When federal Labor’s Solar Sharer Offer was first announced, a key part of the plan was to, quite literally, share the benefits of Australia’s abundant rooftop solar resource with those unable to install it themselves – namely renters and apartment dwellers.
Getting non-solar households to soak up excess rooftop-generated power by offering it for free is what you might call a win-win, except that it requires those people to either be home in the middle of the day or have the ability to shift enough of their daily electricity use into that three-hour window to make it worthwhile.
Assuming this is not the majority, the next best way to make use of the offer – which is already in place in Queensland, New South Wales and South Australia, but comes into play in Victoria in October – is to store the free power somehow and use it later.
Reflecting this reality, this week’s report from IEEFA on Growing the benefits of solar sharer showcased households with batteries – including those installed within electric vehicles – as having some of the “most significant opportunities” to benefit from the free power mandate.
Critically, however, the report identifies that Solar Sharer opens up a new category of Australian prosumer – battery with no solar – creating the conditions for this set-up to make economic sense by providing a window to charge a battery from the grid at no cost and then use it during the evening peak.
