance, I'm looking at a new hot water system. Economically speaking, I'm better off buying an oversized tank using resistive heating that I only need to heat once per day. The grid provides free power and I buy a cheaper appliance. But environmentally it sucks, as more solar needs to be rolled out to cover the additional non-peak usage (guess about 6x the power usage of a smaller tank with heatpump).
  - penteract 3mo ago
    To check I understand you: the smaller tank with heatpump would consume less energy outside the time window in which energy is free than the large tank with resistive heating, but has a higher capital cost which would outweigh the amount saved on energy? If that's right, it's not obvious to me that building a suitably sized solar panel is environmentally worse than building a heat pump.
    - stubish 3mo ago
      The smaller tank with heatpump will consume a lot less energy than the larger tank with resistive heat. Economically to me, the larger tank is cheaper, because the appliance is cheaper, and I never pay for the power it uses. Environmentally, yes, it is not obvious. The large tank requires many more solar panels to power it but no battery. The small tank and heatpump needs much less solar but battery for nighttime use. But it is weird, because for decades heat pump tech has been pushed as the environmental choice and there are still a number of government subsidies to invest in heat pump hot water systems. And maybe that no longer makes sense, with the money saved buying cheaper and less efficient devices spent on more solar deployments.
      - hnaccount_rng 3mo ago
        But it’s also environmentally better for you to take the resistive heating thing. As long as you never need to heat it up outside of the noon-window that’s strictly positive. Because the “additional” solar panels will be necessary anyways to cover the night/late evening usage. The optimal buildout will always have superfluous energy at noon. That’s fine. We just need to get over the whole “energy costs anything” thing. That’s only true if you need to spend fuel to generate it
Arjunsureshh 3mo ago
wow
protocolture 3mo ago
The fine print is interesting, theres a cap, fair use provisions and it requires a smart meter. Smart meters are still a bit contentious. Sadly probably wont be any good for selective crypto mining, alas.
- nharada 3mo ago
  A 24 kWh cap per day seems very reasonable. Drawing 8 kW is quite a lot.
  - DamonHD 3mo ago
    My home is in London UK and is relatively small and efficient, but 8kWh may be higher than our peak demand ever over more than 20 years in this house...
    - pjc50 3mo ago
      UK appliances cap out at 13A, or 3.1kW. Electric cookers may be on higher current wiring, but seem to be rated at 3kW max anyway. I think the only way most people could get to 8kW continuous without an EV would be to turn on their electric oven, grill, and all spots on their electric hob. And the kettle.
      - Symbiote 3mo ago
        My Danish electricity supplier lets me download my smart meter records since 2022. It's by hour, and the highest times are probably when I was cooking with both the oven and the hob, and perhaps had the washing machine running too. The highest hour used 2.9kWh. Plenty of cheap (e.g. rental) homes in the UK have crappy electric shows, which are usually rated at 6-8kW — but rarely used for a whole hour.
    - DamonHD 3mo ago
      Ofc I meant 8kW! Eeek. But also it is unlikely that we used 24kWh in any one day ever.
  - 3mo ago
russelg 3mo ago
Australia, excluding Western Australia as we are on a separate electricity grid.
- bruce511 3mo ago
  From the article; this applies to NSW, South Australia and part of Queensland. So yeah, not universal yet. But the precedent means it's moving in that direction. If WA homes end up producing lots of solar at midday then this opens the door there as well.
  - rswail 3mo ago
    It applies in Victoria as well. Victoria deregulated its market before NSW/SA/Qld. All of the eastern states (SA/QLD/NSW/VIC/Tas) are part of a single market, with interconnects and wholesale prices set every 5 minutes. Victoria has its own "default offer" and regulator of the retail market, which is also offering similar "free power" hours. WA could be part of the NEM with some HVDC across the Nullabor, not sure if it would be economically worthwhile though.
    - nikcub 3mo ago
      > WA could be part of the NEM with some HVDC across the Nullabor, not sure if it would be economically worthwhile though. Part of the motive of moving the WEM to 5 minute intervals was to eventually leave this option open. The largest renewable project in the world is being planned in this area[0] so it's feasible that it all may be connected one day [0] https://wgeh.com.au/overview/ https://wgeh.com.au/overview/
      - rswail 3mo ago
        Hope HVDC really takes off, having a power network that has solar feed covering 3 timezones as well as multiple latitudes adds to the national solar harvest and grid resiliency.
- nutjob2 3mo ago
tw1984 3mo ago
basically they give you a few hours free electricity in exchange for significantly higher electricity prices for the rest of the day. basically a free IQ test.
- bruce511 3mo ago
  Can you elaborate on the higher elec prices for the benefit of those of us not in Aus? Is that because of the smart meter requirement?
  - kaelwd 3mo ago
    Before: 25c/kwh all day After: 30c/kwh most of the day, 0c from 11-2 It's still worth it if you have a lot of load you can shift to the middle of the day (like a pool heater or battery), but for most 9-5 workers you just end up paying more at the times you're actually home. Smart meters are free, most people already have one.
    - strken 3mo ago
      I thought most Australians had different pricing for peak/off-peak. I'm paying 39c/kWh for peak (3pm to 9pm) and 20c/kWh for off-peak (9pm to 3pm the next day).
      - kaelwd 3mo ago
        Yeah just a simplified example, I pay 33/16/10 peak/off-peak/midday.
      - stubish 3mo ago
        Flat rate plans are still popular and the best choice if you can't shift your power usage out of peak times.
    - AtlasBarfed 3mo ago
      Get a battery
andrewstuart 3mo ago
Some parts of Australia. Not Victoria which has bankrupted itself building roads and railways it cannot afford.
- rswail 3mo ago
  Bullshit. Victoria's default offer will include the same offer from October [1]. Victoria has a separate regulator because it deregulated its electricity grid before the other states. [1] https://www.energy.vic.gov.au/households/save-energy-and-money/victorian-midday-power-saver https://www.energy.vic.gov.au/households/save-energy-and-mon...
  - andrewstuart 3mo ago
    Impolite.
    - rswail 3mo ago
      In response to your nonsense about Victoria somehow being bankrupt.
mchusma 3mo ago
Incentivizing usage during peak times makes total sense, but if price swings are this wild, how are grid scale batteries not highly economical? My rough ballpark math was that you need roughly 20 kilowatts of battery storage to make this issue basically nonexistent, and that would cost about 10 billion dollars, which doesn't seem that much for this.
- 3stacks 3mo ago
  They've already burned at least $15bn on that disastrous Snowy Hydro "battery" project... Could've just rolled out consumer batteries on a large scale instead.
  - Scoundreller 3mo ago
    You can do similar math with building above ground oil storage tank capacity aaaaaand giving everyone free gas cans. And you can get out every drop. And it’s always ready to go. Do need to cycle your inventory. Fire departments probably wouldn’t be happy about it.
  - asdefghyk 3mo ago
    From Australlian ABC news... The cost of the Snowy 2.0 pumped-hydro project is estimated to range from $\$12$ billion to as high as $\$42$ billion depending on the scope of costs included (such as direct construction, interest, and broader transmission). Originally announced in 2017 with a $2 billion price tag, the project has faced massive scale and logistical blowouts. The cost of the Snowy 2.0 pumped-hydro project is estimated to range from $12 billion to as high as $42 billion depending on the scope of costs included (such as direct construction, interest, and broader transmission). That said , hydro systems have a LONG LIFESPAN - 100 YEARS ? Batteries need to be replaced every X years. So the ecomiomics of the comparisoan would need to be calculated ...
    - robin_reala 3mo ago
      Dinorwig[1] was opened in 1984, and is looking at a £1B refurbishment shortly for “at least another 25 years” lifespan.[2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station [2] https://www.waterpowermagazine.com/analysis/re-planting-the-future-how-dinorwig-and-ffestiniog-are-being-rebuilt-to-power-the-uk-for-decades/ https://www.waterpowermagazine.com/analysis/re-planting-the-...
flgb 3mo ago
Not really. The fundamental costs and margin requirements in the system haven't changed. This is a government-mandated electricity plan (a default market offer) that competitive electricity retailers are now required to offer. Those retailers still have network costs, environmental costs, energy costs, and administration costs to recover, and so prices at other times of day necessarily go up. Some consumers may be better off on this plan (generally at the expense of other consumers), and some will be worse off. It's good politics and only so-so policy.
testing22321 3mo ago
It’s very cool to see what happens where there are simply so many residential solar installs. Power price goes negative during peak sunshine hours so they just give it away. Solar installs benefitting everyone, even those who never got solar.
- oliyoung 3mo ago
  As an Australian, the lack of anxiety and guilt you get when you're using 10-12 hours of air conditioning in the middle of summer and not paying for a cent of it because your solar panels are covering is worth more than anything
  - AtlasBarfed 3mo ago
    Why shouldn't that be true practically every consumer home in the world? Yes, grid scale deployments are cheaper, but I'm generally guessing a lot of the grid scale solar deployments do not price in the grid infrastructure adaptation costs, and I'm not even talking about grid storage. Consumer rooftop solar is fundamentally democratic: it reduces reliance on centralized institutions for power delivery, Make society a lot more resilient in bad weather and other emergency situations, insulates everyday people from wild variations and petroleum and other consumable energy availability. Combined with plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, it would enable electrification of 80 and 90% of daily driving without grid infrastructure costs.
    - brabel 3mo ago
      > Why shouldn't that be true practically every consumer home in the world? Here in Sweden nearly all of the electricity bill you pay is concentrated on the winter months when there is literally zero sunshine. Even then solar is popular here. I calculated that installing solar would take around 10 years or more to pay for itself, but I have very little hope to stay in the same house all that time so for me it seemed like a bad investment. That said, if you live in places where it’s sunny most of the time even in winter, like Australia, then solar is absolutely great, just don’t assume most places are like that.
asdefghyk 3mo ago
Its because they have NO economical way to store it to sell for night time usage.
- stubish 3mo ago
  The new plans are mostly to charge the hundreds of thousands of household batteries that have been installed over the last few years, which are an economical way to store energy for night time usage (ROI about 8% over 20 years, probably more with the new plans).
- tencentshill 3mo ago
  Every individual household can. There are many programs where you can get a free/discounted home battery and get paid to export to the grid when needed. The economics will make it work.
leonidasrup 3mo ago
Dynamic pricing and deployment of digital smart meters should by mandatory in all electric grids dominated by renewables. Large electric consumers are already buying electricity at dynamic prices, small consumers should have the same incentives to shift the demand to day hours.
- Gigachad 3mo ago
  I'm so on board for this. It would be kind of fun to wire all my appliances in to home assistant to have the dishwasher / dryer / etc all run during the free hours. I imagine eventually we might end up with some thermal storage where during peak renewable production you heat/freeze a large tank of water and then utilize it to heat/cool your house for the rest of the day. A large tank of water is much cheaper than battery storage.
  - fragmede 3mo ago
    Or plug them into a UPS that charges when it's free but you can run them whenever.
    - Gigachad 3mo ago
      Batteries are massively more expensive. Thats why the utility companies are just giving consumers free power over building their own grid scale batteries. A tank of water is cheap, it’s just not possible to distribute hot water over the grid. But it’s very realistic to store it locally and use for heating and cooling. Which is the bulk of power usage anyway.
      - fragmede 3mo ago
        There are never designs coming into the market that support only, say, the fridge, and have the software to be time of day use metering aware, that won't totally break the bank.
  - leonidasrup 3mo ago
    Storing energy in hot water is common is sunny regions, for example Turkey. Some large cold storage facilities in Germany are trying to optimize electric demand to use cheap peak day electricity. But they have to observe limitations in range of temperatures and capacity of cooling devices. https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/cold-storage-facilities-could-become-energy-flexibility-option-ai-energy-management https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/cold-storage-facilities... " Compared to conventional cold storage systems, renewable energy-driven cold storage demonstrates a 10–35 % reduction in energy losses" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352152X25035649 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S23521...
thelastgallon 3mo ago
Ideally, they should pay the EV owners because electricity price goes negative. The EV owners are spending their own money to create a scalable on-demand storage infrastructure. This saves CapEx/OpEx of BESS and also eliminates peaker natural gas plants. EV owners should be paid once for allowing storage, and paid again for using the power to supply back to the grid (V2G).
- stubish 3mo ago
  The EVs with V2G are just big batteries, nothing special. You certainly can charge your battery on the free power and sell it back during peak periods, and people are doing just that today. Just mostly using their 50 kWh household batteries rather than their EVs though, because V2G is still mostly science fiction unless you buy one of the few models of car that actually support it and have a compatible charger and inverter.
  - thelastgallon 3mo ago
    For V2G, its a simple feature that enables a car to participate and make money in the energy ecosystem. Govts have to standardize it for cars, just like mandating usb-c.
    - stubish 3mo ago
      It has been standardized here, and we see articles about it in the papers for a few years. Yet only 2 or 3 cars on the market implement it and don't even advertise it, apparently still in trials or pushed aside for sexier features. I was under the impression it was not simple, as it requires more electronics and complexity in the car.
      - thelastgallon 3mo ago
        It its required by Govt (USB-C), all new cars would have this feature. It won't be optional.
thelastgallon 3mo ago
Australia should deploy vertical solar massively. Adds a few more hours of production.
bob1029 3mo ago
I miss having Griddy in Texas. Direct access to the wholesale market is probably not good for the lower end of the consumer segment, but for people with some functional marbles it can make a big difference on the demand side of the grid. I feel like they had to kill griddy before all the powerwall solutions started showing up. We simply cannot empower the peasants with both things at once. The ability to store energy makes access to wholesale prices substantially more effective. I'll never forget the days where we would get push notifications about negative prices. I'd throw the dryer and oven on every time to try and unwind the meter a bit.
- Retz4o4 3mo ago
  https://www.cbsnews.com/news/griddy-energy-charged-9000-power-bills-settles-with-texas/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/griddy-energy-charged-9000-powe...
  - bob1029 3mo ago
    > Direct access to the wholesale market is probably not good for the lower end of the consumer segment Not everything is for everyone. At no point did I feel like I was getting scammed as a customer. I was using them during the winter event.
- rswail 3mo ago
  Amber offers that in Australia. https://www.amber.com.au/ https://www.amber.com.au/
CalRobert 3mo ago
Incidentally the Netherlands has this too, at least with some providers (Budget Energy for one). I get free electric from 12:00 to 17:00 on weekends.
- ctenb 3mo ago
  Link? I never heard of this and I'm very interested
  - CalRobert 3mo ago
    https://www.budgetthuis.nl/energie/gratis-stroom https://www.budgetthuis.nl/energie/gratis-stroom
  - yurishimo 3mo ago
    You might check the rates on Tibber as well. A lot of companies that offer a "free" usage period tend to just move the cost around. If you're comfortable taking the risks associated with a wholesale supplier, then you can likely save a ton of money without even changing your consumption habits. During this past month with the heatwave, my electricity bill was only about €50 despite running airco all day most days. I have 6 solar panels on my roof for reference (was 3k installed I believe). If I was willing to turn off the A/C at night, I could have easily cut the bill in half since most of the billed usage was between 18-21:00.
    - CalRobert 3mo ago
      Ah that looks awesome, thanks!
- superjan 3mo ago
  You do pay taxes.
  - CalRobert 3mo ago
    Well, sure, but that goes without saying?
abstractspoon 3mo ago
When it's hardly needed!
- worthless-trash 3mo ago
  40c outside during summer in these times.. yeah.. hardly needed.
  - hahahaa 3mo ago
    You need a battery to take advantage: then you may as well use a direct to market option like Amber. Which benefits grid stability too. 3 hrs without a battery is useless in Australia. As you generally use electricity for heating/cooling and need it longer than that esp. cooling.
    - deleted 3mo ago
      [deleted]
    - worthless-trash 3mo ago
      I assure you first hand, you can turn on the heater (during winter) or airconditioner without battery and take advantage of this. You can wash your clothes during this time to take advantage on this. You can cook on the electric stove during this time to take advantage of this. No battery is required to do this. I can't connect your logic to my reality.
      - hahahaa 3mo ago
        It is the extra $/kwh you pay out of those 3 hours subsidizing the free time that will be the issue. So you need to order a large round during happy hour and make those beers last. Somewhat possible by overcooling or overheating but you need a battery ideally.
jay_kyburz 3mo ago
This will kill new household solar instillation. The payback time was already well in excess of 10 years, but now that power is free during the day, you can't count those hours as helping pay down your investment. Payback time will be 30 + years at least. You are much better just enjoying your neighbors solar rather than paying for your own. (Feed-in is about 3c now I think. Was 12c when many people bought their panels.) Note: My state 100% renewable energy so reduction of carbon footprint has not bearing on my solar decisions. This also feels like a fairly heavy handed way to encourage investments in batteries. But in the famous words of George W, "can't fool me again". As soon as there are too many batteries and the grid companies are not making enough money, they will introduce fees to have the batteries, or increase connection fees.
- perilunar 3mo ago
  If the connection fees get too high, people will disconnect. Then they’ll probably ban it.
abrookewood 3mo ago
With 3 hours of free power, a 15kW inverter and a 42kWh battery, I could almost do away with my solar panels and just survive of free grid power. I do have a 15kW solar panel set up, but I get very little from selling anything back to the grid.
- hsb3 3mo ago
  Grid power is already cheap. Making things free actually makes people use more power. Its called the rebound effect.
- discordance 3mo ago
  I have a 12 kW inverter (single phase) and 48 kWh battery. In Australia, 9 months of the year my 16 kW of solar fills the battery and covers all needs including cooking, heating and charging the EV. In winter, I’ve been using Ovo’s 3 hours free for about a year now and that ensures the battery is filled up daily. My electricity bill returns a credit every month since I got the battery a year ago.
  - robbiep 3mo ago
    I was trying to understand how to do this, and I formed the opinion that most of the battery providers don’t really allow the degree of ‘on/off’ or ‘charge/discharge’ customisation as might be necessary to make this work? Or was I fooled by the packaged products that are aiming to turn me and my battery and panels into a residential power plant at the whim of the energy company?
    - stubish 3mo ago
      The most popular batteries provide all the customization you need and more. Soo many features... it is exhausting. Even 'AI' modes trying to predict usage and solar generation using weather forecasts and top up from the grid at cheap rates if it thinks the power will probably be needed. A battery like Sigenergy's you can setup on a time based charging schedule (most popular for the free power plans), or have it pull Amber's live wholesale rates and put it into AI mode to avoid using their SmartShift VPP, or just hand over the keys to a VPP provider and let them drive.
aaron695 3mo ago
[dead]
tiew9Vii 3mo ago
Free isn't free. Coinciding with this, suppliers put daily connection charges up.
- nikcub 3mo ago
  It kinda is since wholesale energy prices are often negative in these markets during the day
  - abanana 3mo ago
    That's the theory. Others in this thread are reporting the reality. In practice, any profit-making enterprise will not want to miss out on the income they were previously getting, so will find other times and charges to load it onto. Also, they know some people will specifically choose an energy plan that seems to give them something free, so it's easy to take advantage by increasing the prices they pay less attention to.
- DANmode 3mo ago
  As far as line-items on an invoice are concerned, power always seemed egregiously overpriced, and the infrastructure costs seemed wildly understated. So, maybe this is a correction?
L-four 3mo ago
I am so building an arc furnace in my yard.
jaza 3mo ago
https://theshovel.com.au/2025/11/05/electricians-prepare-for-bumper-2026-3-hours-of-free-power/ https://theshovel.com.au/2025/11/05/electricians-prepare-for...
aetherspawn 3mo ago
We already get free power between 0am and 6am, so with free power between 11am and 2pm we’ll have a whopping 9 hours of free power to charge our car and heat our water storage.
- BLKNSLVR 3mo ago
  What plan and what provider to get free power from midnight to 6am? I'm in a plan that gets me $0.08/kWh during those hours, and I'm planning to switch to one that's just over half that, but I haven't come across any free power in that time span.
  - aetherspawn 3mo ago
    I’m with Powershop currently, but it was a hard toss-up between Powershop and Ovo. Sorry you’re right, it’s not “free” with Powershop (4.99 cents per kWhr), but it’s cheap enough that it’s basically free compared to the cost of living and what we were spending before.
    - BLKNSLVR 3mo ago
      I'm on AGL and looking to change to the Ovo 4.7 cents per kWh (midnight to 6am) plan. The per day supply cost is higher as are some of the other rates, but overall should still save me roughly $20 a month - by my calculations.
      - aetherspawn 3mo ago
        For me, Powershop day rate was only 32 cents or so, which made it cheaper overall. We have solar but we use the induction a lot in the evening, so not having a separate higher “on peak” pricing helped us save.
Havoc 3mo ago
Seems like a good idea. Slightly tweaked consumer behavior can achieve what would take a hell of a lot of batteries
SockThief 3mo ago
I feel like this is still relevant today: Clarke and Dawe - The Energy Market Explained https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELaBzj7cn14 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELaBzj7cn14
- ra 3mo ago
  Still describes the current state of affairs perfectly. I'd love to see them on snowy 2 today.
  - entrope 3mo ago
    > I'd love to see them on snowy 2 today. I can only imagine the comment warnings on that segment considering that, sadly, John Clarke passed away nine years ago.
    - csours 3mo ago
      He was towed outside the environment. (I think he would laugh at this)
TheChaplain 3mo ago
They could just sidestep it, by making the electricity free but the transport or cable use more expensive, no?
- rswail 3mo ago
  That's what is happening, the daily supply charge has been bumped up as well as the $/kWh during the other periods. But it will still have the desired effect of shifting usage patterns, especially for people with rooftop solar and/or batteries and/or EVs. We have a very large penetration of rooftop solar (due to government subsidies) and now home batteries as well. There's definitely been a shift in the market "after sunset" when the coal "baseload" and gas peakers used to make their money. The batteries are flattening out those spikes dramatically.
thedays 3mo ago
This article is misleading as it implies that Australian energy retailers must provide every household with 3 hours of free electricity. This is not the case. From 1 July 2026, Australian energy retailers with more than 1,000 customers must offer at least one energy plan which includes 3 hours of free electricity, capped at 24kWh per day, to residential customers in 3 states - NSW, SE Queensland and South Australia. https://www.energy.gov.au/rebates/solar-sharer-offer https://www.energy.gov.au/rebates/solar-sharer-offer Not all energy plans that the retailers offer have to include 3 hours of free electricity. In practice, most energy plans currently offered don’t include 3 hours of free electricity but some retailers such as Globird are offering more than one energy plan which includes ‘free’ electricity. The downside of these solar sharer plans which include ‘free’ electricity is that they generally have higher daily supply charges and higher usage charges outside the ‘free’ window to recoup the costs of the ‘free’ electricity. Australian consumers can choose the retailer and energy plan their home or business is on and can change their plan at any time. This page on the Energy Consumers Australia website has more details about the Solar Sharer Offer and a similar Victorian Government scheme which starts on 1 October. https://energyconsumersaustralia.com.au/news/solar-sharer-offer-available-soon-how-many-consumers-sign-should-they https://energyconsumersaustralia.com.au/news/solar-sharer-of...
- chicken-stew 3mo ago
  Wait, capped at 24 kWh a day? Our household consumed 8 kWh per day over the past week (gas cooking, no airco). So with a home battery that sinks 10 kWh during those 3 hours you have minimal energy costs?
  - thedays 3mo ago
    Yes - the regulated offer is capped at 24 kWh per day but some retailers such as Globird and CovaU are offering plans which include up to 50 kWh per day of ‘free’ electricity. With a large enough battery and inverter you could just end up paying daily supply charges of $1.65-2.20 per day.
    - rsanek 3mo ago
ggm 3mo ago
The requirement is to accept time of use TOU variant charging and if you cannot shift enough load into 3 hours you may pay more overall for power in other times of day. Demand shifting is good. Do not mistake this as free energy, it very much depends. Many people still don't have TOU meters and many people won't successfully move load into the window. Fixed line costs are rising massively. Electricity should be significantly cheaper but the economics here favour incumbents and people like John Quiggin arguing for renationalisation are drowned out.
- nutjob2 3mo ago
  Or buy a subsidized battery to store the free power and use it whenever you like.
  - ggm 3mo ago
    Yes, that's also being done. A critique I have seen is that this is empowering the rich to get richer. Renters are less likely to be able to adopt these strategies.
    - stubish 3mo ago
      The rich certainly benefit more, like anything where an investment needs to be made (I expect the new plans will be like the existing 'free' power plans and be a poor choice without a battery). In this case, the poor still benefit a little bit as it should drive down peak period prices and the cost of fixed rate plans.
berofeev 3mo ago
I actually built a calculator around this to help someone figure out if they would save money by switching to 3 hour free plan. https://solarsharercalculator.com.au/ https://solarsharercalculator.com.au/
gravelc 3mo ago
I've been on a GloBird plan with 3 free hours for a while. Works out very well as I have a 20 KWH battery and solar. Costs about $15 a month to run the house inc. cooking, heating/cooling, hot water, and charging my PHEV. To make the best of these sorts of plans you need to be home during that period and/or have a decent battery/inverter.
consumer451 3mo ago
I am curious what interesting opportunities free power for a short time opens up. I know crypto mining in TX can operate like this, but that's boring. Desalination and carbon capture are both energy restricted, that sounds a lot more interesting. However, the deployed equipment has to be cheap if you only have 3hrs per day of free power, right?
asdefghyk 3mo ago
It actually alludes to a significant problem. Solar generation is realitely cheap, much more storage is needed. Storage (overnight and also for several days) is challenging - one reason being its more expensive. Then there is the new transmission lines needed.
- NothingAboutAny 3mo ago
  it's much much more expensive, people like to repeat the line that solar is the cheapest form of energy while hand-waving away batteries and grid upgrades required. I did the napkin math a while back but a battery bank for 10's of thousands of homes for 48 hours costed as much (more?) than just building a nuclear power plant.
  - defrost 3mo ago
    The Australian scientific body, the CSIRO, did an extensive report on the full life costs of various energy strategies and concluded that nuclear made little to no economic sense in Australia. Perhaps had they used a napkin they would have agreed with you.
    - NothingAboutAny 3mo ago
      The CSIRO renewables plan factors in only 2-4 hours of battery capacity (way less, with some already built) with the rest of the backup coming from existing pumped hydro and an existing Natural Gas plant. one of the reasons nuclear looked worse in the report is that they would have to actually build a nuclear power plant. it might not make direct sense to build nuclear given what already physically exists, but apples to apples it's not quite as clear.
    - chrisandchris 3mo ago
      I think not everything that makes (purely) financially sense does make economically sense. There's much more to it that just money (e.g. where do you get the uran from for the next 30 years?).
    - roenxi 3mo ago
a10c 3mo ago
First world problems but my Australian retail plan already offers a free period between 11am-2pm without any usage cap, so now with this policy introduction i'm worried my provider will introduce such a cap under the guise of 'its what the government says we can do'.
- throwaway2037 3mo ago
  > without any usage cap <sarcasm> At the risk of Reddit-style mass downvoting, I strongly encourage you to borrow Oracle-level of debt (billions of USD) and build a Tesla Megapack battery "farm" and immediately begin mining Bitcoin. Of course, the battery "farm" will conveniently only be activated during these special hours. The only forseeable risk to ROI for this project would be AT&T- or Comcast-style of "double top secret" limitations over the "without any usage cap" clause. </sacasm>
throwaway2037 3mo ago
Related to this article, I recently saw this video on YouTube: "I Powered My House Using 500 Disposable vapes" [1] It is wild how cheap are solar panels now. Really, bonkers cheap. A huge rooftop solar panel costs less than 100 USD. From everything that I read/see/watch, most of the cost associated with solar panel arrays is the labour required for installation. (No hate on those folks -- they are skilled labour!) [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dy-wFixuRVU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dy-wFixuRVU
rappatic 3mo ago
Translation: “you will just pay more for electricity at other times of day”
- gfxfan 3mo ago
  And the total will go up, measured statistically due to increased complexity but also due to any work this change will incur.
reyoz 3mo ago
Many retailers have been offering this for ~6 months already. Very popular with home battery owners (which have taken off over the last 9 months thanks to subsidies), so much so that the effect of people turning on loads is suspected as the reason for an increasing dip in grid frequency at 11 am [1]. [1] https://wattclarity.com.au/articles/2026/06/system-frequency-at-11-am-in-2026/ https://wattclarity.com.au/articles/2026/06/system-frequency...
- dannyw 3mo ago
  24 kWh free for the three hours seems like a reasonable amount anyway.
Abimelex 3mo ago
That sounds great at first, but just imaging having dynamic price contracts, like tibber, that also forward you the negative prices while still maintaining very low grid fees.
deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]
N_Lens 3mo ago
How’s that privatisation working out for Australian electric grids?
ralfd 3mo ago
> No solar panels required. No need to own your home. You just need a smart meter and to opt in through your retailer to have access to free daytime electricity. The scheme is called the Solar Sharer Offer. What is then the incentive to install (or repair/maintenance) solar panels?
- thinkcontext 3mo ago
  That's the point, the grid operator does not want more solar. They have an excess of solar available during those 3 hours that would otherwise go to waste and not enough later in the day.
deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]
swiftcoder 3mo ago
Damn, we need this in Spain. Market prices go negative basically every daytime, but consumer prices stay exactly the same...
drew870mitchell 3mo ago
Electric battery storage is a better option, but also your home is a very leaky battery storage for conditioned air. At my last place i got a plan that was nearly free on overnights and ran the HVAC all night, turning it off during the peak period. This was in the worst part of summer when the overnight lows were 80F or above so natural ventilation couldn't help much.
didgetmaster 3mo ago
Renewable power tends to be sporadic. When the wind is blowing or the sun is shining brightly, they produce a lot of cheap power. People think the solution is to build huge battery packs to store all that excess power during peak periods and drain them down during off-peak times. That is certainly a solution, even if it is an expensive one. Perhaps a cheaper one is to get everyone to consume the power while it is being produced. Running air conditioners at full blast. Washing clothes and dishes. Charging electric vehicles. There are many things that can be shifted to those peak times, if the incentives are there.
- ukd1 3mo ago
  This won't work. Just do air-conditioning whilst power is being produced? LOL, you know it's hot in someplaces outside of that?
  - didgetmaster 3mo ago
    I didn't say only do air conditioning during the peak times. You can definitely adjust the AC so that it runs on full during the peak times and cools things down a few degrees below ideal, then back it off and allow the temperature to rise a few degrees once electricity becomes more expensive. Again, if the incentives are there, people will adjust.
    - HDBaseT 3mo ago
      This might work if you live in an airtight 1 m × 1 m × 1 m cube. Running the aircon 5 degrees colder at 1pm and turning it off at 2pm will nullify the temperature difference in under 30 minutes.
thatsit 3mo ago
Australia is in fact primed to go all-in on all-electric. They have an hyperabundance of solar and wind (+land where it can be installed) and have the purchasing power to buy cheap panels and electric cars from China. Even the mining industry is going electric as it is plainly cheaper to operate mining trucks on solar PV. They couldn’t care less about that strait of hormuz disaster. Energy to cheap to meter at last!
- Swannie 3mo ago
  Except agriculture and almost all logistics, rely heavily on imported liquid fuel. And whilst EV's or Hybrds are about 50% of new vehicles, there are a lot of existing ICE domestic vehicles. So, yeah, we actually care.

291 points by i2oc 3mo ago

[flagged]

Edited to add: Clarification required in the title that the free energy is only between 11am and 2pm Very interested to see how this turns out. Ultimately we want the transition to benefit both consumers and producers / distributors (the industry). The problem from the rapid uptake of solar in Australia has been an over-supply during this 10/11am to 2/3pm period. If that over-supply is suitably encouraged to be soaked up then hopefully consumers can reduce their power bills whilst the industry has less effort in managing the oversupply and less stress on infrastructure. It's also about time that those who lack the means or situation to have solar panels of their own can get some advantage, in a 'herd immunity' kind of way. I'm in the privileged position to have had solar panels for over a decade, and now have a battery as well, and it was very obvious to me at the time that, in regards to solar, it cost money to save money, so if you couldn't afford it then the savings are inaccessible. This change hopefully helps those who need it, at least somewhat.

Havoc 3mo ago
Surprised they’re putting everyone on same timeslot. Would have expected some staggering to be helpful
- defrost 3mo ago
  From elsewhere: this applies to NSW, South Australia and part of Queensland. so NSW and South Australia will be staggered in real time as they are in different time zones. As for everybody in the same time zone .. they are all seeing the same sun angle at noon (more or less) and all sharing the same over supply of power from all the grid connected solar power rooftops and farms. It's free surplus power during that time frame.
  - Havoc 3mo ago
    Yeah i get that they're all seeing similar but you'd still want to align this new demand with the output curve in some form of approximated pattern. Plus also prevent the sharp spike you'd get from everyone turning on their stuff at a coordinated hour. You're gonna have a bunch of stuff on timers all hit this at the same time. That makes life hard for the people balancing the grid's supply & demand. Bit like in the UK they had issues with everyone watching popular TV shows and then turning on the kettle after in a perfectly syncronized timing across the country
- aragilar 3mo ago
  There's too much available power then (curtailment/negative prices are fairly common now on sunny days), and not enough during the evenings, so it's an incentive for those who don't have/can't get batteries (e.g. renters) to shift their habits. It also can be spun as a cost-of-living action.
pydry 3mo ago
I find it amusing that back when solar and wind were niche and expensive the coal + oil lobby would lobby for "let the free market decide what to build". When solar + wind plunged in price they stopped saying it. Now that the market has driven down the price of solar, wind and storage, market based mechanisms have become ideal for solving the problem of what to do with surplus electricity.
stubish 3mo ago
The change certainly brings in some weirdness too. For instance, I'm looking at a new hot water system. Economically speaking, I'm better off buying an oversized tank using resistive heating that I only need to heat once per day. The grid provides free power and I buy a cheaper appliance. But environmentally it sucks, as more solar needs to be rolled out to cover the additional non-peak usage (guess about 6x the power usage of a smaller tank with heatpump).
- penteract 3mo ago
  To check I understand you: the smaller tank with heatpump would consume less energy outside the time window in which energy is free than the large tank with resistive heating, but has a higher capital cost which would outweigh the amount saved on energy? If that's right, it's not obvious to me that building a suitably sized solar panel is environmentally worse than building a heat pump.
  - stubish 3mo ago
    The smaller tank with heatpump will consume a lot less energy than the larger tank with resistive heat. Economically to me, the larger tank is cheaper, because the appliance is cheaper, and I never pay for the power it uses. Environmentally, yes, it is not obvious. The large tank requires many more solar panels to power it but no battery. The small tank and heatpump needs much less solar but battery for nighttime use. But it is weird, because for decades heat pump tech has been pushed as the environmental choice and there are still a number of government subsidies to invest in heat pump hot water systems. And maybe that no longer makes sense, with the money saved buying cheaper and less efficient devices spent on more solar deployments.
    - hnaccount_rng 3mo ago
      But it’s also environmentally better for you to take the resistive heating thing. As long as you never need to heat it up outside of the noon-window that’s strictly positive. Because the “additional” solar panels will be necessary anyways to cover the night/late evening usage. The optimal buildout will always have superfluous energy at noon. That’s fine. We just need to get over the whole “energy costs anything” thing. That’s only true if you need to spend fuel to generate it

Arjunsureshh 3mo ago

wow

protocolture 3mo ago

The fine print is interesting, theres a cap, fair use provisions and it requires a smart meter. Smart meters are still a bit contentious. Sadly probably wont be any good for selective crypto mining, alas.

nharada 3mo ago
A 24 kWh cap per day seems very reasonable. Drawing 8 kW is quite a lot.
- DamonHD 3mo ago
  My home is in London UK and is relatively small and efficient, but 8kWh may be higher than our peak demand ever over more than 20 years in this house...
  - pjc50 3mo ago
    UK appliances cap out at 13A, or 3.1kW. Electric cookers may be on higher current wiring, but seem to be rated at 3kW max anyway. I think the only way most people could get to 8kW continuous without an EV would be to turn on their electric oven, grill, and all spots on their electric hob. And the kettle.
    - Symbiote 3mo ago
      My Danish electricity supplier lets me download my smart meter records since 2022. It's by hour, and the highest times are probably when I was cooking with both the oven and the hob, and perhaps had the washing machine running too. The highest hour used 2.9kWh. Plenty of cheap (e.g. rental) homes in the UK have crappy electric shows, which are usually rated at 6-8kW — but rarely used for a whole hour.
  - DamonHD 3mo ago
    Ofc I meant 8kW! Eeek. But also it is unlikely that we used 24kWh in any one day ever.
- 3mo ago

russelg 3mo ago

Australia, excluding Western Australia as we are on a separate electricity grid.

bruce511 3mo ago
From the article; this applies to NSW, South Australia and part of Queensland. So yeah, not universal yet. But the precedent means it's moving in that direction. If WA homes end up producing lots of solar at midday then this opens the door there as well.
- rswail 3mo ago
  It applies in Victoria as well. Victoria deregulated its market before NSW/SA/Qld. All of the eastern states (SA/QLD/NSW/VIC/Tas) are part of a single market, with interconnects and wholesale prices set every 5 minutes. Victoria has its own "default offer" and regulator of the retail market, which is also offering similar "free power" hours. WA could be part of the NEM with some HVDC across the Nullabor, not sure if it would be economically worthwhile though.
  - nikcub 3mo ago
    > WA could be part of the NEM with some HVDC across the Nullabor, not sure if it would be economically worthwhile though. Part of the motive of moving the WEM to 5 minute intervals was to eventually leave this option open. The largest renewable project in the world is being planned in this area[0] so it's feasible that it all may be connected one day [0] https://wgeh.com.au/overview/ https://wgeh.com.au/overview/
    - rswail 3mo ago
      Hope HVDC really takes off, having a power network that has solar feed covering 3 timezones as well as multiple latitudes adds to the national solar harvest and grid resiliency.
nutjob2 3mo ago

tw1984 3mo ago

basically they give you a few hours free electricity in exchange for significantly higher electricity prices for the rest of the day. basically a free IQ test.

bruce511 3mo ago
Can you elaborate on the higher elec prices for the benefit of those of us not in Aus? Is that because of the smart meter requirement?
- kaelwd 3mo ago
  Before: 25c/kwh all day After: 30c/kwh most of the day, 0c from 11-2 It's still worth it if you have a lot of load you can shift to the middle of the day (like a pool heater or battery), but for most 9-5 workers you just end up paying more at the times you're actually home. Smart meters are free, most people already have one.
  - strken 3mo ago
    I thought most Australians had different pricing for peak/off-peak. I'm paying 39c/kWh for peak (3pm to 9pm) and 20c/kWh for off-peak (9pm to 3pm the next day).
    - kaelwd 3mo ago
      Yeah just a simplified example, I pay 33/16/10 peak/off-peak/midday.
    - stubish 3mo ago
      Flat rate plans are still popular and the best choice if you can't shift your power usage out of peak times.
  - AtlasBarfed 3mo ago
    Get a battery

andrewstuart 3mo ago

Some parts of Australia. Not Victoria which has bankrupted itself building roads and railways it cannot afford.

rswail 3mo ago
Bullshit. Victoria's default offer will include the same offer from October [1]. Victoria has a separate regulator because it deregulated its electricity grid before the other states. [1] https://www.energy.vic.gov.au/households/save-energy-and-money/victorian-midday-power-saver https://www.energy.vic.gov.au/households/save-energy-and-mon...
- andrewstuart 3mo ago
  Impolite.
  - rswail 3mo ago
    In response to your nonsense about Victoria somehow being bankrupt.

mchusma 3mo ago

Incentivizing usage during peak times makes total sense, but if price swings are this wild, how are grid scale batteries not highly economical? My rough ballpark math was that you need roughly 20 kilowatts of battery storage to make this issue basically nonexistent, and that would cost about 10 billion dollars, which doesn't seem that much for this.

3stacks 3mo ago
They've already burned at least $15bn on that disastrous Snowy Hydro "battery" project... Could've just rolled out consumer batteries on a large scale instead.
- Scoundreller 3mo ago
  You can do similar math with building above ground oil storage tank capacity aaaaaand giving everyone free gas cans. And you can get out every drop. And it’s always ready to go. Do need to cycle your inventory. Fire departments probably wouldn’t be happy about it.
- asdefghyk 3mo ago
  From Australlian ABC news... The cost of the Snowy 2.0 pumped-hydro project is estimated to range from $\$12$ billion to as high as $\$42$ billion depending on the scope of costs included (such as direct construction, interest, and broader transmission). Originally announced in 2017 with a $2 billion price tag, the project has faced massive scale and logistical blowouts. The cost of the Snowy 2.0 pumped-hydro project is estimated to range from $12 billion to as high as $42 billion depending on the scope of costs included (such as direct construction, interest, and broader transmission). That said , hydro systems have a LONG LIFESPAN - 100 YEARS ? Batteries need to be replaced every X years. So the ecomiomics of the comparisoan would need to be calculated ...
  - robin_reala 3mo ago
    Dinorwig[1] was opened in 1984, and is looking at a £1B refurbishment shortly for “at least another 25 years” lifespan.[2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station [2] https://www.waterpowermagazine.com/analysis/re-planting-the-future-how-dinorwig-and-ffestiniog-are-being-rebuilt-to-power-the-uk-for-decades/ https://www.waterpowermagazine.com/analysis/re-planting-the-...

flgb 3mo ago

Not really. The fundamental costs and margin requirements in the system haven't changed. This is a government-mandated electricity plan (a default market offer) that competitive electricity retailers are now required to offer. Those retailers still have network costs, environmental costs, energy costs, and administration costs to recover, and so prices at other times of day necessarily go up. Some consumers may be better off on this plan (generally at the expense of other consumers), and some will be worse off. It's good politics and only so-so policy.

testing22321 3mo ago

It’s very cool to see what happens where there are simply so many residential solar installs. Power price goes negative during peak sunshine hours so they just give it away. Solar installs benefitting everyone, even those who never got solar.

oliyoung 3mo ago
As an Australian, the lack of anxiety and guilt you get when you're using 10-12 hours of air conditioning in the middle of summer and not paying for a cent of it because your solar panels are covering is worth more than anything
- AtlasBarfed 3mo ago
  Why shouldn't that be true practically every consumer home in the world? Yes, grid scale deployments are cheaper, but I'm generally guessing a lot of the grid scale solar deployments do not price in the grid infrastructure adaptation costs, and I'm not even talking about grid storage. Consumer rooftop solar is fundamentally democratic: it reduces reliance on centralized institutions for power delivery, Make society a lot more resilient in bad weather and other emergency situations, insulates everyday people from wild variations and petroleum and other consumable energy availability. Combined with plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, it would enable electrification of 80 and 90% of daily driving without grid infrastructure costs.
  - brabel 3mo ago
    > Why shouldn't that be true practically every consumer home in the world? Here in Sweden nearly all of the electricity bill you pay is concentrated on the winter months when there is literally zero sunshine. Even then solar is popular here. I calculated that installing solar would take around 10 years or more to pay for itself, but I have very little hope to stay in the same house all that time so for me it seemed like a bad investment. That said, if you live in places where it’s sunny most of the time even in winter, like Australia, then solar is absolutely great, just don’t assume most places are like that.

asdefghyk 3mo ago

Its because they have NO economical way to store it to sell for night time usage.

stubish 3mo ago
The new plans are mostly to charge the hundreds of thousands of household batteries that have been installed over the last few years, which are an economical way to store energy for night time usage (ROI about 8% over 20 years, probably more with the new plans).
tencentshill 3mo ago
Every individual household can. There are many programs where you can get a free/discounted home battery and get paid to export to the grid when needed. The economics will make it work.

leonidasrup 3mo ago

Dynamic pricing and deployment of digital smart meters should by mandatory in all electric grids dominated by renewables. Large electric consumers are already buying electricity at dynamic prices, small consumers should have the same incentives to shift the demand to day hours.

Gigachad 3mo ago
I'm so on board for this. It would be kind of fun to wire all my appliances in to home assistant to have the dishwasher / dryer / etc all run during the free hours. I imagine eventually we might end up with some thermal storage where during peak renewable production you heat/freeze a large tank of water and then utilize it to heat/cool your house for the rest of the day. A large tank of water is much cheaper than battery storage.
- fragmede 3mo ago
  Or plug them into a UPS that charges when it's free but you can run them whenever.
  - Gigachad 3mo ago
    Batteries are massively more expensive. Thats why the utility companies are just giving consumers free power over building their own grid scale batteries. A tank of water is cheap, it’s just not possible to distribute hot water over the grid. But it’s very realistic to store it locally and use for heating and cooling. Which is the bulk of power usage anyway.
    - fragmede 3mo ago
      There are never designs coming into the market that support only, say, the fridge, and have the software to be time of day use metering aware, that won't totally break the bank.
- leonidasrup 3mo ago
  Storing energy in hot water is common is sunny regions, for example Turkey. Some large cold storage facilities in Germany are trying to optimize electric demand to use cheap peak day electricity. But they have to observe limitations in range of temperatures and capacity of cooling devices. https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/cold-storage-facilities-could-become-energy-flexibility-option-ai-energy-management https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/cold-storage-facilities... " Compared to conventional cold storage systems, renewable energy-driven cold storage demonstrates a 10–35 % reduction in energy losses" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352152X25035649 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S23521...

thelastgallon 3mo ago

Ideally, they should pay the EV owners because electricity price goes negative. The EV owners are spending their own money to create a scalable on-demand storage infrastructure. This saves CapEx/OpEx of BESS and also eliminates peaker natural gas plants. EV owners should be paid once for allowing storage, and paid again for using the power to supply back to the grid (V2G).

stubish 3mo ago
The EVs with V2G are just big batteries, nothing special. You certainly can charge your battery on the free power and sell it back during peak periods, and people are doing just that today. Just mostly using their 50 kWh household batteries rather than their EVs though, because V2G is still mostly science fiction unless you buy one of the few models of car that actually support it and have a compatible charger and inverter.
- thelastgallon 3mo ago
  For V2G, its a simple feature that enables a car to participate and make money in the energy ecosystem. Govts have to standardize it for cars, just like mandating usb-c.
  - stubish 3mo ago
    It has been standardized here, and we see articles about it in the papers for a few years. Yet only 2 or 3 cars on the market implement it and don't even advertise it, apparently still in trials or pushed aside for sexier features. I was under the impression it was not simple, as it requires more electronics and complexity in the car.
    - thelastgallon 3mo ago
      It its required by Govt (USB-C), all new cars would have this feature. It won't be optional.

thelastgallon 3mo ago

Australia should deploy vertical solar massively. Adds a few more hours of production.

bob1029 3mo ago

I miss having Griddy in Texas. Direct access to the wholesale market is probably not good for the lower end of the consumer segment, but for people with some functional marbles it can make a big difference on the demand side of the grid. I feel like they had to kill griddy before all the powerwall solutions started showing up. We simply cannot empower the peasants with both things at once. The ability to store energy makes access to wholesale prices substantially more effective. I'll never forget the days where we would get push notifications about negative prices. I'd throw the dryer and oven on every time to try and unwind the meter a bit.

Retz4o4 3mo ago
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/griddy-energy-charged-9000-power-bills-settles-with-texas/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/griddy-energy-charged-9000-powe...
- bob1029 3mo ago
  > Direct access to the wholesale market is probably not good for the lower end of the consumer segment Not everything is for everyone. At no point did I feel like I was getting scammed as a customer. I was using them during the winter event.
rswail 3mo ago
Amber offers that in Australia. https://www.amber.com.au/ https://www.amber.com.au/

CalRobert 3mo ago

Incidentally the Netherlands has this too, at least with some providers (Budget Energy for one). I get free electric from 12:00 to 17:00 on weekends.

ctenb 3mo ago
Link? I never heard of this and I'm very interested
- CalRobert 3mo ago
  https://www.budgetthuis.nl/energie/gratis-stroom https://www.budgetthuis.nl/energie/gratis-stroom
- yurishimo 3mo ago
  You might check the rates on Tibber as well. A lot of companies that offer a "free" usage period tend to just move the cost around. If you're comfortable taking the risks associated with a wholesale supplier, then you can likely save a ton of money without even changing your consumption habits. During this past month with the heatwave, my electricity bill was only about €50 despite running airco all day most days. I have 6 solar panels on my roof for reference (was 3k installed I believe). If I was willing to turn off the A/C at night, I could have easily cut the bill in half since most of the billed usage was between 18-21:00.
  - CalRobert 3mo ago
    Ah that looks awesome, thanks!
superjan 3mo ago
You do pay taxes.
- CalRobert 3mo ago
  Well, sure, but that goes without saying?

abstractspoon 3mo ago

When it's hardly needed!

worthless-trash 3mo ago
40c outside during summer in these times.. yeah.. hardly needed.
- hahahaa 3mo ago
  You need a battery to take advantage: then you may as well use a direct to market option like Amber. Which benefits grid stability too. 3 hrs without a battery is useless in Australia. As you generally use electricity for heating/cooling and need it longer than that esp. cooling.
  - deleted 3mo ago
    [deleted]
  - worthless-trash 3mo ago
    I assure you first hand, you can turn on the heater (during winter) or airconditioner without battery and take advantage of this. You can wash your clothes during this time to take advantage on this. You can cook on the electric stove during this time to take advantage of this. No battery is required to do this. I can't connect your logic to my reality.
    - hahahaa 3mo ago
      It is the extra $/kwh you pay out of those 3 hours subsidizing the free time that will be the issue. So you need to order a large round during happy hour and make those beers last. Somewhat possible by overcooling or overheating but you need a battery ideally.

jay_kyburz 3mo ago

This will kill new household solar instillation. The payback time was already well in excess of 10 years, but now that power is free during the day, you can't count those hours as helping pay down your investment. Payback time will be 30 + years at least. You are much better just enjoying your neighbors solar rather than paying for your own. (Feed-in is about 3c now I think. Was 12c when many people bought their panels.) Note: My state 100% renewable energy so reduction of carbon footprint has not bearing on my solar decisions. This also feels like a fairly heavy handed way to encourage investments in batteries. But in the famous words of George W, "can't fool me again". As soon as there are too many batteries and the grid companies are not making enough money, they will introduce fees to have the batteries, or increase connection fees.

perilunar 3mo ago
If the connection fees get too high, people will disconnect. Then they’ll probably ban it.

abrookewood 3mo ago

With 3 hours of free power, a 15kW inverter and a 42kWh battery, I could almost do away with my solar panels and just survive of free grid power. I do have a 15kW solar panel set up, but I get very little from selling anything back to the grid.

hsb3 3mo ago
Grid power is already cheap. Making things free actually makes people use more power. Its called the rebound effect.
discordance 3mo ago
I have a 12 kW inverter (single phase) and 48 kWh battery. In Australia, 9 months of the year my 16 kW of solar fills the battery and covers all needs including cooking, heating and charging the EV. In winter, I’ve been using Ovo’s 3 hours free for about a year now and that ensures the battery is filled up daily. My electricity bill returns a credit every month since I got the battery a year ago.
- robbiep 3mo ago
  I was trying to understand how to do this, and I formed the opinion that most of the battery providers don’t really allow the degree of ‘on/off’ or ‘charge/discharge’ customisation as might be necessary to make this work? Or was I fooled by the packaged products that are aiming to turn me and my battery and panels into a residential power plant at the whim of the energy company?
  - stubish 3mo ago
    The most popular batteries provide all the customization you need and more. Soo many features... it is exhausting. Even 'AI' modes trying to predict usage and solar generation using weather forecasts and top up from the grid at cheap rates if it thinks the power will probably be needed. A battery like Sigenergy's you can setup on a time based charging schedule (most popular for the free power plans), or have it pull Amber's live wholesale rates and put it into AI mode to avoid using their SmartShift VPP, or just hand over the keys to a VPP provider and let them drive.

aaron695 3mo ago

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tiew9Vii 3mo ago

Free isn't free. Coinciding with this, suppliers put daily connection charges up.

nikcub 3mo ago
It kinda is since wholesale energy prices are often negative in these markets during the day
- abanana 3mo ago
  That's the theory. Others in this thread are reporting the reality. In practice, any profit-making enterprise will not want to miss out on the income they were previously getting, so will find other times and charges to load it onto. Also, they know some people will specifically choose an energy plan that seems to give them something free, so it's easy to take advantage by increasing the prices they pay less attention to.
DANmode 3mo ago
As far as line-items on an invoice are concerned, power always seemed egregiously overpriced, and the infrastructure costs seemed wildly understated. So, maybe this is a correction?

L-four 3mo ago

I am so building an arc furnace in my yard.

jaza 3mo ago

https://theshovel.com.au/2025/11/05/electricians-prepare-for-bumper-2026-3-hours-of-free-power/ https://theshovel.com.au/2025/11/05/electricians-prepare-for...

aetherspawn 3mo ago

We already get free power between 0am and 6am, so with free power between 11am and 2pm we’ll have a whopping 9 hours of free power to charge our car and heat our water storage.

BLKNSLVR 3mo ago
What plan and what provider to get free power from midnight to 6am? I'm in a plan that gets me $0.08/kWh during those hours, and I'm planning to switch to one that's just over half that, but I haven't come across any free power in that time span.
- aetherspawn 3mo ago
  I’m with Powershop currently, but it was a hard toss-up between Powershop and Ovo. Sorry you’re right, it’s not “free” with Powershop (4.99 cents per kWhr), but it’s cheap enough that it’s basically free compared to the cost of living and what we were spending before.
  - BLKNSLVR 3mo ago
    I'm on AGL and looking to change to the Ovo 4.7 cents per kWh (midnight to 6am) plan. The per day supply cost is higher as are some of the other rates, but overall should still save me roughly $20 a month - by my calculations.
    - aetherspawn 3mo ago
      For me, Powershop day rate was only 32 cents or so, which made it cheaper overall. We have solar but we use the induction a lot in the evening, so not having a separate higher “on peak” pricing helped us save.

Havoc 3mo ago

Seems like a good idea. Slightly tweaked consumer behavior can achieve what would take a hell of a lot of batteries

SockThief 3mo ago

I feel like this is still relevant today: Clarke and Dawe - The Energy Market Explained https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELaBzj7cn14 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELaBzj7cn14

ra 3mo ago
Still describes the current state of affairs perfectly. I'd love to see them on snowy 2 today.
- entrope 3mo ago
  > I'd love to see them on snowy 2 today. I can only imagine the comment warnings on that segment considering that, sadly, John Clarke passed away nine years ago.
  - csours 3mo ago
    He was towed outside the environment. (I think he would laugh at this)

TheChaplain 3mo ago

They could just sidestep it, by making the electricity free but the transport or cable use more expensive, no?

rswail 3mo ago
That's what is happening, the daily supply charge has been bumped up as well as the $/kWh during the other periods. But it will still have the desired effect of shifting usage patterns, especially for people with rooftop solar and/or batteries and/or EVs. We have a very large penetration of rooftop solar (due to government subsidies) and now home batteries as well. There's definitely been a shift in the market "after sunset" when the coal "baseload" and gas peakers used to make their money. The batteries are flattening out those spikes dramatically.

thedays 3mo ago

This article is misleading as it implies that Australian energy retailers must provide every household with 3 hours of free electricity. This is not the case. From 1 July 2026, Australian energy retailers with more than 1,000 customers must offer at least one energy plan which includes 3 hours of free electricity, capped at 24kWh per day, to residential customers in 3 states - NSW, SE Queensland and South Australia. https://www.energy.gov.au/rebates/solar-sharer-offer https://www.energy.gov.au/rebates/solar-sharer-offer Not all energy plans that the retailers offer have to include 3 hours of free electricity. In practice, most energy plans currently offered don’t include 3 hours of free electricity but some retailers such as Globird are offering more than one energy plan which includes ‘free’ electricity. The downside of these solar sharer plans which include ‘free’ electricity is that they generally have higher daily supply charges and higher usage charges outside the ‘free’ window to recoup the costs of the ‘free’ electricity. Australian consumers can choose the retailer and energy plan their home or business is on and can change their plan at any time. This page on the Energy Consumers Australia website has more details about the Solar Sharer Offer and a similar Victorian Government scheme which starts on 1 October. https://energyconsumersaustralia.com.au/news/solar-sharer-offer-available-soon-how-many-consumers-sign-should-they https://energyconsumersaustralia.com.au/news/solar-sharer-of...

chicken-stew 3mo ago
Wait, capped at 24 kWh a day? Our household consumed 8 kWh per day over the past week (gas cooking, no airco). So with a home battery that sinks 10 kWh during those 3 hours you have minimal energy costs?
- thedays 3mo ago
  Yes - the regulated offer is capped at 24 kWh per day but some retailers such as Globird and CovaU are offering plans which include up to 50 kWh per day of ‘free’ electricity. With a large enough battery and inverter you could just end up paying daily supply charges of $1.65-2.20 per day.
  - rsanek 3mo ago

ggm 3mo ago

The requirement is to accept time of use TOU variant charging and if you cannot shift enough load into 3 hours you may pay more overall for power in other times of day. Demand shifting is good. Do not mistake this as free energy, it very much depends. Many people still don't have TOU meters and many people won't successfully move load into the window. Fixed line costs are rising massively. Electricity should be significantly cheaper but the economics here favour incumbents and people like John Quiggin arguing for renationalisation are drowned out.

nutjob2 3mo ago
Or buy a subsidized battery to store the free power and use it whenever you like.
- ggm 3mo ago
  Yes, that's also being done. A critique I have seen is that this is empowering the rich to get richer. Renters are less likely to be able to adopt these strategies.
  - stubish 3mo ago
    The rich certainly benefit more, like anything where an investment needs to be made (I expect the new plans will be like the existing 'free' power plans and be a poor choice without a battery). In this case, the poor still benefit a little bit as it should drive down peak period prices and the cost of fixed rate plans.

berofeev 3mo ago

I actually built a calculator around this to help someone figure out if they would save money by switching to 3 hour free plan. https://solarsharercalculator.com.au/ https://solarsharercalculator.com.au/

gravelc 3mo ago

I've been on a GloBird plan with 3 free hours for a while. Works out very well as I have a 20 KWH battery and solar. Costs about $15 a month to run the house inc. cooking, heating/cooling, hot water, and charging my PHEV. To make the best of these sorts of plans you need to be home during that period and/or have a decent battery/inverter.

consumer451 3mo ago

I am curious what interesting opportunities free power for a short time opens up. I know crypto mining in TX can operate like this, but that's boring. Desalination and carbon capture are both energy restricted, that sounds a lot more interesting. However, the deployed equipment has to be cheap if you only have 3hrs per day of free power, right?

asdefghyk 3mo ago

It actually alludes to a significant problem. Solar generation is realitely cheap, much more storage is needed. Storage (overnight and also for several days) is challenging - one reason being its more expensive. Then there is the new transmission lines needed.

NothingAboutAny 3mo ago
it's much much more expensive, people like to repeat the line that solar is the cheapest form of energy while hand-waving away batteries and grid upgrades required. I did the napkin math a while back but a battery bank for 10's of thousands of homes for 48 hours costed as much (more?) than just building a nuclear power plant.
- defrost 3mo ago
  The Australian scientific body, the CSIRO, did an extensive report on the full life costs of various energy strategies and concluded that nuclear made little to no economic sense in Australia. Perhaps had they used a napkin they would have agreed with you.
  - NothingAboutAny 3mo ago
    The CSIRO renewables plan factors in only 2-4 hours of battery capacity (way less, with some already built) with the rest of the backup coming from existing pumped hydro and an existing Natural Gas plant. one of the reasons nuclear looked worse in the report is that they would have to actually build a nuclear power plant. it might not make direct sense to build nuclear given what already physically exists, but apples to apples it's not quite as clear.
  - chrisandchris 3mo ago
    I think not everything that makes (purely) financially sense does make economically sense. There's much more to it that just money (e.g. where do you get the uran from for the next 30 years?).
  - roenxi 3mo ago

a10c 3mo ago

First world problems but my Australian retail plan already offers a free period between 11am-2pm without any usage cap, so now with this policy introduction i'm worried my provider will introduce such a cap under the guise of 'its what the government says we can do'.

throwaway2037 3mo ago
> without any usage cap <sarcasm> At the risk of Reddit-style mass downvoting, I strongly encourage you to borrow Oracle-level of debt (billions of USD) and build a Tesla Megapack battery "farm" and immediately begin mining Bitcoin. Of course, the battery "farm" will conveniently only be activated during these special hours. The only forseeable risk to ROI for this project would be AT&T- or Comcast-style of "double top secret" limitations over the "without any usage cap" clause. </sacasm>

throwaway2037 3mo ago

Related to this article, I recently saw this video on YouTube: "I Powered My House Using 500 Disposable vapes" [1] It is wild how cheap are solar panels now. Really, bonkers cheap. A huge rooftop solar panel costs less than 100 USD. From everything that I read/see/watch, most of the cost associated with solar panel arrays is the labour required for installation. (No hate on those folks -- they are skilled labour!) [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dy-wFixuRVU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dy-wFixuRVU

rappatic 3mo ago

Translation: “you will just pay more for electricity at other times of day”

gfxfan 3mo ago
And the total will go up, measured statistically due to increased complexity but also due to any work this change will incur.

reyoz 3mo ago

Many retailers have been offering this for ~6 months already. Very popular with home battery owners (which have taken off over the last 9 months thanks to subsidies), so much so that the effect of people turning on loads is suspected as the reason for an increasing dip in grid frequency at 11 am [1]. [1] https://wattclarity.com.au/articles/2026/06/system-frequency-at-11-am-in-2026/ https://wattclarity.com.au/articles/2026/06/system-frequency...

dannyw 3mo ago
24 kWh free for the three hours seems like a reasonable amount anyway.

Abimelex 3mo ago

That sounds great at first, but just imaging having dynamic price contracts, like tibber, that also forward you the negative prices while still maintaining very low grid fees.

deleted 3mo ago

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N_Lens 3mo ago

How’s that privatisation working out for Australian electric grids?

ralfd 3mo ago

> No solar panels required. No need to own your home. You just need a smart meter and to opt in through your retailer to have access to free daytime electricity. The scheme is called the Solar Sharer Offer. What is then the incentive to install (or repair/maintenance) solar panels?

thinkcontext 3mo ago
That's the point, the grid operator does not want more solar. They have an excess of solar available during those 3 hours that would otherwise go to waste and not enough later in the day.

deleted 3mo ago

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swiftcoder 3mo ago

Damn, we need this in Spain. Market prices go negative basically every daytime, but consumer prices stay exactly the same...

drew870mitchell 3mo ago

Electric battery storage is a better option, but also your home is a very leaky battery storage for conditioned air. At my last place i got a plan that was nearly free on overnights and ran the HVAC all night, turning it off during the peak period. This was in the worst part of summer when the overnight lows were 80F or above so natural ventilation couldn't help much.

didgetmaster 3mo ago

Renewable power tends to be sporadic. When the wind is blowing or the sun is shining brightly, they produce a lot of cheap power. People think the solution is to build huge battery packs to store all that excess power during peak periods and drain them down during off-peak times. That is certainly a solution, even if it is an expensive one. Perhaps a cheaper one is to get everyone to consume the power while it is being produced. Running air conditioners at full blast. Washing clothes and dishes. Charging electric vehicles. There are many things that can be shifted to those peak times, if the incentives are there.

ukd1 3mo ago
This won't work. Just do air-conditioning whilst power is being produced? LOL, you know it's hot in someplaces outside of that?
- didgetmaster 3mo ago
  I didn't say only do air conditioning during the peak times. You can definitely adjust the AC so that it runs on full during the peak times and cools things down a few degrees below ideal, then back it off and allow the temperature to rise a few degrees once electricity becomes more expensive. Again, if the incentives are there, people will adjust.
  - HDBaseT 3mo ago
    This might work if you live in an airtight 1 m × 1 m × 1 m cube. Running the aircon 5 degrees colder at 1pm and turning it off at 2pm will nullify the temperature difference in under 30 minutes.

thatsit 3mo ago

Australia is in fact primed to go all-in on all-electric. They have an hyperabundance of solar and wind (+land where it can be installed) and have the purchasing power to buy cheap panels and electric cars from China. Even the mining industry is going electric as it is plainly cheaper to operate mining trucks on solar PV. They couldn’t care less about that strait of hormuz disaster. Energy to cheap to meter at last!

Swannie 3mo ago
Except agriculture and almost all logistics, rely heavily on imported liquid fuel. And whilst EV's or Hybrds are about 50% of new vehicles, there are a lot of existing ICE domestic vehicles. So, yeah, we actually care.