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

#361

Post by inigyou » Tue, Jul 14, 2026, 11:43 PM UTC

zardo wrote: post #303

AnotherGoodName wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The have hardly any solar per capita compared to Australia. They are occasionally held up as an example by misguided westerners as if what they’ve achieved is an example of good policy on solar when it’s utterly dwarfed on a per capita basis by countries like Australia.

They also have hardly any GDP per capita compared to Australia.

That doesn't actually mean anything though. It's a measurement several layers abstracted from the thing that matters, which is how many panels they can build and deploy.

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

#362

Post by AndrewDavis » Tue, Jul 14, 2026, 11:47 PM UTC

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?

While I can't speak for other states (though I'd be surprised if they were different), power bills in Victoria are split into supply and usage. Eg each day costs 90c, then 30c per kw/h.

So you could eliminate the usage costs, but not the supply charge.

The whole reason for this is Australia's power grid is a market, where suppliers put in bids for how much they can produce, and at what price. And AEMO then selects the cheapest way to meet demand (paying the marginal price), but also expects residential rooftop solar a given.

As a result we often have an excess of power driving wholesale pricing into the negatives.

The free power is a way to increase usage at times when we're most likely to have negative pricing, and encourage use of high energy appliances like dishwashers etc to be run during that period to reduce demand the rest of the time.

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

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Post by yen223 » Tue, Jul 14, 2026, 11:50 PM UTC

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.

Often think about how the most expensive part of driving in Sydney, especially in an EV, is parking.

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

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Post by BLKNSLVR » Wed, Jul 15, 2026, 12:56 AM UTC

aetherspawn wrote: post #353

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What plan and what provider to get free power from midnight to 6am? I'm in a plan that gets me $0.08/kWh during those hours, and I'm planning to switch to one that's just over half that, but I haven't come across any free power in that time span.

I’m with Powershop currently, but it was a hard toss-up between Powershop and Ovo. Sorry you’re right, it’s not “free” with Powershop (4.99 cents per kWhr), but it’s cheap enough that it’s basically free compared to the cost of living and what we were spending before.

I'm on AGL and looking to change to the Ovo 4.7 cents per kWh (midnight to 6am) plan. The per day supply cost is higher as are some of the other rates, but overall should still save me roughly $20 a month - by my calculations.

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

#365

Post by BLKNSLVR » Wed, Jul 15, 2026, 12:59 AM UTC

jiggawatts wrote: post #351

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the limiting factor in getting NBN? Getting fiber to the premises is that hard part, and that's already done.

The contract that the building manager signed.

So how do you get Internet? Is it provided as a shared wifi service for the building or something, like in a hotel? (so the building manager is essentially running a mini-ISP re-selling a single NBN service?)

HTP!

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

#366

Post by stubish » Wed, Jul 15, 2026, 1:35 AM UTC

hnaccount_rng wrote: post #248

stubish wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The smaller tank with heatpump will consume a lot less energy than the larger tank with resistive heat. Economically to me, the larger tank is cheaper, because the appliance is cheaper, and I never pay for the power it uses. Environmentally, yes, it is not obvious. The large tank requires many more solar panels to power it but no battery. The small tank and heatpump needs much less solar but battery for nighttime use…

But it’s also environmentally better for you to take the resistive heating thing. As long as you never need to heat it up outside of the noon-window that’s strictly positive. Because the “additional” solar panels will be necessary anyways to cover the night/late evening usage. The optimal buildout will always have superfluous energy at noon. That’s fine. We just need to get over the whole “energy costs anything” thin…

But it not entirely true. While renewables can cover well over 100% of daytime usage on most days in summer in my region, we are down to about 40% during winter. We need lots more solar panels and wind turbines and enough battery to get us through energy droughts, and installation and maintenance has economic and environmental costs. Much less than other forms of generation, but costs nonetheless. If everyone stops caring how much power they draw because it is 'free', the problem of supplying enough sustainable generation becomes harder and takes longer. The extra generation capacity needed is paid for by consumers in the form of connection fees and/or tax payers.

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

#367

Post by deckar01 » Wed, Jul 15, 2026, 1:42 AM UTC

giantg2 wrote: post #323

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." Free energy is too good to be true, even if you aren't a physicist.

I thought there was so much excess solar generation that even the utility company couldn’t store it all. There is a perverse incentive to dump the excess power to prevent the price from going negative and prop up demand for their generation services. There are lots of examples in economics where it is more cost effective to destroy a worthless product than to give it away. When the government subsidized the generation infrastructure and some of that power is generated by residential solar, it makes sense to step in force the utilities to behave in the people’s best interest.

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

#368

Post by seanmcdirmid » Wed, Jul 15, 2026, 2:17 AM UTC

insane_dreamer wrote: post #357

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I think most of us know that, so I find the statement to be confusing that China is behind on personal solar. Of course they are! It is never going to be much of a thing as urbanization continues to accelerate, because people just don't live in those kinds of houses where you have your own roof to put solar panels on. You are much more likely to see community solar instead, or solar plants (along with wind farms…

> When I lived in Beijing, the apartment buildings I lived in usually had solar hot water was that recently? I lived there from 2011-2017 and solar power was virtually unheard of, much less powering any buildings. But yeah, China is that kind of place that the city decides when you get heating in your apartment (Nov 15 IIRC, so early Nov could be _really_ cold inside; we wore our coats).

That was way back in 2008! Solar has been in China for a long time, but they were using it directly to warm the water, not via photovalic panels (which is why the results were so bad).

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

#369

Post by twelvedogs » Wed, Jul 15, 2026, 2:30 AM UTC

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…

you're providing a chunk of storage for excess power for free

i know a guy who bought an arseload of batteries and buys and sells off the grid to make a moderate amount of money. he says it's not really paying back the time spent but he does it because he finds it interesting to optimise

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

#370

Post by simondotau » Wed, Jul 15, 2026, 2:50 AM UTC

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #75

simondotau wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At current battery project prices, matching Snowy 2.0’s roughly 350 GWh of energy storage capacity with Tesla Megapacks would cost around AUD $218 billion [0] and require Tesla’s entire global Megapack production capacity redirected to a single client for five years. $15 billion is far more than Snowy 2.0 should have cost. But it remains substantially cheaper than any lithium-ion battery build for bulk storage. Stora…

Snowy 2.0 has major limitations on what it can supply, the headline number is very misleading. And the comparison shouldn't be to batteries alone, but solar/wind and batteries. The former can be used directly and fill the batteries repeatedly on a timeline that is predictable. It provides no extra value for the electricity to be stored long term if for the same money you can generate and store it short term. Article…

Your reply — and especially the attached article — misunderstand the reality of operating a grid at scale.

Responding to you:

Solar and wind are just as relevant to pumped hydro, which is really just a different kind of battery. The real question is how much short-duration storage is needed from chemical batteries and how much long-duration storage is needed from pumped hydro. Chemical batteries are essential for grid stabilisation, frequency control, and intra-hour balancing. They're necessary, but not sufficient.

Pumped hydro provides something that no economically realistic combination of batteries, solar, and wind can yet deliver at scale: enough stored energy to contribute towards grid stability through consecutive overcast, low-wind days. The main alternative is to build and maintain gas-fired peaking plants for occasional backup, which is both costly and keeps us dependent on fossil fuels.

Responding to the article:

While there are credible doubts about the value of Snowy 2.0, the article does not establish its headline claim that batteries are a cheaper system-level alternative. Most critically, it doesn't acknowledge the role of pumped hydro as an insurance asset. The point of insurance isn't to be cost effective in normal times, it's to be cost effective against the risk-adjusted consequences of grid destabilisation.

It is true that under normal conditions, Snowy Hydro would have little incentive to discharge fully because doing so could depress market prices. That is why capacity contracts, underwriting arrangements and reliability options exist. We know that strategic storage has substantial social value that its owner cannot fully capture through energy arbitrage. This is a common problem for reliability assets: their success can destroy the scarcity rents needed to finance them. Hence contracts.