Australia has so much solar that it's offering everyone free electricity • Hacker News Board

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

#251

Post by danans » Fri, Nov 07, 2025, 1:20 AM UTC

vondur wrote: post #105

danans wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And they actually charge you a fee if you generate. My brother in law unhooked from the grid because back feeding was charging him $100 a month. To give away power. Which utility and plan is this? I'm not aware of any California residential rate plans that charge you for putting power back on the grid, much less $100/month. That said, wholesale electricity rates are set by high frequency supply/demand markets. Rece…

I think they’re referring to the fact that if you’re connected to the grid, you may be charged a base fee of around $100 per month, even if you don’t use any power. Previously, homeowners received credits for the excess solar energy they sent back to the grid, but the state has since ended that program.

> I think they’re referring to the fact that if you’re connected to the grid, you may be charged a base fee of around $100 per month, even if you don’t use any power.

The base charge for most customers in PGE territory is $24/month:

https://www.pge.com/en/account/billing-and-assistance/base-s...

> Previously, homeowners received credits for the excess solar energy they sent back to the grid, but the state has since ended that program.

They ended the NEM1.0 and NEM2.0 programs that credited net surplus back to homeowners at retail electricity rates (which includes transmission and distribution costs). Those programs were a subsidy to encourage residential solar PV installation when it was very expensive and rare, not intended to function as long term subsidy programs for PV owners.

The switch to NEM3.0 only affects newer installations -the older installations keep the older rates until a change of ownership in the home.

Under the new net-metering program, homeowners with solar still get credits for net energy sent back to the grid, albeit at the "avoided cost" rate, which while much lower on average at most times, is reflective of the true value of power at the time it is pushed back to the grid, which is close to wholesale electricity rates. During peak hours and days of the year, the compensation rate can exceed the retail rate of electricity.

This incentivizes the installation of energy storage that can be used to move consumption to low-demand times and even arbitrage with stored energy by selling back to the grid at peak hours.

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

#252

Post by rstuart4133 » Fri, Nov 07, 2025, 1:49 AM UTC

locusm wrote: post #250

rstuart4133 wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I haven't look into the details, but It sure feels like a slap in the face to those of us who invested in panels. Sure. But if you live in Australia, you knew that slap was coming. You could almost have said to have signed up for it. Very early in the piece, the government offered to pay people who installed solar about $0.50 for every kWh you fed into the grid. To be clear, that was far more than the retail price…

The feed in tariff you refer to was 52c in the beginning and was limited to a 5kW inverter. I installed 6.25kW worth of panels with a 5kW inverter in 2011 and haven't paid a single power bill since. There's no slap in the face, sure I have to give up the FIT if I want the battery subsidy but I haven't paid a cent for power in 13 years (beyond initial investment).

In NSW it was limited to 5kW. That wasn't the limit in Queensland. Granted, there is was "only" 44c, but 44c at 30kW isn't something to be sniffed at. The 50kW of panels was to ensure you got that full 30kW for most of the day. You also got the 15c the retailer paid you, so for a while you were easily earning $40k/yr on something that cost of the order of $200k to set up.

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

#253

Post by thedays » Fri, Nov 07, 2025, 1:51 AM UTC

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #79

somanyphotons wrote: post #69

With free power for 3 hours a day, I'd skip installing solar and I'd buy a ~30kwh battery (2x Ruixu Lithi2-16) and a big inverter. Charge the batteries in the free time and then use the stored power the rest of the day.

Australia will give you a 30% discount on that purchase, they have a fund of 2.3 Billion Australian dollars available for this purpose called the Cheaper Home Batteries program.

The 30% battery discount in Australia is only available to households that also have solar systems. https://www.dcceew.gov.au/energy/programs/cheaper-home-batte...

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

#254

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Nov 07, 2025, 1:57 AM UTC

breve wrote: post #218

acdha wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not in the slightest. I’m saying that it’s possible to recognize that evil without denying that something else is good. Just do both at the same time, like how we might say that the world has benefited from polyurethane, digital computers (Konrad Zuse), or rocketry without in any way excusing the Nazi government which controlled Germany at the time.

You are entirely rationalizing it.

[deleted]

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

#255

Post by viraptor » Fri, Nov 07, 2025, 1:57 AM UTC

nandomrumber wrote: post #244

viraptor wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's currently a significant rebate on batteries in Australia. (Or maybe just Victoria?) So that's definitely one attempted solution. People are getting it for costs paying off in under 5 years.

Not the working-poor. Not renters. By rebate you mean: a wealth transfer from tax payers to those who need it least, those who can afford a battery, those who aren’t renting.

Not quite. There's an income limit on that rebate. I can't get it.

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

#256

Post by rstuart4133 » Fri, Nov 07, 2025, 2:00 AM UTC

nandomrumber wrote: post #245

rstuart4133 wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I haven't look into the details, but It sure feels like a slap in the face to those of us who invested in panels. Sure. But if you live in Australia, you knew that slap was coming. You could almost have said to have signed up for it. Very early in the piece, the government offered to pay people who installed solar about $0.50 for every kWh you fed into the grid. To be clear, that was far more than the retail price…

What we’re dealing with is successive Australian governments with absolutely no plan for long term energy infrastructure, so they’ve lobbed it over the wall to the residential customer. Here, you deal with it. No options. It’s solar and batteries rammed down your throat. At your cost. If it doesn’t work out, it’s on us. No big (reliable base load) energy projects to power industry in to the future, China can do all o…

> No big (reliable base load) energy projects to power industry in to the future

Snowy? https://theconversation.com/white-elephant-hardly-snowy-2-0-...

Snowy aside, households are installing 40kWh batteries now. Add 2 cars V2G that give you an additional 40kWh with impacting the car battery life overly. Across the 12 million Australia houses that adds something of the order of 1 terawatt hours of storage to the grid. It's almost double the total predicted storage (660GWh) Australia will need by 2050 https://www.energycouncil.com.au/analysis/battery-storage-au...

The strategy of "lobbing it over the wall to the residential customer" has already turned Australia households into major suppliers of electricity to the grid. Apparently they don't mind the risk if there is money to be made. Now it looks like the government are hoping household batteries will become major suppliers of storage to the grid. If that is as successful as solar, it will be by any definition a wildly successful strategy for handing the transition away from fossil fuels.

The weird thing is: this was all kicked off by the Howard government. They would be the very conservatives who are railing against renewables now.

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

#257

Post by dzhiurgis » Fri, Nov 07, 2025, 2:41 AM UTC

b112 wrote: post #97

dataviz1000 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I witnessed this traveling through smaller islands in the Philippines. They have cell service without connection to an electric grid in some places. The children with solar charging now have access to education materials and there is access to banking and payments systems. The effects of this are going to massive and huge in 10 years.

Yes indeed. All those unfortunate children will be introduced to the toxic, horrid internet. They'll be addicted, have no attention span, have their own data used against them to exploit and track them, and end up with their political system reeling under manipulative AI and generic bots. Far better to just give them books for their educarional system, and leave the evil Internet out of it.

Nah books distract kids from reigning their horses and crop in fields.

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

#258

Post by nandomrumber » Fri, Nov 07, 2025, 2:47 AM UTC

rstuart4133 wrote: post #256

nandomrumber wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What we’re dealing with is successive Australian governments with absolutely no plan for long term energy infrastructure, so they’ve lobbed it over the wall to the residential customer. Here, you deal with it. No options. It’s solar and batteries rammed down your throat. At your cost. If it doesn’t work out, it’s on us. No big (reliable base load) energy projects to power industry in to the future, China can do all o…

> No big (reliable base load) energy projects to power industry in to the future Snowy? https://theconversation.com/white-elephant-hardly-snowy-2-0-... Snowy aside, households are installing 40kWh batteries now. Add 2 cars V2G that give you an additional 40kWh with impacting the car battery life overly. Across the 12 million Australia houses that adds something of the order of 1 terawatt hours of storage to the grid.…

Snowy 2.0 isn’t an electricity generator, it’s pumped hydro. It relies on electricity being generated elsewhere.

The governments plan is bait and switch. Make it seem lucrative at the start, and then squeeze everyone who committed on better terms by ratcheting up the fees and ratcheting down the feed-in tariffs.

Alternatively, we could have built a handful of big combined cycle gas plants, close to the retiring coal plants to take advantage of existing transmission infrastructure, and legislated a cheap rate for gas from the gas extraction industry, and Australians could have had all-you-can-use electricity for $40 a month.

But instead of that, we’ve committed at least a couple of generations to virtue signalling, like Australia’s GHG emissions make any difference.

We’re happy to export the gas and coal, and uranium, so India and China can have cheap power to run industrial economies.

Cheap power comes not from residential customers managing their time of use, but from the excess of industrialisation. And we’re rapidly making it cost prohibitive to manufacture anything in Australia, or even run a restaurant. So that people in far away lands can have better lives.

Make us look pretty stupid to be honest.

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

#259

Post by nandomrumber » Fri, Nov 07, 2025, 2:58 AM UTC

aeonfox wrote: post #249

nandomrumber wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a generational success story So long as you ignore the working-poor. Those who live pay check to pay check, can’t afford solar / battery - or are renting so none of that applies to them. Yeah, they can just get fucked . What a success!

But isn't the OP article about distributing the benefits to the wider population? Add to that the uptake of batteries GP is mentioning will substantially reduce both the need for back-up power and the cost of transmission that have been driving up electricity prices.

At what cost, and to who?

So you can have three hours of free electricity, while you’re at work, the kids are at school, you’re renting so no battery for you, electricity has already increased 100% and continues to increase, but only once a year, and now you’re being offered something your 10 year old second hand appliances and petrol cars can’t take advantage of.

Forget trickle down economics, it’s deluge-up. From those who can barely afford it to those who barely need it.

Let’s not pretend there isn’t a cost of living crisis in Australia, and electricity prices factor in to everything.

Cheap reliable plentiful electricity is the backbone of an economy. Not sitting down and working out how you can use less power next month.

We should be sitting down trying to work out how we can use more power next month, in order to leverage that power to have a better life, warmer / cooler homes. Starting businesses and not having electricity be the killer.

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

#260

Post by nandomrumber » Fri, Nov 07, 2025, 3:09 AM UTC

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 Australia, residential premises are prohibited from running aluminium smelters.

Dunno about where you live.

If you’re going to throw capital at large metal refinery infrastructure, you want it running 24/7, or have guaranteed subsidies from local, state, and federal governments.

And remember that subsidies are paid from the public purse.