I've thought for a while that all solar feeders should switch off their feeds to bring power retailers to a better deal. We've reached the point where the national grids depend on residential solar, but they in-turn treat those feeds like an inconvenience.
this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2025
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Unfortunately I don't know how much good it'll do, OE recently added curtailment stats:
So far today can see up to 6GW of wind and solar farms curtailing/turning off due to the price being negative/uneconomical
I'm expecting to see more plans like this one:
https://www.globirdenergy.com.au/energy-saver/zerohero/
Essentially no feed in during the day and bonus feed in at night
with the new battery incentives, they're about to learn a hard lesson in FAFO
This is why I think at some point they'll charge people a fee/tax depending on the size of your home battery... :(
this is going to catch a lot of people out
Most of the day, they're offering me a minus figure for the power
if you’re on amber you get to see this in real time:
Cheap residential solar is flooding the network during the day essentially making it worthless because coal (and to a smaller extent gas power plants) can’t switch off so they have to pay to export power sending the price negative
the tide has changed so quickly, on the one hand Australians deserve a round of applause for rolling out so much solar so fast, but all previous demand for solar at this stage is gone, we need far more storage now
And this is why co location of batteries matters. It's an opportunity of using infrastructure already in place (grid connection) to maximise the benefit.
Raise the panels and put the battery containers underneath and it doesn't even use more space.
The problem is that the Infrastructure is owned by the Providers, who mainly make money from selling (their own) power and billing you for pumping your own power back into the network.
The providers aren’t going to have Co-Loc batteries if they can charge more for generated power.
The Grid needs to be completely privatised piecemeal so it can be commercially competitive, or nationalised so the government can plan and design for maximum efficiency.
The depleted open cut mines would be the perfect locations for hydraulic batteries.
The original post is in relation to commercial solar PV, not residential, which is a power generator rather than power consumer.
Except via planning law, which is not in the direct control of grid operators (lobbying...), it is not within the gift of the grid operators to stop or agree to the co-location of batteries.
Given that both solar panels, and wind turbines, arr DC generators, the direct connection to batteries via DC-DC charge controllers (which is the most efficient way to charge batteries) does not have anything to do with grid operators, so their commercial interests are irrelevant to the implementation, if that is necessary to create a financially sustainable asset for the power plant owner.
For reference: https://modoenergy.com/research/co-location-battery-energy-storage-solar-ac-dc-coupling
In relation to residential solar PV...which I think you were commenting on, inverters can be set to zero export. If laws are created to specifically fuck over residential solar, the worst case will always be to decommission existing solar PV (say, it was taxed annually on a per panel basis, make it unlawful to self consume etc, but it is possible to set inverters to zero export so one should never have to pay a charge for exporting).
But so long as one can self consume and batteries are available (note even house batteries could be made unlawful, ie due to bullshit argument based on safety), there will always be a system that can reduce costs unless power costs 0 short of a truly broken system. ie grid operators charge power producers for both over production and at the same time charge users for using), but even then solar production cost is essentially 0: fill your own batteries and zero export once full, then discharge a portion at night if profitable.
Pumped hydro is without a doubt the most effective energy storage method but requires the right geology and geography, and is only part of a solution. Check the key statistics on this link to see just how nuts it can be when paired with reliable solar over production. https://british-hydro.org/pumped-storage-hydropower/
The depleted open cut mines would be the perfect locations for hydraulic batteries
The one at Kidstone seems to be taking forever. Supposed to be opened this year but not sure if its still on track or not?
https://genexpower.com.au/250mw-kidston-pumped-storage-hydro-project/
Snowy 2.0 is again over budget i see (mine related).
Great, just what the renewables rollout needs. But in reality, why aren't all three parties in this article coming together and saying -
'this is obviously an overabundance of electricity issue during the day, lets inject community and business, and on Solar farm batteries strategically placed throughout our community.'
This seems like a surmountable problem, and good problem to have for Ergon. If its a case of too much electricity being produced.
Agreed. And when you see the language used by Ergon, you can guess who interested they are in being constructive.
What a bad article.
Solar alone creates an overproduction situation anywhere if there is enough of it.
This is why grid batteries are so profitable right now. Even if you don't have your own power production charging when the power is cheap and discharging when expensive can make a lot of money. More still if there is a frequency or congestion market which I don't know Australia has.
The power plant owner is seeing the energy market change, same as the power company.