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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

#211

Post by stubish »

thelastgallon wrote: post #47

Ideally, they should pay the EV owners because electricity price goes negative. The EV owners are spending their own money to create a scalable on-demand storage infrastructure. This saves CapEx/OpEx of BESS and also eliminates peaker natural gas plants. EV owners should be paid once for allowing storage, and paid again for using the power to supply back to the grid (V2G).

The EVs with V2G are just big batteries, nothing special. You certainly can charge your battery on the free power and sell it back during peak periods, and people are doing just that today. Just mostly using their 50 kWh household batteries rather than their EVs though, because V2G is still mostly science fiction unless you buy one of the few models of car that actually support it and have a compatible charger and inverter.

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

#212

Post by pqtyw »

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…

Well that would apply to a lot of thing governments spend money on. I think the idea is that governments are better at allocating capital in certain cases (obviously one might disagree with that) than the people/companies who generate the most tax revenue. I mean on an individual level even if solar batteries are profitable people who have sufficient disposable income might chose to invest it into the US stock market (if it still offers better returns) amongst other things than into something that benefits the Australian economy or society.

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

#213

Post by stubish »

asdefghyk wrote: post #23

Its because they have NO economical way to store it to sell for night time usage.

The new plans are mostly to charge the hundreds of thousands of household batteries that have been installed over the last few years, which are an economical way to store energy for night time usage (ROI about 8% over 20 years, probably more with the new plans).

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

#214

Post by roenxi »

defrost wrote: post #192
NothingAboutAny wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's much much more expensive, people like to repeat the line that solar is the cheapest form of energy while hand-waving away batteries and grid upgrades required. I did the napkin math a while back but a battery bank for 10's of thousands of homes for 48 hours costed as much (more?) than just building a nuclear power plant.

The Australian scientific body, the CSIRO, did an extensive report on the full life costs of various energy strategies and concluded that nuclear made little to no economic sense in Australia. Perhaps had they used a napkin they would have agreed with you.

The CSIRO aren't the group who have to cost, pay for, take on the financial risk of or be operationally involved in running a nuclear power plant. Their opinions are welcome but not in any way final. The Chinese might easily be willing to come in and build something as their industry matures, for example, at costs not currently anticipated.

The more pressing issue is the Australian government is a coven of luddites who have taken a bold and consistent stance against any form of advanced industrial progress taking root in Australia whatever and have identified nuclear power as high technology that therefore must be categorically banned. Leaving the whole question an academic one and leaving the CSIRO the only group taking an interest.

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

#215

Post by silon42 »

lopis wrote: post #109
superjan wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do pay taxes.

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

Yeah, I guess this is covered by "grid charge" which keeps going up with more solar.

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

#216

Post by reyoz »

chicken-stew wrote: post #137
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?

This is what I am doing. 42 kWh battery, 6 kW solar and fully electrified house, 2x EVs. I am able to charge cars at work and so in the depths of winter I am able to run the house by charging during the 3 hour window. There have been just a couple of cold (~2-4 degC) days when the battery was depleted 1-2 hours before the window starts.

As the weather warms and we get more solar exposure we will easily be in excess. We get a very small export rate with a bonus for no energy consumption during peak evening hours which can offset the fixed daily charge.

There are a lot of gotchas that you need to be aware of. 42 kWh is nominal capacity not the actual usable capacity. House load, max grid import and export capacity, max inverter capacity, AC or DC coupled panels, battery charging profile, battery temp are all factors in how much you can charge in the window. For example I have max 15 kW grid draw, with a 10 kW inverter that can charge the battery. I can put in max ~30 kWh into the battery, so I also run other loads in the house to use the other 5 kW capacity. If I go over 5 kW house load the battery charge is clipped to maintain grid import limit.

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

#218

Post by stubish »

strken wrote: post #50
kaelwd wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before: 25c/kwh all day After: 30c/kwh most of the day, 0c from 11-2 It's still worth it if you have a lot of load you can shift to the middle of the day (like a pool heater or battery), but for most 9-5 workers you just end up paying more at the times you're actually home. Smart meters are free, most people already have one.

I thought most Australians had different pricing for peak/off-peak. I'm paying 39c/kWh for peak (3pm to 9pm) and 20c/kWh for off-peak (9pm to 3pm the next day).

Flat rate plans are still popular and the best choice if you can't shift your power usage out of peak times.

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

#219

Post by pqtyw »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #171
embedding-shape wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's the false dichotomy that happens in a broken government, but then why hold that out as something desirable? Personally I see it as stuff that happens in countries where the government care about the well-being of all , not just a select few (usually the ones with the most money). It's desirable that society improves, lots of that happens because of tax money. Subsidies usually means re-allocating funds, not…

I'm honestly having trouble comprehending what your position is supposed to be here. It really seems to be that using the money to lower taxes on ordinary people rather than providing them with subsidies is a thing that could never happen. As if the prospect that their taxes could be lower than they are now, rather than only the same or higher, is something you can't even imagine.

Well off people do not allocate capital in a way that's socially or economically (on a national level) optimal. So the government has to do that for them (even if those who the majority of taxes personally benefit less from that than if they were allowed to keep that money).

I don't think that's entirely unreasonable. After all there are hardly any personal incentives for individuals to invest into infrastructure, education or healthcare of people who can't afford it and plenty of other areas even if that's what allowed them to accumulate a significant proportion of not the overwhelming majority of their wealth over the long term.

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

#220

Post by Symbiote »

pjc50 wrote: post #73
DamonHD wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My home is in London UK and is relatively small and efficient, but 8kWh may be higher than our peak demand ever over more than 20 years in this house...

UK appliances cap out at 13A, or 3.1kW. Electric cookers may be on higher current wiring, but seem to be rated at 3kW max anyway. I think the only way most people could get to 8kW continuous without an EV would be to turn on their electric oven, grill, and all spots on their electric hob. And the kettle.

My Danish electricity supplier lets me download my smart meter records since 2022.

It's by hour, and the highest times are probably when I was cooking with both the oven and the hob, and perhaps had the washing machine running too. The highest hour used 2.9kWh.

Plenty of cheap (e.g. rental) homes in the UK have crappy electric shows, which are usually rated at 6-8kW — but rarely used for a whole hour.

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