Australian energy retailers must offer three hours of free daytime electricity • Hacker News Board

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

#131

Post by thedays » Tue, Jul 14, 2026, 10:06 AM UTC

This article is misleading as it implies that Australian energy retailers must provide every household with 3 hours of free electricity.

This is not the case. From 1 July 2026, Australian energy retailers with more than 1,000 customers must offer at least one energy plan which includes 3 hours of free electricity, capped at 24kWh per day, to residential customers in 3 states - NSW, SE Queensland and South Australia. https://www.energy.gov.au/rebates/solar-sharer-offer

Not all energy plans that the retailers offer have to include 3 hours of free electricity. In practice, most energy plans currently offered don’t include 3 hours of free electricity but some retailers such as Globird are offering more than one energy plan which includes ‘free’ electricity.

The downside of these solar sharer plans which include ‘free’ electricity is that they generally have higher daily supply charges and higher usage charges outside the ‘free’ window to recoup the costs of the ‘free’ electricity.

Australian consumers can choose the retailer and energy plan their home or business is on and can change their plan at any time.

This page on the Energy Consumers Australia website has more details about the Solar Sharer Offer and a similar Victorian Government scheme which starts on 1 October. https://energyconsumersaustralia.com.au/news/solar-sharer-of...

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

#132

Post by ggm » Tue, Jul 14, 2026, 10:08 AM UTC

The requirement is to accept time of use TOU variant charging and if you cannot shift enough load into 3 hours you may pay more overall for power in other times of day.

Demand shifting is good. Do not mistake this as free energy, it very much depends. Many people still don't have TOU meters and many people won't successfully move load into the window.

Fixed line costs are rising massively. Electricity should be significantly cheaper but the economics here favour incumbents and people like John Quiggin arguing for renationalisation are drowned out.

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

#133

Post by tihsllub » Tue, Jul 14, 2026, 10:09 AM UTC

abrookewood wrote: post #77

With 3 hours of free power, a 15kW inverter and a 42kWh battery, I could almost do away with my solar panels and just survive of free grid power. I do have a 15kW solar panel set up, but I get very little from selling anything back to the grid.

There is a 24KWh/day fair use

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

#134

Post by rswail » Tue, Jul 14, 2026, 10:10 AM UTC

dhotson wrote: post #27

testing22321 wrote: post #18

It’s very cool to see what happens where there are simply so many residential solar installs. Power price goes negative during peak sunshine hours so they just give it away. Solar installs benefitting everyone, even those who never got solar.

Yeah, it's been great to see the uptake of rooftop solar in Australia. One downside is that large scale solar projects aren't profitable any more. It kind of sucks for the investors that adopted green tech, that they aren't getting a good payoff. The good news is that co-located solar and battery projects are still profitable, but capital costs are higher and payback period of batteries aren't as good.

Co-located PV/BESS or Wind/BESS is the best grid solution anyway. The REZs with transmission infrastructure (subsidized by government) will also add to the return.

The good thing is that even with over a decade of conservative government trying to kill it, renewables are now commercially the only choice for Australia and we will benefit from the rapid advances in storage as well.

Grid level plants are starting to also incorporate synthetic condensers and other FCAS services to make our grid more resilient and reliable, even as our clapped out coal plants move closer to shut down.

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

#135

Post by brabel » Tue, Jul 14, 2026, 10:11 AM UTC

ghiculescu wrote: post #95

brabel wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why shouldn't that be true practically every consumer home in the world? Here in Sweden nearly all of the electricity bill you pay is concentrated on the winter months when there is literally zero sunshine. Even then solar is popular here. I calculated that installing solar would take around 10 years or more to pay for itself, but I have very little hope to stay in the same house all that time so for me it seemed l…

10 year ROI is what I got quoted on a solar setup. I live in Queensland. It’s very sunny here.

Wow your current electricity must be really expensive... or your solar setup is?? Also the calculation was done by the company selling it, I'm pretty sure that was far too optimistic.

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

#136

Post by rswail » Tue, Jul 14, 2026, 10:13 AM UTC

andrewstuart wrote: post #11

Some parts of Australia. Not Victoria which has bankrupted itself building roads and railways it cannot afford.

Bullshit.

Victoria's default offer will include the same offer from October [1].

Victoria has a separate regulator because it deregulated its electricity grid before the other states.

[1] https://www.energy.vic.gov.au/households/save-energy-and-mon...

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

#137

Post by chicken-stew » Tue, Jul 14, 2026, 10:13 AM UTC

thedays wrote: post #131

This article is misleading as it implies that Australian energy retailers must provide every household with 3 hours of free electricity. This is not the case. From 1 July 2026, Australian energy retailers with more than 1,000 customers must offer at least one energy plan which includes 3 hours of free electricity, capped at 24kWh per day, to residential customers in 3 states - NSW, SE Queensland and South Australia.…

Wait, capped at 24 kWh a day? Our household consumed 8 kWh per day over the past week (gas cooking, no airco). So with a home battery that sinks 10 kWh during those 3 hours you have minimal energy costs?

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

#138

Post by thedays » Tue, Jul 14, 2026, 10:13 AM UTC

xbmcuser wrote: post #98

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.

Yeah this is why a lot of people were thinking that the Australian opposition asking for spending $40-50 billions for nuclear that would come online in 20-30 years and to keep using coal and gas till then were being stupid.

It wasn’t $40-50 billion. It was estimated to cost $116-$600 billion to build 7 nuclear reactors https://smartenergy.org.au/nuclear-fallout-116-600-billion-t...

I think the likely cost would have been hundreds of billions considering Australia does not have a nuclear energy generation industry. It currently has a very small nuclear workforce as it only has a small nuclear medical reactor on the outskirts of Sydney.

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

#139

Post by rswail » Tue, Jul 14, 2026, 10:14 AM UTC

protocolture wrote: post #4

The fine print is interesting, theres a cap, fair use provisions and it requires a smart meter. Smart meters are still a bit contentious. Sadly probably wont be any good for selective crypto mining, alas.

Victoria has had smart meters rolled out for over a decade.

The rest of the states in the NEM are aiming for 2030 to complete their rollouts.

Aside from the supposed "contentious" nature of smart meters, which is mostly the RW cookers thinking it's some nefarious plot, along with vaccines and 5G.

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

#140

Post by embedding-shape » Tue, Jul 14, 2026, 10:15 AM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #122

embedding-shape wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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. Except that there is no additional money, its just your own money but now there are strings. On top of tha…

> Except that there is no additional money, its just your own money but now there are strings.

I understand what you mean, and yeah, "it's just your money", but also, it really isn't. Poor people have to pay taxes, no way around it, getting them back as subsidies is still better for them than not getting it back at all. The choice isn't "Keep the money or have subsidies", the choice is "The money goes to other stuff or get subsidies".

> On top of that, that still isn't necessary for things that save a non-trivial amount of money, because that's what loans are for. If it has a $100/mo loan payment and saves $150/mo on the electric bill then you take out a loan or buy it on an installment plan and don't need to have any accumulated capital in order to do it.

Are those interest-free or managed by for-profit entities? Because "loans" are vastly different things compared to subsidies, but I'm guessing you already knew this.

> Why would anybody want that either, instead of just not taking it from you to begin with?

Because "not taking it from you to begin with" isn't a practical and realistic alternative, that's not how the world, and especially taxes and government works...