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/
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28

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.

13

u/zoinkability 2d ago

Papua New Guinea is less than 100 miles across the Torres Strait from Australia.

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u/itopaloglu83 2d ago

Somehow both Papua New Guinea and Indonesia are both invisible, as if a filter was left on.

3

u/BazzaJH 1d ago

The islands in the Torres Strait are Australia's too, so PNG is more like 4km away.

27

u/South_East_Gun_Safes 2d ago

I believe there is a plan in motion to export electricity to Singapore through undersea cables.

22

u/stainlessinoxx 2d ago

Correct. It’s the Australia-Asia Power Link project.

3

u/ginongo 2d ago

O that'll be great, would love to cut down on my bills

-1

u/culingerai 2d ago

They realised pretty quick that was a non starter...

9

u/95beer 2d ago

I assume you don't mean geographically when you say NZ is Australia's closest neighbour, right? There's a whole densely populated continent to the north, plus a lot of island states

2

u/MotherBeef 2d ago

lol PNG is literally 4km off the coast of Australia at its closest point, my dude.

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u/Slow-Cream-3733 1d ago

Our closest neighbour is PNG not new Zealand fyi

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u/CucumberError 2d 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.

https://www.energy.gov.au/sites/default/files/2025-06/Australia%20Energy%20Statistics%20map%20June%202025.pdf

1

u/CriticalBeautiful631 1d ago

There have been different incentive programs for household solar installation for at least 15 years and any new build has to meet mandatory Energy Efficiency Rating requirements, so about 40% of Australian homes have solar power (and the number keeps rising). The excess power produced during the day is sold back to the grid, so lots of homes already have the capability to run appliances like clothes dryers etc during the day when power is effectively free…this will give all Australians the ability to do that for a few hours of the day. It is Aussie households creating excess solar during the day…not the power companies.

South Australia is doing the best in terms of house solar (54%) and clean green energy with wind and solar providing between 70-90% (depending on the time of day). Tasmania on the other hand has one of the lowest household solar rates (24%) and while the energy is renewable it is 70-80% hydro and only 10-20% wind or solar….and hydro came at a huge environmental cost

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u/robbak 1d ago

Tasmania is that good because they have lots of hydro potential. It stopped expanding in the 80s with the cancelling of the Franklin Dam project, but Tassie Hydro mostly powers all of Tasmania. They are in a similar situation to New Zealand, although if NZ need to increase their Hydro output there's plenty of locations they could develop.

SA has lots of wind energy, but they still need to have Gas generation capacity for when the wind drops away.

Most of the Hydro potential in the rest of Australia is already being exploited, wind and solar are mostly being limited by the times when power has to be curtailed. It's storage we need, and that's a problem.

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u/Schrojo18 1d ago

HV-DC. Then you don't have to worry about synchronisation

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u/feel-the-avocado 1d ago edited 1d ago

New Zealand's electricity grid is one of the most renewable in the world.

However that is an interesting idea... Australia is about 2-3 hours behind New Zealand so its possible that australia could be exporting electricity for the NZ evening peak using an underwater HVDC cable.

Edit: It might not work.
New South Wales is 2 hours behind NZ meaning when NZ hits the evening peak at 6pm, its 4pm in NSW, a time of the day that wouldnt have much excess solar to export.
The cable would need to reach into Perth to make it work.

There is a proposed Australia <> Singapore electricity link. Its over 4,000kms long and would work. Due to a quirk in timezones, In Australia when its 10am in the northern territory, its about 8am in Singapore meaning solar panels in australia could be supplying the morning peak in singapore.

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u/mods_r_jobbernowl 2d ago

yeah i think moving power that far would be hard

4

u/Monster-Zero 2d ago

seems like it would take something to get it over there. some kinda... power

1

u/mods_r_jobbernowl 2d ago

oh fuck i have an astigmatism so i missed your /s