Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Australian energy retailers must offer three hours of free daytime electricity

lenergy.com.au

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

271–280 of 427 posts

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

#271

Post by pixl97 »

inkyoto wrote: post #224
tialaramex wrote: post #180

Earlier 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…

Jeesh, these embedded networks sounds like something that was once a good idea to serve more marginalized customers, but has drifted into revenue generation because of a change in information available to those providing it.

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

#272

Post by AnotherGoodName »

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?

Quite simply put this is what they ask you to do. To the point that the Australian government will heavily subsidise (30%) home battery installation.

Remember Australia has over 10x the rollout of solar than china (per capita of course). It’s not hard to achieve this for any competent government. Bluntly China’s government is corrupt and inefficient (usa is even further behind china since their current government is also corrupt and inefficient).

This rollout of cheap solar in Australia is causing power prices during a global energy crisis and a datacenter build out to plummet.

And fwiw i don’t think Australia’s government is perfect. But it should set the bar to other nations of ‘what could be’. You could have falling power prices right now if you enabled a government to encourage what is currently by far the cheapest form of electricity (solar).

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

#273

Post by dhotson »

Leherenn wrote: post #246
dhotson wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What makes large scale solar no longer profitable? Distribution costs have outpaced the efficiency gains of the large scale installation?

Yeah, it's tricky because basically all solar arrays (rooftop and utility) all come online at more-or-less the same time so there's a huge influx of supply which drives the price down.

You can get a sense of it if you look at the daily breakdown:

https://explore.openelectricity.org.au/energy/nem/?range=1d&...

You can see the demand peaks around 12pm and 6pm.

The price goes negative around 2pm most days, in which case, as a solar only operator you're losing money to generate power, so quite often there's curtailment.

And then at 6pm, the sun is down so solar-only operators can't capitalise on the opportunity.

So unfortunately it's just a very limited opportunity to make a profit on your investment each day. More demand during the peak generation time would help!

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

#274

Post by Panzer04 »

rulesilol wrote: post #196
chicken-stew wrote: post #137

Earlier 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?

I pay about 38c per kilowatt plus $1.70 per day for the connection fee. So by that maths, you'd save 8×0.38=$3.04 per day. A 10kWh battery is in the ballpark of $4000. So it'll take about 4 years to break even. Then you'd just have to pay the connection fee, which seem to be increasing every year.

The connection fee would also rise with less energy consumption/free electricity to amortize the fixed costs of the power grid.

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

#275

Post by Panzer04 »

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?

Yes, the government subsidies for home batteries specifically are a very poorly targeted handout. Unfortunately splashy policies like this are classic vote buying measures, even if economically they don't make much sense

- home batteries cost more

- homeowners buying batteries are already pretty well off on average

- a large portion of the population (renters) is excluded from the policy.

- prices are falling anyway so the subsidy is just a waste of tax dollars, arguably

- grid scale batteries are more cost effective and benefit everyone via cheap prices broadly, instead of specific homeowners.

Etc. but pork barreling be pork barreling.

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

#276

Post by ralfd »

> No solar panels required. No need to own your home. You just need a smart meter and to opt in through your retailer to have access to free daytime electricity. The scheme is called the Solar Sharer Offer.

What is then the incentive to install (or repair/maintenance) solar panels?

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

#278

Post by pjc50 »

freshpots wrote: post #238
throwaway2037 wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Never mind that, the cost of an urban parking space is considerable.

Here's a £50k London parking space: https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/136662200#/?channel=R...

While that's an extreme, I would expect the cost of any urban parking space with a low speed charger to be dominated by the land, then the charger one-off install price, and thereafter electricity use is a pretty trivial cost.

Sydney will also charge you 3,000 $AUS annually for central parking spaces: https://www.revenue.nsw.gov.au/taxes-duties-levies-royalties...

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

#279

Post by pjc50 »

amelius wrote: post #266
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.…

> 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. Ok, then why not take one plan with retailer A, and another plan with retailer B?

Does anywhere in the world let you have multiple electricity plans on the same meter at the same time?

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

#280

Post by pjc50 »

AnotherGoodName wrote: post #272
chicken-stew wrote: post #137

Earlier 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?

Quite simply put this is what they ask you to do. To the point that the Australian government will heavily subsidise (30%) home battery installation. Remember Australia has over 10x the rollout of solar than china (per capita of course). It’s not hard to achieve this for any competent government. Bluntly China’s government is corrupt and inefficient (usa is even further behind china since their current government is…

> Australia has over 10x the rollout of solar than china (per capita of course)

This is a remarkable stat that's the opposite of what I expected, but I suppose China is (a) starting from a lower base and (b) much, much larger in absolute population. Australia's population would fit in Chongqing.

Post reply on HN