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Australian energy retailers must offer three hours of free daytime electricity

lenergy.com.au

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Re: Australian energy retailers must offer three hours of free daytime electricity

#101

Post by pydry »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #2

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 soake…

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.

Re: Australian energy retailers must offer three hours of free daytime electricity

#102

Post by perilunar »

michaelt wrote: post #29
mchusma wrote: post #14

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.

I think it's less a question of batteries being economical, and more a question of the relative economics of batteries vs solar panels. After all, if the highest demand is between 16:30 and 19:00 you could use batteries to store power at 12:00 and sell it at 18:00 - or in famously sunny Australia you could build enough solar panels that solar output at 18:00 matches power demand. If batteries have a solid 9% return o…

> you could build enough solar panels that solar output at 18:00 matches power demand

No you could not. For half the year the sun has set by 18:00.

Re: Australian energy retailers must offer three hours of free daytime electricity

#104

Post by vitro »

ghiculescu wrote: post #93
jofzar wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but if price swings are this wild, how are grid scale batteries not highly economical They are super economical in Australia and the government even offers discounts and interest free loan of 15k to buy them.

They are super economical… which is why there’s a subsidy required for people to buy them?

I know people who would purchase solar panels and batteries, but they do not have enough capital to do so.

Re: Australian energy retailers must offer three hours of free daytime electricity

#105

Post by protocolture »

josephcooney wrote: post #38
mchusma wrote: post #14

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.

One of my co-workers (I'm Australian) has 500 kilowatt-hours of storage at home...which is wild. Much more common is the 10-20 kilowatt-hours of domestic storage for a house.

My dad buys lead acids written off from storm damage to solar systems (The whole system gets replaced under insurance even if the batteries are just a bit worn) and then sells them to preppers in the middle of nowhere. For a while he had above 300KW/h of storage, basically completely off grid with few shutdowns. It was kind of nuts. His house did burn down, but it was arson.

Re: Australian energy retailers must offer three hours of free daytime electricity

#106

Post by AnthonyMouse »

embedding-shape wrote: post #96
ghiculescu wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are super economical… which is why there’s a subsidy required for people to buy them?

Is it so out of the ordinary that a government tries to help people save money or what's the question? Sounds like you've only had the American experience in life unfortunately.

If something actually saves money then it doesn't require a subsidy because people would be doing it regardless.

Meanwhile the government doesn't have any of its own money, so it can't really give you something that was yours to begin with, all it can do is take it from you and then give it back with strings attached. How is that helping you? Instead of subsidizing something you can make up your own mind about whether you want, they should just lower your taxes by the amount of the subsidy and let you use your money for that or something else at your choice.

Re: Australian energy retailers must offer three hours of free daytime electricity

#107

Post by chii »

ghiculescu wrote: post #93
jofzar wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but if price swings are this wild, how are grid scale batteries not highly economical They are super economical in Australia and the government even offers discounts and interest free loan of 15k to buy them.

They are super economical… which is why there’s a subsidy required for people to buy them?

> which is why there’s a subsidy required for people to buy them?

the gov't also offers interest free (but inflation indexed) loans to tertiary education.

Just because there's a subsidy, doesn't mean the tax payer is paying a price for inefficiency. The policy itself needs to be individually examined to determine whether it's an efficient use of funds, not simply that it's a subsidy (time frame needs to be taken into account too).

Re: Australian energy retailers must offer three hours of free daytime electricity

#108

Post by yurishimo »

grey-area wrote: post #32
oliyoung wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You should still feel some guilt for the heat pollution your air conditioning causes for those outside your house, esp. in an urban area.

Or, we could lobby politicians to actually improve the lives of their constituents by making climate control appliances so affordable and ubiquitous that it's no longer an issue and we can stop accidental deaths attributed to heat. More green spaces can also help mitigate the impact.

The reality is that a lot of old western europe was built for a climate that no longer exists. Houses are built to prioritize holding on to heat and rebuilding entire cities is definitely not possible if we're already bickering so much about adding heat pumps.

Yes, heat pumps may create a rise in temperatures in cities, but there are other things we can do as a society to also lower temperatures as to create a net-neutral impact.

Re: Australian energy retailers must offer three hours of free daytime electricity

#109

Post by lopis »

superjan wrote: post #81
CalRobert wrote: post #55

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.

You do pay taxes.

There's also the electricity transport costs. We're talking about the pure electricity cost here.

Re: Australian energy retailers must offer three hours of free daytime electricity

#110

Post by embedding-shape »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #106
embedding-shape wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it so out of the ordinary that a government tries to help people save money or what's the question? Sounds like you've only had the American experience in life unfortunately.

If something actually saves money then it doesn't require a subsidy because people would be doing it regardless. Meanwhile the government doesn't have any of its own money, so it can't really give you something that was yours to begin with, all it can do is take it from you and then give it back with strings attached. How is that helping you? Instead of subsidizing something you can make up your own mind about whethe…

> If something actually saves money then it doesn't require a subsidy because people would be doing it regardless.

Spoken as someone who never been poor. There is definitely a ton of stuff people with money can do to save more money, that is completely out of reach for the people who would actually benefit from those savings the most. Subsidies is quite literally about reaching these folks that others tend to forget about.

> all it can do is take it from you and then give it back with strings attached. How is that helping you?

Compared to "take it from you and not give it back to you", it's definitely helping people who have less money. Not sure how this needs explaining.

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