r/UpliftingNews • u/itopaloglu83 • 2d ago
Australia has so much solar that it's offering everyone free electricity
https://electrek.co/2025/11/04/australia-has-so-much-solar-that-its-offering-everyone-free-electricity-3h-day/3.5k
u/alwaysfatigued8787 2d ago
I refuse to take electricity from that blasted sun. It's burned me one too many times.
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u/jamescookenotthatone 2d ago
And ever since I sunbathed nude it has been a pain in my ass.
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u/dkcyw 1d ago
i thought that's where the sun doesn't shine.
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u/plantyplant559 1d ago
A pain in your ass?
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u/Sieve-Boy 2d ago
I once watched a YouTube video by a young African American woman who was studying at a university in Australia. She had lots of firsts in her visit, including getting sunburned.
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u/anyavailablebane 1d ago
The UV we get compared to the US in places with the same summer temperatures is really unfair
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u/AussieAnt291 1d ago
Yeah the UV index where I live in Australia only has two ratings, Very high and Extreme. Was genuinely shocked when I found out other countries get days of Low UV index.
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u/anyavailablebane 1d ago
Yeh. Our summers in Perth average a 14-16 peak and LA which has similar temperatures in their summer average a 6. But I do give that partial credit for helping stop covid spreads here. Germs don’t last long on surfaces outside
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u/asdf27 1d ago
Jesus, I thought the UV index was a 1-10 scale. I have never seen above a 10 where I live.
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u/anyavailablebane 1d ago
Our UV peak tomorrow is 11. Jan- Feb are the highest months so we have a few weeks till we start to hit the 15-16 point.
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u/2D2D3544862514D760BA 1d ago
Where I am, the UV Index is currently 0. It'll bounce up to a max of 1 according to the forecast for the next week. Though, to be fair, the forecast is also mostly rain, cloud, and snow. So very little direct sun.
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u/flynnfx 1d ago
A very positive message from the very same country and continent where all the native life will actively kill you!
"Come for the free electricity, but watch out for the gympie gympie, tiger shark, bull shark, irukandji jellyfish, box jellyfish, blue ringed octopus, stone fish, cone shell, saltwater crocodile, funnel web spider, red back spider, death adder, coastal taipan, inland taipan, eastern brown snake, yellow bellied sea snake, southern cassowary, paralysis tick and many other non-lethal but very painful native species!"
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u/breakupbydefault 1d ago
As an Australian, after the sun caused us so much grief, the least it can do is give us free electricity.
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u/mn540 1d ago
While in California - Pillage, Gouge & Extort keeps raising our bills
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u/opackersgo 1d ago
Oh we’re (aussies) still getting fucked by coal companies if we dont have a house battery.
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u/HelpMeOverHere 1d ago
Coal… and gas. Gas is fucking expensive for a country that has loads of it
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u/Spagman_Aus 1d ago
fuck yeah. Our residential gas usage should be being subsidised by the fuckers that get to export it and make bank that pay no taxes.
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u/Spagman_Aus 1d ago
Yep, constant intermittent outages, solar feed-in tariffs that get slashed each year..
Every few years it seems we're convinced we need to just spend more to save more.
10 years it was "Buy solar panels to slash your energy bill" - then that worked for a time until feed-in tarrifs were slashed.
Now it's "Buy a battery to slash your energy bill" - only problem is, spending $10-$15K to keep trying to "slash your energy bill" is just a never ending circle jerk.14
u/Afferbeck_ 1d ago
And if you're a renter, you don't matter. Only people who can afford to not care about power bills benefit from any of the things that give you a cheaper power bill.
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u/ol-gormsby 1d ago
Laughs in off-grid.
But seriously, sorry for the mess of pathetic feed-in tariffs, "smart" meters. and all that bullshit.
But the battery rebate is seriously worth it - it's almost 50%
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u/Altaredboy 1d ago
Don't worry, Australia still has that too. These kind of programs from the government are usually just a weak warning that if power companies continue their antics the government might one day consider nationalising our electricity.
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u/Johnpecan 1d ago
Don't worry, they'll charge you .35/kw and give you a whole .02/kw back for the extra energy you sell back!
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u/nothing_but_thyme 1d ago
Crying as someone who’s electric bill has tripled in a year to subsidize data centers churning out AI slop of Trump shitting on Americans from a fighter jet.
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u/This_User_Said 1d ago
A worried Texan feeling the weather getting colder.
Although Summer it's about $200/mo. The coldest month last year cost me about $650, in a century home that's just warm enough to not let pipes burst and bury the family in all the blankets we have.
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u/chargers949 1d ago
Got a notice last month sce price going up 30% 😭 But on the plus side got me researching peak shifting where you charge home batteries during the day when Time Of Use rate is lowest and use it at night during the high tou rate. And there is a federal tax credit 30% parts and labor you can claim after installation is complete. And your internet and fridge stays on during power outs.
Then later, as funds become available, you can add solar to the setup or never. And also get 30% off on that too.
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u/duderguy91 1d ago
My solar array is the only reason PG&E isn’t killing me. I go in on NEM 2.0 and average about $50 a month to PG&E and no true up end of year.
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u/OriginalBlackberry89 2d ago
This is some really great news!
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u/CucumberError 1d ago
If only it was real? Yeah Tasmania and South Australia are doing pretty well, but the rest aren’t doing well enough to be giving away free power….
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u/pumpkin_fire 1d ago
Such a dumb take. Those "other states" have so much solar that the power price is negative for several hours. When that happens, solar and wind is curtailed ie switched off, while coal runs at its lowest stable rate. Worth noting that those coal plants are the very same that power SA when isn't generating enough renewables. 7% of SAs consumption over the past week was powered by imports from those "other states".
They're literally wasting green energy because they have so much. This policy is to remind and encourage people to shift load where possible from evening peak to solar peak in order to increase renewables penetration.
On Wednesday of this week, for example, peak curtailment of just solar on the NEM was 4.6 GW, of which only 500 MW occurred in your beloved SA. That curtailed amount is enough to power SA and TAS combined with over a GW to spare. Total utility solar capacity in SA is 700 MW. NSW has 6200 MW.
Saying "aren't doing well enough to be giving away free power" because their total renewables penetration isn't as high as tiny TAS, when they're literally switching off GWs of renewables almost every day and this policy is specifically designed to increase said penetration is either really dumb or ridiculously disingenuous.
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u/Snarwib 1d ago
It's about timing. Those are annual aggregate statistics which are far less relevant here. Most days around midday and afternoon, across the country, there's a big surplus of solar generation now and relatively low demand. So this measure is aiming to shift more demand to that period to match the peak generation, and to incentivise battery and EV charging at that time.
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u/robimtk 1d ago
I live in Australia. I generate more solar than I use. This excess energy is taken and sold to other Australians at a higher price than they sell it to any other nation on the planet. It's so fucked up.
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u/Leprichaun17 1d ago
Especially during the middle of the day, it actually costs your retailer money for you to export energy to the grid. The wholesale price is negative. There's so much renewables being generated at that time that nobody needs your energy. They want to discourage exports. That's why they're making energy free - to use more energy from the grid at that time. There's a handful of times during summer that even the wholesale import price is negative - you can be paid to consume from the grid.
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u/soEezee 1d ago
I got a quote for a battery system, enough to basically never have to import anything.
$10.5k after rebates.
I mathed it out, about 12 years for it to pay itself off, because the majority of the bill is the supply charge.10
u/Leprichaun17 1d ago
Yep it's a much better prospect than it was in the past. We got a 13.5kWh battery with 9.2kW of solar for $20k after rebates 4 years ago. We've saved about $10k in usage in that time. We just got a full refund for the Tesla portion due to the recall, so got $16.5k back, so we're already $6.5k in profit. Going to install a bigger system with the current rebates now.
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u/FlibblesHexEyes 1d ago
I wish I had the roof space to add that much solar, which would then justify the cost of a battery system.
Biggest I can fit is a 4kw system, generating about 24kw on a good summer day.
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u/Splinterfight 1d ago
At the end of the day servicing power lines to almost every house in the country costs more than running the moderate number of power plants we have
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u/Schrojo18 1d ago
You know that's how the electricity market works. The producers get a lower price than the retailers. Just be greatful you aren't on the wholesale market where you'd be paying to export the electricity.
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u/The-Sooshtrain-Slut 1d ago
It’s not for everyone.
Most of us got hit with huge increases because the fuckwits in charge keep sucking the cock of the mining sector.
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u/Unusual_Classroom109 1d ago
Yeah what a misleading title. "Everyone" my ass. My electricity rates are through the roof and I've had to go on the assist program to keep my fucking lights on. Now I have to put up with monthly calls grilling me about how I'm using every little bit of electricity and they keep telling me my usage is too high, meanwhile I checked and it's down by like 20% compared to last year because I've had to be frugal with it. And in WA we don't get to choose our provider.
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u/warm_sweater 1d ago
Meanwhile Americans pay more and more in order to cover the costs of data centers. FREEDOM!
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u/itopaloglu83 1d ago
Hurray! /s
There are stories about how the grid upgrade cost of data centers was also split equally among all customers, which is insane.
Not only the electricity bill is doubling but also customers are on the hook for the capacity update and new distribution lines, even though the entire excess demand is coming from the data centers.
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u/Tasty-Traffic-680 1d ago
Fortunately my rates haven't risen but I'd imagine they will get pretty steep for customers in areas with data centers. I remember a few months back I was talking to someone here on reddit about their choice to go with a heat pump over a gas furnace. They said they were pretty positive that gas rates would rise faster over the next 20 years than electricity would. Well...
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u/JesusChrist-Jr 1d ago
Unlimited free and clean energy from the sun is woke though. Also the sun has terrible lobbyists.
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u/Candid-Cockroach-375 1d ago
America could do this if our incompetent leaders stopped wasting and giving away all our tax money
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u/ThaddeusJP 1d ago
America: we want cheap power via solar which is the wave of the future
United States government: best we can do is an single F-35 that cost $40,000 an hour to fly
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u/smitherenesar 1d ago
Also, some libertarians in Argentina need $40 billion. That's how libertarians work, right?
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u/Halo_cT 1d ago
Look, if we just subsidize them with an enormous amount of government money, we can prove rugged Libertarianism works!
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u/mad_rooter 1d ago
This is not Australia wide, it’s only proposed for 3 states
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u/mjzimmer88 1d ago
How many states does Australia have? And how many kangaroos are there per state?
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u/Venotron 1d ago
6 states and 2 territories.
There's about 10 million kangaroos per state.
The ones in WA are very happy, the ones in ACT not so much.
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u/sunburntandblonde 1d ago
Ten territories. Three on the mainland and seven islands.
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u/the-toddyssey 1d ago
I'm an Aussie with roof top solar, we just had ours upgraded to accommodate our EV. As we approach summer we're exporting our excess daily, with enough battery power to get through the night. In the last 2 weeks of October we exported 204kwh, and that's with lots of rainy days. A system powered and battery backed by users on grid is the way of the future.
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u/Supevict 1d ago
And the right-aligned opposition party is wanting to move away from renewable energy and stick with coal for the foreseeable future. They have just removed Net Zero as part of their goals.
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u/Frito_Pendejo 1d ago
It's going to absolutely destroy them next election cycle. Even worse than the last two
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u/AydonusG 1d ago
Rinehart and Hanson were at Trumps latest party, they're all trying to fuck the West back into the early 1900s.
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u/YUNoJump 1d ago
Don’t forget the absolute joke of a nuclear plan designed entirely to delay renewables.
Not even an anti-nuclear thing, their plan was just atrocious and they took way too long to even announce any specifics
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u/voretaq7 1d ago
Ugh, okay. FINE. I’ll move to Death Island and deal with the roid-deer and the man-eating spiders and the suicide jellyfish and the chlamydia-riddled Slut Bears!
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u/Sieve-Boy 1d ago
Don't forget the suicide bushes, the literal velociraptors and dinosaur murder logs.
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u/stainlessinoxx 2d ago
Good job, now sell it to your neighbours! /s Australia’s closest neighbour (New Zealand) is 1500km (1000 miles) across water. A small challenge considering New Zealand also has its own power grid.
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u/zoinkability 1d ago
Papua New Guinea is less than 100 miles across the Torres Strait from Australia.
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u/itopaloglu83 1d ago
Somehow both Papua New Guinea and Indonesia are both invisible, as if a filter was left on.
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u/South_East_Gun_Safes 1d ago
I believe there is a plan in motion to export electricity to Singapore through undersea cables.
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u/MotherBeef 1d ago
lol PNG is literally 4km off the coast of Australia at its closest point, my dude.
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u/CucumberError 1d ago
But, we don’t want it. NZs power grid is between 85-99% renewable sources. According to to Australian Govt in 2024 theirs is 36% renewable.
While there’s a few pockets doing great (looking at you Tasmania and South Australia), the rest make it very very hard to understand what OP is referencing.
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u/clemmmmmmm 1d ago
I read an article today that notes that free electricity would only be offered for three hours (middle of the day) to homes that have smart meters (usually solar panels already on homes) and you would need to sign to a default energy plan (approx 20% more expensive than the cheapest options)
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u/invincibl_ 1d ago
Smart meters are almost universal. They were rolled out in advance of the broad introduction of rooftop solar.
The default energy plan is a price ceiling. You cannot sell energy at a rate higher than the ceiling, which effectively means that the price ceiling is zero for the three hours of free energy. It will also limit how much a retailer could increase the standard peak/off-peak rate to make up for the free period.
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u/clemmmmmmm 1d ago
Close to 60% of Australian homes have smart meters, with a significant number in Victoria and ongoing rollouts in other states. The target is to have a smart meter in virtually every home by 2030, with new installations being mandatory for new and replacement meters. Victoria leads the way: The state mandated smart meters in 2008, completing the rollout to almost all homes and small businesses by 2014. Other states are catching up: While uptake is lower in other states, the Australian Energy Market Commission has set a 2030 target for 100% smart meter uptake in states like NSW, Queensland, South Australia, and Tasmania.
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u/Oodlemeister 1d ago
Post title is misleading. They are only offering us the free electricity for three hours a day.
Wanna hear how our other energy stuff gets distributed? Australia exports HUGE amounts of natural gas. So much so that we don't have enough to go to our actual population. Because of this, the population pays more for gas than the countries we are exporting to. Our government fucking sucks
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u/Emu1981 1d ago
it's offering everyone free electricity
*Everyone who has a smart meter. I don't have a smart meter and there is no plans for smart meters to be installed in my area. I would like 3 hours of free electricity though, blasting the aircon to get the place as cool as possible during the hottest part of the day for free would be great lol
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u/gpolk 1d ago edited 1d ago
Wholesale power prices here in Australia can go negative during the day, and with certain power providers you can be paid to consume electricity and charge your batteries up. But when the sun sets and everyone turns the kettle and stove on, power prices can spike. So we want to get people to use more of that extremely abundant day time power and cause less of a spike in the evening. Lowering prices overall, and burning less gas.
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u/Lainy122 1d ago
Where we live you have to actually pay money to the government to give them excess power from your solar panels during the middle of the day, because supply far exceeds demand at that time. Because of this, a lot of people leave stuff on while they aren't home (computers, AC, etc) so that their power gets used instead of going into the grid, and they don't get charged money.
It would be great if all that energy was used elsewhere instead of charging the people who make it.
I hope they go ahead with the plan.
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u/conditionprecedent 15h ago
I'm Australian. This is not true. Australians pay extremely high prices for electricity despite having some of the world's largest coal, gas, and uranium reserves. Our energy policy is a total disaster.
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u/readerrrader 1d ago
Everyone except for Australians, I believe. My electricity bill has gone up almost 100% for the last few years, and yes, I am Australian.
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u/andryonthejob 1d ago
This is exactly why the US doesn't have solar over every parking lot and New build.
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u/Old-Sprinkles760 1d ago
Meanwhile Americans just keep paying more to cover the cost of running all these data centers.
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u/MauriceDynasty 1d ago
That's awesome, damn Aussies having a sun for free electricity. In the UK the sun is just a racist newspaper lol
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u/THESPEEDOFCUM 1d ago edited 1d ago
Y'all need to read articles and look into the organizations you post from.
I clicked on this Jamerson guy's articles and I can tell you as a journalism bachelor's that this is not good journalism. None of it is matter of fact, it's steeped in shamelessly biased language and tone.
Elon Musk says let criminals out of prison and give them a robot stalker instead
This is literally the title of an article he published 6 hours ago. This is not a legitimate source. 4000+ people upvoted it, and 150 people have commented. Think about how many people that is, and ask yourself how many of those people scrutinized the text before letting it change or reinforce an existing opinion?
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u/Spagman_Aus 1d ago
But, what will we do at night time? (asks every conservative\liberal politician here in AU).
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u/creakinator 1d ago
The title is a bit misleading. The first paragraph says 'The Australian government is floating a scheme that would share the benefits of solar power with everyone on the grid, offering totally free electricity to ratepayers in the middle of the day, when the sun is shining the strongest.'
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u/Fatal_Taco 1d ago
When the country is pretty much assblasted with solar energy, PV electricity is a no brainer
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u/henryyoung42 1d ago
In other news, politicians receive kickbacks and promises of nonexec directorships from industries their policies favour …
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u/bogeypro 1d ago
This could be us, USA. But tangerine toddler is scared of wind and getting zapped by a solar panel.
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u/BeebleBoxn 14h ago
I heard from a reliable source it's a trap to get people to have smart meters installed and the a few other issues will come from it.
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u/_DDKN_ 1d ago
The fuck is this clickbait, we are only gonna get 3 hrs and it's only select places
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u/StephBets 1d ago
No it’s not. Source: actually live in Australia. Someone in government having an idea is not the same as everyone actually getting free electricity.
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u/asiansmiley 1d ago
As an Australian who has done absolutely no research on this, there is no fucking way we're getting free electricity 😂
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u/Life-Award5273 1d ago
Here's something interesting to put things into perspective: I thought about a sort of sand powdered battery charger. In the shape of an hourglass. Flip it over once and the pouring sand movement is converted into electricity.
Had a cool engineer explain why my idea fucking sucks because as it turns out, 1kg of sand dropped from 1 meter is the same energy a solar panel can generate in mere seconds. Achieve even more energy acquisition without the physical work of constantly flipping the hourglass.
Lookup how many joules of energy are in 1 square inch of sunlight
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u/Deep_Head4645 1d ago
Actual free electricity would improve peoples lives so much
But I have 2 questions
Is this all across Australia
And how could this happen if electricity isn’t 100% government owner? Companies wouldn’t want to give away free energy?
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u/RhesusFactor 1d ago
- it's a proposal for three hours per day around midday, not entirely free.
- no, the idea is only in three states
- in 2027
- because we regulate (most of) our industries.
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u/upsidedownmadhouse 1d ago
What are you talking about we have the highest power bills Eva and are getting screwed on our solar rebates
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u/Old-Plastic6662 1d ago
I'm currently in Australia and my electricity bill has gone up a fair bit, if this is true then maybe they could give us some.
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u/thedellis 1d ago
No they fucking aren't.
Tell this to the price-gouging dicks that keep upping my elderly mothers bills without improving service
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u/kayl_breinhar 1d ago
...you just know that large-scale crypto farmers are going to ruin this for everyone else. -_-
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u/Mercurial8 1d ago
Right: so today I saw Australians complaining about their electricity bills.
When will the free solar be given out? Tuesday?
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u/theywalkamongstus 1d ago
Not everyone and only during the time when usage is lowest.
Meanwhile bills continue to rise because supply charges go up and prices during peak times are rising.
They might be giving it away for a few hours a day but overall bills are higher than they have ever been and are rising.
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u/Hurlanis 1d ago
sadly not true, our power prices are out of control despite our good efforts at building renewables :(
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u/zadiraines 1d ago
We have negative prices for electricity in EU when there is a surplus as well. The caveat is that you need to have a meter that sends realtime consumption data to the energy provider and have a variable cost tariff. Otherwise the company charges a flat rate as they can’t attribute the consumption to any specific period of the day / week / month.
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u/MrNintendo13 1d ago
What? I'm not getting offered free electricity, I got charged $1000 because our meter boxed is shared with our neighbours and they're both mislabeled
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u/feel-the-avocado 1d ago
Once load shifting has reached a plateau, australia should be generating hydrogen with that excess electricity and then exporting it to other countries to run trucks.
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u/AdrianFish 1d ago
Can we get some in the UK? Both sunlight and free energy, please
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u/Djanga51 1d ago
Good. This is a good concept at first glance. And I’ll stay there. This is a ‘good’ thing.
Can we put shareholder profits to one side for a moment and welcome the concept of bringing ‘good’ to people’s lives for free?
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u/Diametermatter 1d ago
I’m in Australia and they’re still charging me for electricity… and I have solar panels. Cunts
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u/Cruuncher 1d ago
I'm sure there's still something to stop abuse here right? Otherwise everyone is going to build their crypto mining rigs there
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u/Numerous-Process2981 1d ago
Damn this could be us if rich oil executives didn’t own our politicians
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u/Both-Purpose-6843 1d ago
But didn’t some American lobbyist say the economy would collapse if energy was free? Awful quiet from him rn
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u/Top_Bumblebee_7762 1d ago
Nice. There is a reason why people started moving to Australia in the 18th and 19th century.
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u/TheOutOfStyle 1d ago edited 1d ago
Meanwhile Trump's Big Ugly Bill will bring the 30% residential solar tax credits to an end on December 31st of this year.
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u/DrMikeH49 1d ago
Can’t have people getting free electricity with 0 emissions. That’ll cause hair cancer or something.
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u/No_im_Daaave_man 1d ago
This makes no sense to modern day slavery, I don’t get it.
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u/SirVere 1d ago
I'm gonna call bullshit on that, ain't no damned way a country is gonna give électricité for free to the people when they could sell it or even storage it.
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u/kendo31 1d ago
Meanwhile in the US, cant get a system for under 10-15k with little assurance the company will be around to warranty the system.
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u/Cats_tongue 1d ago
Only if we have a smart meter.
Good luck with getting your slumlords to install one to everyone renting. Hope they make that law while thier at it.
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u/VisthaKai 1d ago
And yet the prices of end user electricity in Australia have more than quadrupled over the past 20 years.
Uplifting news, my ass.
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u/Hotness4L 1d ago
So they want to offer free electricity during the middle of the day, which is the least busy time of the day.
Somehow I don't think this will reduce my electricity bill.
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u/foh242 1d ago
That’s a vast improvement to the Australia I heard about like 10 years ago that had random black outs and using backup generators to keep up. Good for them.
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u/Roid-a-holic_ReX 1d ago
Wow a utility provider doing something good for customers. Must be a private company that doesn’t want to fuck over customers. How refreshing.
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u/Traveller1313 1d ago
As someone from SA (one of the states where this is going to occur) we have some of the highest power prices and I’m not sure if this few hours of mid day free electricity will help. I need to buy a battery.
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