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Australia has so much solar that it's offering everyone free electricity

electrek.co

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Re: Australia has so much solar that it's offering everyone free electricity

#21

Post by RobinL »

ch4s3 wrote: post #8
cowboy_henk wrote: post #2

* 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

This 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.

In 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

Here's a forecast: https://prices.fly.dev/A/

Re: Australia has so much solar that it's offering everyone free electricity

#22

Post by boldlybold »

freedomben wrote: post #18
almosthere wrote: post #10

For 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!

Now I'm imagining drilling through the Earth to get the shortest possible line from Australia to my house. I like this

If you're already down there, set up some geothermal!

Re: Australia has so much solar that it's offering everyone free electricity

#23

Post by trollbridge »

vondur wrote: post #16

Wish they would do this in California where wholesale power can go negative for the same reason.

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.

Re: Australia has so much solar that it's offering everyone free electricity

#24

Post by bee_rider »

willvarfar wrote: post #4
cowboy_henk wrote: post #2

* 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

Yes the article talks about consumers scheduling things like washing machines during the day, or even filling up a battery.

This 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!

Re: Australia has so much solar that it's offering everyone free electricity

#26

Post by jl6 »

willvarfar wrote: post #3

Ignoring 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.

Let's hope someone can do the same for grid-scale seasonal storage. "Excess" solar electricity won't be free in (noon, summer) if you can easily bank it for (night, winter).

Re: Australia has so much solar that it's offering everyone free electricity

#27

Post by inerte »

tasty_freeze wrote: post #15
willvarfar wrote: post #3

Ignoring 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.

For years I've been hearing one excuse for the US not doing more about climate change is that China is polluting more and if they aren't doing something about it then why should we? The argument always seemed disingenuous. For sure, China produces a lot of pollution as they are modernizing, but they are also investing a lot in the direction of sustainability. If we take the balance of (pollution produced - pollution…

I am not familiar with Chinese politics or motivation, but I wonder if it's for the same arguments we have in the US, "save the world" vs. "the strong can do whatever they want". I am not sure China does for the sake of sustainability and environment. Yes I know the end result might be the same but are the reasons the same?

Re: Australia has so much solar that it's offering everyone free electricity

#29

Post by danans »

vondur wrote: post #16

Wish they would do this in California where wholesale power can go negative for the same reason.

Not free, but PGE has started an hourly variable rate plan pilot:

https://www.pge.com/en/account/rate-plans/hourly-flex-pricin...

However, they aren't taking net metering customers yet, but if you end up spending more on the hourly variable rate plan, they'll refund you to the same you would have spent on the regular time of use rate plan.

Re: Australia has so much solar that it's offering everyone free electricity

#30

Post by BoredPositron »

jl6 wrote: post #26
willvarfar wrote: post #3

Ignoring 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.

Let's hope someone can do the same for grid-scale seasonal storage. "Excess" solar electricity won't be free in (noon, summer) if you can easily bank it for (night, winter).

It's a thread about Australia not Austria.
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