141–150 of 427 posts
I miss having Griddy in Texas. Direct access to the wholesale market is probably not good for the lower end of the consumer segment, but for people with some functional marbles it can make a big difference on the demand side of the grid. I feel like they had to kill griddy before all the powerwall solutions started showing up. We simply cannot empower the peasants with both things at once. The ability to store energy…
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.
I have a 12 kW inverter (single phase) and 48 kWh battery. In Australia, 9 months of the year my 16 kW of solar fills the battery and covers all needs including cooking, heating and charging the EV. In winter, I’ve been using Ovo’s 3 hours free for about a year now and that ensures the battery is filled up daily. My electricity bill returns a credit every month since I got the battery a year ago.
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 signi…
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 government won't address this particular perverse situation with the embedded networks until the 2027–28 DMO period.
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> 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…
Upthread: "interest free loan of 15k" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48904009
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Think about people who could not afford the initial investment. It's beneficial for society here if the government redistributes wealth for the benefit of all.
> Think about people who could not afford the initial investment. This is what loans and installment plans are for, the payments for which come out of the savings on the utility bill. > It's beneficial for society here if the government redistributes wealth for the benefit of all. Which has nothing to do with batteries. If you want to do that then provide them with a refundable tax credit that allows for a negative t…
Neither loans nor subsidies are dirty words IMHO.
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> you could build enough solar panels that solar output at 18:00 matches power demand No you could not. For half the year the sun has set by 18:00.
I mean in the dead of winter, yes. For six months of the year? Definitely not.
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> 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?