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. https://www.energy.gov.au/rebates/solar-sharer-offer

Not all energy plans that the retailers offer have to include 3 hours of free electricity. In practice, most energy plans currently offered don’t include 3 hours of free electricity but some retailers such as Globird are offering more than one energy plan which includes ‘free’ electricity.

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.

Australian consumers can choose the retailer and energy plan their home or business is on and can change their plan at any time.

This page on the Energy Consumers Australia website has more details about the Solar Sharer Offer and a similar Victorian Government scheme which starts on 1 October. https://energyconsumersaustralia.com.au/news/solar-sharer-of...

Very interested to see how this turns out. Ultimately we want the transition to benefit both consumers and producers / distributors (the industry). The problem from the rapid uptake of solar in Australia has been an over-supply during this 10/11am to 2/3pm period. If that over-supply is suitably encouraged to be soaked up then hopefully consumers can reduce their power bills whilst the industry has less effort in managing the oversupply and less stress on infrastructure.

It's also about time that those who lack the means or situation to have solar panels of their own can get some advantage, in a 'herd immunity' kind of way.

I'm in the privileged position to have had solar panels for over a decade, and now have a battery as well, and it was very obvious to me at the time that, in regards to solar, it cost money to save money, so if you couldn't afford it then the savings are inaccessible.

This change hopefully helps those who need it, at least somewhat.

Clarke and Dawe - The Energy Market Explained

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELaBzj7cn14

[1] https://wattclarity.com.au/articles/2026/06/system-frequency...

Solar installs benefitting everyone, even those who never got solar.

People think the solution is to build huge battery packs to store all that excess power during peak periods and drain them down during off-peak times.

That is certainly a solution, even if it is an expensive one. Perhaps a cheaper one is to get everyone to consume the power while it is being produced. Running air conditioners at full blast. Washing clothes and dishes. Charging electric vehicles. There are many things that can be shifted to those peak times, if the incentives are there.

https://solarsharercalculator.com.au/

It is wild how cheap are solar panels now. Really, bonkers cheap. A huge rooftop solar panel costs less than 100 USD. From everything that I read/see/watch, most of the cost associated with solar panel arrays is the labour required for installation. (No hate on those folks -- they are skilled labour!)

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dy-wFixuRVU

I know crypto mining in TX can operate like this, but that's boring.

Desalination and carbon capture are both energy restricted, that sounds a lot more interesting. However, the deployed equipment has to be cheap if you only have 3hrs per day of free power, right?

The payback time was already well in excess of 10 years, but now that power is free during the day, you can't count those hours as helping pay down your investment. Payback time will be 30 + years at least. You are much better just enjoying your neighbors solar rather than paying for your own.

(Feed-in is about 3c now I think. Was 12c when many people bought their panels.)

Note: My state 100% renewable energy so reduction of carbon footprint has not bearing on my solar decisions.

This also feels like a fairly heavy handed way to encourage investments in batteries. But in the famous words of George W, "can't fool me again". As soon as there are too many batteries and the grid companies are not making enough money, they will introduce fees to have the batteries, or increase connection fees.

Solar generation is realitely cheap, much more storage is needed. Storage (overnight and also for several days) is challenging - one reason being its more expensive. Then there is the new transmission lines needed.

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 makes access to wholesale prices substantially more effective.

I'll never forget the days where we would get push notifications about negative prices. I'd throw the dryer and oven on every time to try and unwind the meter a bit.

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 significantly cheaper but the economics here favour incumbents and people like John Quiggin arguing for renationalisation are drowned out.

What is then the incentive to install (or repair/maintenance) solar panels?

Coinciding with this, suppliers put daily connection charges up.

basically a free IQ test.

The fundamental costs and margin requirements in the system haven't changed.

This is a government-mandated electricity plan (a default market offer) that competitive electricity retailers are now required to offer. Those retailers still have network costs, environmental costs, energy costs, and administration costs to recover, and so prices at other times of day necessarily go up.

Some consumers may be better off on this plan (generally at the expense of other consumers), and some will be worse off.

It's good politics and only so-so policy.

Not Victoria which has bankrupted itself building roads and railways it cannot afford.

Sadly probably wont be any good for selective crypto mining, alas.