The Victorian Labor government has firmed up some of the details of its Midday Power Saver plan, revealing that the free electricity period will run from 11am to 2pm, and recalculating the potential savings this could deliver following the newly reduced default electricity prices announced this week.
Victoria announced in March that its state take on federal Labor’s Solar Sharer offer would become available to residential customers through the Victorian Default Offer (VDO) from the first of October this year – less than two months ahead of the state election.
State energy and climate minister Lily D’Ambrosio this week confirmed key details of the free power plan, and said households who took advantage of the opt-in scheme could cut their power bills by between $149 and $1,102 a year, depending on how much demand they shifted to the midday period.
The federal version, Solar Sharer, was announced last November as a one of the reforms to the Default Market Offer (DMO) and requires electricity retailers to offer free power for at least three hours in the middle of the day in DMO states, which is all National Electricity Market (NEM) states except Victoria. It comes into play on July 01.
For Solar Sharer, the free usage periods are 11am–2pm for NSW/SE Queensland regions and 12pm–3pm for South Australia. Times will not vary with daylight savings.
