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Australia has so much solar that it's offering everyone free electricity

electrek.co

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Re: Australia has so much solar that it's offering everyone free electricity

#231

Post by testing22321 »

quickthrowman wrote: post #222
testing22321 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever lived in an off grid house? Friends have a full sized off grid house in the Yukon since 2010. Every modern convenience, stunning location. Never a single power outage in all those years. How many power outages have you had? Off grid is not somehow sub standard.

No, but I have a very good idea of what it costs to procure, install, operate, and maintain a 24kW or 48kW generator. About 30-40 grand if you’re adding a sizable diesel day tank or propane tank. Once it’s installed, you’ve got fuel deliveries plus regular maintenance and monitoring. You’re looking at thousands of dollars a year to operate your own generator for a 100A or 200A service. If you’re already installing a…

Their house is primarily solar powered.

They have no diesel generator. No diesel tank. Propane for cooking.

Re: Australia has so much solar that it's offering everyone free electricity

#233

Post by ImJamal »

dylan604 wrote: post #184
floam wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not literally no signal/service, right? More likely “I have a few bars but data doesn’t seem to work… calls often won’t initiate unless 911?” thing you get when there’s too many devices connecting to an overburdened tower, in a network that needs more cells or something, and QoS/qci says no? If it’s a population center someone would probably have put up a tower on their land ll

> unless 911 Probably not that even since it's UK. Isn't it 999 in the UK? Has the UK started accepting 911->999 for the tourists?

According to Wikipedia

> 911 redirects to 999 on mobile phones/public phonebooths[citation needed] and on telephones used in USAFE bases.

So maybe? But without the source who knows.

Re: Australia has so much solar that it's offering everyone free electricity

#234

Post by floam »

mschuster91 wrote: post #214
floam wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not literally no signal/service, right? More likely “I have a few bars but data doesn’t seem to work… calls often won’t initiate unless 911?” thing you get when there’s too many devices connecting to an overburdened tower, in a network that needs more cells or something, and QoS/qci says no? If it’s a population center someone would probably have put up a tower on their land ll

> Not literally no signal/service, right? Come to Munich, go into any of the large old buildings, the central stairwells usually are phone dead zones. Truly dead. Or try to go and hike in the Alps. Shit service, but as soon as you walk into Austrian territory, you'll suddenly have service. Or try taking a train from Munich to, say, Landshut. You'll lose signal about 5 minutes after the train passes through the outski…

I stand corrected. I didn’t realize you could be a MIMBY for cell towers and also not currently have service.

Any organized resistance I’ve witnessed myself in the US has been something like an HOA saying no not tucked right here where our home values could take a hit or a view obstructed, please put it down the street or … anywhere else.

But if you had no cell service and your call dropped as you backed out of your garage or you tried to sell your house and the buyers phones suddenly had no service or they couldn’t get on the Internet at the open house, that’d feel like pretty concerning missing infrastructure.

I don’t think anti-5G wackos have dented a thing.

Re: Australia has so much solar that it's offering everyone free electricity

#235

Post by byhemechi »

zacthedev wrote: post #213

Meanwhile in Great Sydney Area, Australia right now, my current energy rate is 60c (peak) 45c (shoulder) 32c (off-peak) / kWh. That's totally fraud

Yeah you definitely should not be paying that much. Throw your NMI into https://www.energymadeeasy.gov.au/ and it'll show you the most cost effective option from your actual usage. I'm also in Sydney and pay 29c flat/ 18c secondary circuit

Re: Australia has so much solar that it's offering everyone free electricity

#236

Post by Rzor »

Razengan wrote: post #130
seanw444 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then some very rich and powerful people become very unrich and unpowerful. And they could never let that happen willingly.

But they'd be able to build their moon castles sooner and control the next frontier in their lifetimes: What's cooler than being a billionaire? A SPACE BILLIONAIRE.

Assuming that's a development 30-50 years in the making, they will likely be space trillionaires by then.

Re: Australia has so much solar that it's offering everyone free electricity

#237

Post by senordevnyc »

jjcm wrote: post #128
chankstein38 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man as someone paying a premium for power in the US, Australia is sounding really nice

I took a job with Atlassian out there and got my citizenship. Best 5 years of my life. I'm back in the US now temporarily, but there's zero doubt in my mind I will end up back in Aus. I've lived in 8 cities now(1), and Sydney was the highest quality of life I've had out of any of them. Great infrastructure, great work-life balance, great culture, and fantastic weather. Only downsides are the distance and the lack of…

What about the real estate cost? I loved Sydney when I visited earlier this year, but real estate seems more expensive than my home city of NYC, and that's really saying something.

Re: Australia has so much solar that it's offering everyone free electricity

#238

Post by shirro »

Meanwhile also in part of Australia where the states public electricity utility was sold in a fire sale to foreign investors. The owners gold plate the network so they can get away with charging some of the highest electricity prices in the world despite generation prices often going negative thanks to renewables.

I would bet over time the supply charge and non-free hours will increase in price to compensate and overall bills will be the same. It will shift some load to the middle of the day with people setting timers on appliance and it will take pressure off generation which will be politically convenient when another poorly maintained coal plant falls over but I will be shocked if it will be a win for consumers.

Poorer home owners and rentals that don't have solar pv and can't afford to buy new appliances that might be able to take advantage of being set to run during the cheap hours are going to be left further behind.

The country is full of monopolies, duopolies and price gouging and the regulators are useless.

Re: Australia has so much solar that it's offering everyone free electricity

#239

Post by andrewinardeer »

msy wrote: post #189
andrewinardeer wrote: post #140

On the flip side here in Australia the government for years encouraged us to get panels put on our house by selling it as, "You can export power and create a small income exporting the surplus you create". So many people did so that at one point last year the government said, "So many people are exporting it now, and the surplus is so great on the network we may have to charge you for exporting it". Wholesale power p…

This is a bizarrely negative take. No residential is being charged negative prices without very, very explicitly joining a plan that exposes them to the direct minute-by-minute wholesale price. Most 'EV' plans include free hours during the day (and much cheaper power in the early hours as well), it's likely it'll be standard within months thanks to this. They are now also subsidising batteries while should help meet…

I never said anyone was being charged negatively. The wholesale price goes negative. The negative price currently is not passed on.

Re: Australia has so much solar that it's offering everyone free electricity

#240

Post by tim333 »

unglaublich wrote: post #46
energy123 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the US and Germany since the 1970s for putting public funds into early research

US fossil fuel subsidies: 757B$ [0] US solar subsidies: 7B$ [1] [0]: https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/fact-sheet-proposals-to-red... [1]: https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/fossil-fuels/rene...

That's mostly "implicit subsidies, which are costs like negative health impacts and environmental degradation that are borne by society"
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