In Australia, a home battery boom has helped cut wholesale power prices • Hacker News Board

Re: In Australia, a home battery boom has helped cut wholesale power prices

#151

Post by tialaramex » Fri, Aug 14, 2026, 4:49 PM UTC

thelastgallon wrote: post #141

Australia is also 4,000km wide. A time difference of 2 - 3 hours. This adds a few more hours of Solar with long distance transmission.

As you say, Australia is very big. Big sections of it are also, as a result, empty. The coast-to-coast "long distance transmission" is not in fact a thing in Australia.

China has long distance HV transmission, but it's crazy expensive and they built it because most of China's people live near its coast but most of its solar power is in the interior so the power needs to be moved.

Australia is exceptional for having a lot of humans who live somewhere that's incredibly sunny. The whole place is sunny. It'll vary from place to place whether that's only "Southern Spain" sunny or full-on "Middle of the Sahara Desert" sunny, but it's all very sunny indeed, if you were inventing a country to buy solar panels Australia would be that country.

Re: In Australia, a home battery boom has helped cut wholesale power prices

#152

Post by password4321 » Fri, Aug 14, 2026, 4:49 PM UTC

0xWTF wrote: post #63

pnw wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read the article, most of the decline in gas consumption in Australia is from changes in industrial usage. Residential demand is only down by 6% and part of that is likely due to the effective ban on gas in new residential construction which started in 2023 in Victoria. Prior to 2023 residential gas usage was increasing.

A 50% price decline doesn't imply there's 50% less demand for petroleum. If 6% less demand is all the margin consumers need to get their supply, then price can drop quickly. It's all in the margins.

What is the best way to learn more about this, are there any examples? This seems a bit counterintuitive to me.

Re: In Australia, a home battery boom has helped cut wholesale power prices

#153

Post by password4321 » Fri, Aug 14, 2026, 4:50 PM UTC

epistasis wrote: post #129

thelastgallon wrote: post #127

Australia is now ready for vertical solar, add a few more hours of production in the morning and evening. Panels are dirt cheap anyway, use them as fences, put them on high rise buildings. Change the building to require structural elements to hold the panels and build new homes with vertical + rooftop. The electric code should be updated to allow v2g. With BESS (home, grid) and EVs (always plugged in, parked 95% of t…

Given the durability of panels, it'd be fascinating to see roof redesigns, and some changes in panel packaging, that standard large rectangles become the basic components of a 30 year roof. Or as siding. I've seen them used vertically on the Southern walls of commercial buildings in Alaska, and they looked great.

Why don't they do this for cars?

Re: In Australia, a home battery boom has helped cut wholesale power prices

#154

Post by nemomarx » Fri, Aug 14, 2026, 4:52 PM UTC

tialaramex wrote: post #98

alexpotato wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was an article a few years back about how homeowners in Hawaii were buying solar panels to try to get cheaper power. Then the local power company realized that as well and started shifting to solar with the net result that it became cheaper to buy the power company supplied electricity than from your own solar.

> the net result that it became cheaper to buy the power company supplied electricity than from your own solar. I'm sure this is the way you remember it, and maybe even the way it was explained in that article but if you bought a solar panel the sunlight to power it is free, so your electricity from the panel is free. You're not "buying" that power and so the commercial supply can't be "cheaper". Now if I've paid $50…

If you have to pay a connection fee for having the solar panel hooked up to your houses grid, I could see it ending up cheaper to disconnect the panels and sell them back tbh

Re: In Australia, a home battery boom has helped cut wholesale power prices

#155

Post by epistasis » Fri, Aug 14, 2026, 4:53 PM UTC

password4321 wrote: post #153

epistasis wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the durability of panels, it'd be fascinating to see roof redesigns, and some changes in panel packaging, that standard large rectangles become the basic components of a 30 year roof. Or as siding. I've seen them used vertically on the Southern walls of commercial buildings in Alaska, and they looked great.

Why don't they do this for cars?

I'd imagine the difference between flat and curved, in addition to very different wear patterns, and inability to get your desired color.

Even slight changes in packaging to adapt the panels to a structural material might increase cost. But doing custom shapes to fit the panels of a car? Getting just the right shape? That's an entirely different manufacturing process nothing like what currently gets produced.

The benefit on cars is also pretty small, at least whenever I've bothered to calculate it. Cars need a massive amount of energy compared to a house, and have far less surface area.

Re: In Australia, a home battery boom has helped cut wholesale power prices

#156

Post by Retric » Fri, Aug 14, 2026, 4:54 PM UTC

bborud wrote: post #117

linksnapzz wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

free trade's amazing, seriously! Time was, mercantilist countries would use foreign colonies for resource extraction; and sell the goods manufactured with these resources back to them. It was great for everyone!

...and then the "colonies" figured out how to weaponize it and turn the balance in their favor. Or, not quite: the workers are being exploited just like they were during the colonial period. But at least now their rulers have power over our rulers that they didn't have before. So they get to be happy about that as they make novelty items out of toxic plastic for Temu.

Modern China is a vastly better place to live than China of 60+ years ago. Many countries are nicer places to live, but 1+ Billion people are simply better off making the “exploitation” narrative ridiculous.

Re: In Australia, a home battery boom has helped cut wholesale power prices

#157

Post by epistasis » Fri, Aug 14, 2026, 4:57 PM UTC

red75prime wrote: post #149

thelastgallon wrote: post #127

Australia is now ready for vertical solar, add a few more hours of production in the morning and evening. Panels are dirt cheap anyway, use them as fences, put them on high rise buildings. Change the building to require structural elements to hold the panels and build new homes with vertical + rooftop. The electric code should be updated to allow v2g. With BESS (home, grid) and EVs (always plugged in, parked 95% of t…

It requires large solar overcapacity to compensate for seasonal intermittency. Dedicated seasonal energy storage might be better economically.

Solar overcapacity is really cheap, because panels are really cheap. Dedicated seasonal energy storage technology doesn't even exist right now, much less economically efficient storage technology. The closest thing would be a massive thermal store used for district heating, but only prototypes are starting right now. Industrial scaling and mass deployment? That's a decade+ away at a minimum.

We could build seasonal overcapacity today, and it would be nearly economically competitive with existing fossil sources.

It's hard to internalize just how cheap solar panels have become. Keeping the same inverter and grid connection, and doubling the panel capacity, nowhere near doubles the cost of the install.

Re: In Australia, a home battery boom has helped cut wholesale power prices

#158

Post by actionfromafar » Fri, Aug 14, 2026, 4:58 PM UTC

epistasis wrote: post #110

This is exactly what utility propaganda and PUC manipulation in the US has successfully stopped from happening. From NEM3 in California, to charging a high fixed fee for being on the grid in other areas of the country, utilities have manipulated rules at every step to prevent a future that has cheaper electricity for rate payers. They come up with rather fantastic propaganda about how ratepayers with solar are burden…

Isn't it because the US has a more entrenched "clean beuatiful coal" class of people?

Re: In Australia, a home battery boom has helped cut wholesale power prices

#159

Post by abdullahkhalids » Fri, Aug 14, 2026, 5:00 PM UTC

modo_mario wrote: post #106

collinmcnulty wrote: post #49

I've long thought that any country should buy solar panels from any other country that's crazy enough to sell them to you at a subsidized price. It's not like buying oil; once you have the panels, that energy independence belongs to you.

In the end you have to replace those panels and nobody in your country now produces them or has the incentive to start producing them unless they not only drop the subsidies but sell well over market value.

The alternative for most countries except a handful is that they continue to import oil from the two dozen-ish odd countries who export it.

The policy relevant question then boils down to, in two decades how many countries will be producing enough solar panels to export it? How many will be friendly to my country?

Re: In Australia, a home battery boom has helped cut wholesale power prices

#160

Post by ceejayoz » Fri, Aug 14, 2026, 5:01 PM UTC

SoftTalker wrote: post #130

danans wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

} What are you going to do when winds rip the solar panels off your roof, or drop a big tree branch on them? Who will you call to repair it? Who will pay for it? How is that different than any other weather related house damage? You'd call your insurance company and a licensed contractor. Assuming the house is habitable, you'd still have grid power, or if not you'd move temporarily while repairs took place.

The point is, if it's your home solar system, damages and repairs are your problem to manage. Localized grid outages might be more common, but you don't have to lift a finger or pay anything extra to get them repaired. The utility just does it. And they start working immediately, even in the middle of the night or on weekends.

> Localized grid outages might be more common, but you don't have to lift a finger or pay anything extra to get them repaired. The utility just does it.

Sounds like a good backup option for resilience!