Free isn't free. Coinciding with this, suppliers put daily connection charges up.
It kinda is since wholesale energy prices are often negative in these markets during the day
Australian energy retailers must offer three hours of free daytime electricity
231–240 of 427 posts
Re: Australian energy retailers must offer three hours of free daytime electricity
#232Earlier quoted context omitted.
> […] they are legally allowed to sign binding contracts with the building manager […] The embedded networks collude with the builders and offer them the installation of wiring, air-conditioning, gas, hot water, and sometimes the internet – usually for free – and that happens before the strata comes into the picture. The strata is left with no choice but to inherit a fixed-term contract (typically 3-5 years), after w…
> The embedded networks collude with the builders and offer them the installation I got into a dispute with my embedded provider because of a bad meter and came to discover through friends and family in the construction industry as well as speaking to a former sales person in the industry that there is a lot of additional corruption in the process with straight up payments being made to win installs with developers.…
«Mates rates» is a big problem in Australia, indeed. At best, it is collusion, but typically it is corruption.
I have recently gone through the entire chain of complaints, the ombudsman including, and I have gained plenty of insight into how insidious the current scheme is.
NSW has set out to do something about it, with price caps being introduced in 2027. If you live in NSW, make your submission to the regulator (IPART) ASAP – submissions are closing at the end of July.
Re: Australian energy retailers must offer three hours of free daytime electricity
#233Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is heat that would have escaped the house anyway
No, air conditioning units generate heat (that is how they cool!) and do contribute to local warming. Without AC the house reaches equilibrium with outside. With AC the house is cooled and that heat has to go somewhere.
Right, but assuming conservation of energy holds then the net should stay the same, right? Unless solar panels have lower albedo than the roof they’re sitting on (considering how many roofs are flat black tar that seems unlikely…)
Re: Australian energy retailers must offer three hours of free daytime electricity
#234Earlier 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.
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Re: Australian energy retailers must offer three hours of free daytime electricity
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.…
> I am able to charge cars at work
Re: Australian energy retailers must offer three hours of free daytime electricity
#236Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
Forget 3hrs free. We lived in the tropics in Australia with a ~6kW system and often had negative quarterly invoices (i.e. got paid by our retailer) ... esp. in winter months. Aircon, pool, appliances all electric. At the very least the pool pump ran free all year round. Edit: should add, that's straight solar no battery
We live in a deep valley where it snows a ton in Canada, and with 7.2kw of panels and no battery we only get a bill in winter. For the entire year our power bill is $500, and we have heat pump heat, and disconnected the natural gas.
We just got a very high efficiency wood stove, I expect we will now have no electricity bill each year.
Re: Australian energy retailers must offer three hours of free daytime electricity
#237Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean in the dead of winter, yes. For six months of the year? Definitely not.
Definitely so. Unless you are on the equator, the sun is up for less than 12 hours a day from the autumnal equinox to the spring equinox. The sun will set before 18:00 local solar time. So apart from funkiness with time zones and summer time (which extends a couple of weeks past the autumnal equinox in Aus), yes, roughly half the year.
You're not crazy in the broad sweep of your idea, but actually because the sun isn't a point of light you're also not strictly correct, for example in Singapore the day is always more than 12 hours long.
Re: Australian energy retailers must offer three hours of free daytime electricity
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.…
> I am able to charge cars at work Nice perk! Does you know who pays for the electricty? Is this "virtue signalling" by the company or landlord... or a subsidy from the local/state/national gov't? To be clear, I am not making any value judgement about providing free charging for EVs. It seems like good gov't policy to promote the adoption of EVs.
It costs $5-$10 for the electricity to charge a car using level 2 charging. It is a trivial "perk" for an employee that costs an order of magnitude more per hour of work.
Re: Australian energy retailers must offer three hours of free daytime electricity
#239Earlier quoted context omitted.
Moreover, apartment dwelling residential customers connected to embedded networks (many new apartment blocks in NSW, Victoria and Queensland) are not eligible for the Solar Share Offer because under section 6(3)(c), a consumer supplied through an embedded network is already excluded from the Commonwealth Electricity Retail Code’s definition of a «small customer». The government won't address this particular perverse…
I love being ripped off because I'm renting, so instead of having a direct relationship with my service providers, they are legally allowed to sign binding contracts with the building manager who I'm sure in no shape way or form receives a kick-back. So I'm stuck with an energy provider that is too incompetent to figure out how to bill me correctly, but puts a markup on what I'd pay as a home owner, and I don't even…
> I don't even get the NBN despite having fibre to the premises!
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Broadband_Network
Re: Australian energy retailers must offer three hours of free daytime electricity
#240Earlier quoted context omitted.
These are things where policy is set by government and so could be moved by your elected representatives. If you already have a preferred flavour of representative, try to get them to want to do this. If you don't, here's an issue that could make you prefer one over another, make sure they know that.
No, technically it can't. An individual writing to an MP is rarely sufficient by itself. Australia’s embedded network landscape is a peculiarly intricate tangle of nuance, complexity and regulatory optimism. Note that the embedded networks are distinctly unique and different from retail utility providers. Please bear with my lengthy explanation for a few rather long moments. Embedded networks are private distribution…
Ok, this post has to be a Top 10 HN of all time for me. Massively informative. Thank you. +9000
Plus, extra Internet points for using this Unicode char that I didn't know about: ↝