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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

#111

Post by master-lincoln »

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…

Think about people who could not afford the initial investment. It's beneficial for society here if the government redistributes wealth for the benefit of all.

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

#112

Post by CalRobert »

yurishimo wrote: post #78
ctenb wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Link? I never heard of this and I'm very interested

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…

Ah that looks awesome, thanks!

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

#113

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#114

Post by ZeroGravitas »

bruce511 wrote: post #13
tw1984 wrote: post #10

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.

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?

The utilities don't really want to sell you the cheap solar. They'd rather write op-eds about how too much solar is flooding the grid and beg for more money to invest in the grid elements they can make money from.

The government is having to force them to reflect the abundance of cheap, clean energy at these times in at least one of their tariff offerings.

They can bend the rules slightly by adding other daily charges or limitations and upping the price at other times to reduce uptake and move us all slightly further from the global optimum but maximize their profits.

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

#115

Post by lopis »

Gigachad wrote: post #43
leonidasrup wrote: post #24

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.

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 bat…

I don't have smart washers, but I did build a smart ESP32-based [0] zigbee numerical display. Then I use Home Assistant to send the current electricity price to that display when the price changes, and send a notification to all users' phones when electricity is cheap ( 0.15€/kWh). This helps me plan my laundry and dish washing, which are the only energy intensive appliances I have. I also try to avoid cooking complex meals in the stove+oven.

[0] https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005010546076391.html

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

#116

Post by perilunar »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #64

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 pane…

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

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

#118

Post by ra »

SockThief wrote: post #103

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

Still describes the current state of affairs perfectly. I'd love to see them on snowy 2 today.

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

#119

Post by rswail »

TheChaplain wrote: post #117

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

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.

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