https://www.volts.wtf/p/how-to-make-rooftop-solar-power-as
Worth a listen, both to learn about how ridiculous the US situation is, and just how good the "news" of abundant solar is.
Taking the term "1st world problems" to new heights!
The supply charge is 6% higher for the Solar Sharer plan, while the peak rate is 92% higher. Solar Sharer’s peak rate is almost double the flat rate. The off-peak rate is 17% lower than the flat rate.
https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/solar-sharer-plans-compa...
And then try to fix those problems with populist TOU rate magic (they won't be fixed), and bills continue to rise!! But hey, LMPs are down LOLOLOLOL
Fixed costs, the majority of the utility bill, continue to increase. But hey, LMPs (something residential tarriffs are not as exposed to) are lower!!! LMFAO
The other costs are the "poles and wires" distribution network and the HV transmission network.
The government is also building out the transmission network to various renewable energy zones, which has the added benefit of making the transmission network more resilient.
With large coal plants, the network was only one interconnector failure from blacking out a state (as happened to South Australia).
Now there is a much better network of interconnected transmission across the entire east and south coast of Australia, covering something like 80% of the population.
The government just bailed out an aluminium smelter that was going to close because of the increased cost of power because it was relying on an old coal plant. Now that will be replaced with renewables.
So we get the benefit of the continued operation of the smelter, as well as the build out of replacement generation for the old coal plants at EOL that will be closed by 2030.
The South Australia blackout was not caused by coal or renewables or lack of interconnectors. If there had been zero interconnects (the local grid was self-sufficient) it wouldn't have happened! The primary cause of the extended blackout was simply a lack of readiness/contingency planning/compliance particularly at several large windfarms. See wiki article.
Coal is generally cheaper for baseload power like an aluminum smelter, even though solar is cheaper during the day. Firming with wind/battery is not yet competitive but is getting very close and is at the point where building new coal power plants is not viable. Refer to gencost report. However, replacing such a large load with brand new renewable capacity is almost certainly more expensive than simply continuing to burn coal, particularly when factoring in the grid upgrades required to make such a transition.
Anyway that caused power prices to reliably go negative during the day as the solar boom led to too much energy being produced. So everyone started buying batteries (you can even get live feed in/out pricing as a consumer). In fact the government even today will pay you a $3000 subsidy to go install a battery. This is in a country where people can buy cheap batteries with no tariffs (free trade's amazing, seriously!). So everyone who could started doing it. For those in apartments etc. that couldn't easily install solar and batteries they won too since the entire power grid is now half the price.
Another consequence of all this, aside from the cheap power prices during a datacenter boom and Hormuz blockade is that fossil fuel usage is plummeting. Particularly gas https://ieefa.org/resources/slump-eastern-australia-gas-dema... . No need for a gas peak power plant when the grid is packed with batteries. Which is helpful since one of the main issues with the current blockade is a lack of gas globally.
Utility scale batteries are now at ~$66m/GWh, or about ~$726m equivalent.
It does not make sense for everyone to be doing a bespoke installation inside their own home. It is ridiculously inefficient.
We are a society. We don't build our own roads, water, grid, schools, hospitals. Why have we suddenly decided to DIY our own redundant power sources? (A: failure of governance)
Because government is failing to address these issues?
Back in Trumpistan we had some storms roll through my area the other day. Power has been out for some (not me, thankfully) for a couple of days in a major metro. It was a bad storm and I do not fault the crews who are doing hard work out there repairing everything and it takes time.
But what the hell are you supposed to do when the power goes out and it takes a few days to get turned back on? Well, spend $10,000 - $20,000 and install your own backup power. Is it inefficient? Sure! Does that matter? Absolutely not.
Yes.
So for 8 years we pay the loan instead of for the power, then we get -25 years of $1000 a year in our pockets. The price of power is also pre approved to increase a minimum of 5% a year every year here, so the savings will be more than that.
Right now we get a 1:1 credit for anything we put into the grid. If and when that changes I’ll get a battery.
The kicker? We’re in Canada in a tight valley where it snows a ton. If it works here…
South Australia had a single interconnect to the rest of the Australian Energy Market that covers the states except for WA and Northern Territory.
There was a big storm that took out an interstate interconnect and the voltage spike caused all the other generators to disconnect to protect themselves.
Then Elon promised to build utility storage in 6 months or the state would get it for free.
That was the Hornsby battery which is mainly used for Frequency services (basically when supply/demand fluctuates, it keeps things stable).
That used to be done by gas plants, but the battery saved a large chunk of its cost in the first year by being able to switch on much faster.
I am generally sympathetic to this POV but I think for solar and batteries actually I end up leaning the other way. Solar PV scales appropriately for home owners unlike wind or indeed any conventional generation and both solar and batteries change how their owners feel about this so that you end up with people who have "skin in the game" in a way they didn't have when it was a BESS install six miles away they saw on TV once and have never thought about since.
It already exists and works so, not that crazy
A smaller version of these things: https://sandtoft.org/wp/
Some people drive as if they're in dodgem cars as it is.
Even most residential batts that get plugged in when they get home typically have SOC >40% (depending on jurisidiction).
... total energy generated.
Elon Musk doesn't have an automotive or aeronautical engineering degree. People can understand work they don't have a degree in.
> misunderstands anything related to power system operations
Do you have some examples?
so cheaper 'leccy prices are bad? or that this upfront cost to get batteries installed are bad? even though long term costs will be dropping?
I mean whats the cost of 30% of 500k batteries compared to creating a new peaker genny or five?
Or, did they improve their efficiency.
Or, have they closed.
Solar installer
> Who will pay for it?
Homeowner or insurance.
> How many days will it take?
Depends on the availability of installers.
I don't know why this is some gotcha. How many times have you had a storm rip your roof off and take down the entire neighborhood's grid? And if that happened would you still live in your house or find temporary accomodation?
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.
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.
You can read up on the subsidy itself too - they basically set a cost per kwhr target based on the few bespoke batteries on the market, before it was flooded with cheaper Chinese options. Because it was based on capacity rather than a percentage discount, this caused the effective discount to be much higher than intended at the outset.
We don't know the final numbers yet - but government has reforecast for 7 billion for the program's duration, which includes a much smaller subsidy continuing until 2030. I expect it will be close to about 5B spent so far.
Everyone I know has had that happen at one time or another, and it’s extremely common to want home battery just for the degree of ‘power sovereignity’ it grants you.
Note that figures like $66m/GWh are projected costs based on projects starting today, not coming online today. They may not include 'balance of plant'. For better comparison you would have to look at the financials of recently commissioned storage.
It's pure middle-class welfare.
Domestic electricity was too expensive (and I’m assuming producers would rather pass the costs onto consumers rather than spend their own money and build solar/battery plants themselves), so individuals with capital did the cost-benefit analysis and determined that installing solar is cheaper in the long term.
This drove the price of electricity down during the day, causing the cost-benefit of home-scale batteries to become positive over a reasonable timescale. Thus, people with capital invested money for a positive ROI over a medium term!
The government subsidies level the playing field so it’s not only the upper-class that can benefit from this phenomenon - they are providing equity, not equality. And, cutting out all the middle management waste of the large utility companies, meaning Australians get more electricity for their buck.
Modern capitalism is what failed here. The Australian power providers should’ve gone down this route, but (I’m assuming) shareholders would be upset about ROI on the scale of 5-20 years. Homeowners are more reasonable.
And the battery thing even looks kind of neat.
Investing in more grid power would require additional grid capacity which would raise the price for all grid users, and with cheap renewables that would be an increasing amount of power bills.
I’ll add that we’re not DIYing this. Professionals are manufacturing and installing these at scale. Also, though I’m not sure how it works outside the US, the government doesn’t build the grid. Energy providers and utilities are also companies.
> Professionals are manufacturing and installing these at scale. A couple of electricians doing 20kWh (average install size) once per day, with an individual inverter, gateways, etc. is not at scale, by any means of the word.
1. You are using the current point-in-time cost for batteries as compared to a subsidy spent over years while battery costs were dropping.
2. You do not include transmission upgrades and costs to distribute energy from centralized batteries.
3. You ignore the benefits and efficiencies of having generation and batteries distributed and close to the source of demand. It also increases resilience of the grid.
4. You assume the political will was there for government and taxpayers to bear the full cost burden of development of the batteries.
https://electrek.co/2026/07/28/vermonts-largest-energy-sourc...
thelastgallon•56m ago
ghostly_s•53m ago
thelastgallon•48m ago
jmyeet•52m ago
thelastgallon•50m ago
KaiserPro•39m ago
plug my car in, it might be full, it might be empty, either way its racking up the charge cycles for no direct benefit for me.
Batteries on a house makes a better sell for customers, and also targets the problem of both over supply and over consumption at source.
cube00•39m ago
Only households can access the free electricity window. If you're not on a free plan you can get reduced rates during the peak window but business accounts aren't allowed to access those either.
bad_haircut72•46m ago
squigz•43m ago
toasty228•
toasty228•40m ago
dyauspitr•9m ago
rswail•39m ago
The solar PV and now storage rollouts in Australia have been one of the best government investments in public infrastructure in my lifetime here.
The more we electrify, the less reliant we are on the crude -> foreign refineries -> imported/distributed fuel risk.
Harvesting solar power is an awesome thing to do both at home and utility level.
PV and wind utility installations are being built with storage co-located, there are companies building synthetic condensers to maintain the grid stability and the job of frequency support is now done mostly by batteries, not gas.
We need to make electricity basically "too cheap to meter" and electrify our primary industries, mining and agriculture.
Wacari•37m ago