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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 w

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

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