Australia - NSW - Ausgrid customers - 28c Feed-in bonus

[nate_syd]

A post for Aus customers that are on AusGrid... raising some awareness!

AusGrid have new tariffs that are INSANELY good for batteries - and i'm sure many other fellow DIY battery nerds would benefit.
The details:

Ausgrid EA960 & EA959

The Ausgrid tariff is a trial residential two-way tariff where solar battery customers earn an additional feed-in bonus when they:

• import less energy between 2-8pm every day
• export less energy between 10am-2pm every day
• export more energy between 2-8pm every day.

The current tariff trial will run until 30 June 2024.

Ausgrid gives 27.8c for feed in at peak consumption times (2-8pm) - on top of any other rates the retailer provides you.
You pay 1.8c to feed in during peak solar generation times (10am-2pm)

It makes using the wholesale pricing model (Amber etc) really predictable & much better to use.
Currently making $5 a day with a small 5kw solar setup with 30kw battery.

 

[45North]

Trial!?
So you could invest $ thousands in batteries and the trial could end. How's chances of a binding 20 year contract. That would protect your investment.

 

[45North]

Or can you break even in the 1.5 years of the trial?

 

[nate_syd]

from Canadia eh?
Aus has (i *think*) the largest amount of solar penetration in the world - what we're seeing is our feed-ins are going down & down... and we're seeing inverters being turned off during the day - as there's too much solar in the grid. We're also seeing a solid increase in electricity prices.

So batteries are absolutely the answer even without this offer - as they're making the financial feasibility of the systems much better.
This is just a massive bonus. Without this i'd be going towards an off-grid setup.

A practical example...
A house a few suburbs away puts out 3x the amount of solar (75kw vs 21kw), their monthly bill is $4 credit. My daily bill is $5 credit.
Without the offer i'm probably closer to breaking even each month.

 

[45North]

If there's too much solar in the grid then why are they offering incentives for More solar?

I must be missing something here.

 

[nate_syd]

If there's too much solar in the grid then why are they offering incentives for More solar?
I must be missing something here.

Its rewarding for feeding in during peak consumption and penalizing during peak feed in
So its about when you feed in & taking the load off the grid as much as possible.

 

[wattmatters]

It's a two year trial ending on 30 June 2024, and only for participating retailers. I presume by your comments that Amber, with its cost pass through model, are a participating retailer. They were one of a dozen retailers initially consulted on it.

Ausgrid also have a cap on customer numbers for the trial, it's not an open ended tariff option available to everyone. Once the trial hits its customer limit then they will close off the tariff to new participants.

The other two distributors in NSW, Endeavour Energy and Essential Energy are also likely to trial different tariffs as they all work through the sort of options which may be adopted in future.

The stumbling blocks I see are:

i. DIY electrical work for a grid-tied system is generally verboten. Any system operating in parallel with the grid will require Ausgrid approval to connect and that means it needs to be installed and signed off by relevantly qualified people (accredited solar installers). Which means the costs to have grid-tied home storage in Australia are generally very high. DIY is mostly an off-grid thing (even then it's tricky).

ii. while the tariff differentials in play would be good for a DIY set up, they are barely enough to make the commercial battery offerings worth buying. Here you really need a tariff differential of 50 c/kWh for a Tesla Powerwall or similar to make financial sense.

One does have to wonder about the trial though, as there has been zero publicity and the tariff options do not seem to appear in any of the retail plan comparison sites, including the government's EnergyMadeEasy site, which retailers are obliged by law to supply every retail plan offering to.

 

[nate_syd]

It's a two year trial ending....
Ausgrid also have a cap on customer numbers....



The stumbling blocks I see are:

i. DIY electrical work for a grid-tied system is generally verboten........ Which means the costs to have grid-tied home storage in Australia are generally very high. DIY is mostly an off-grid thing (even then it's tricky).

Trials - sounds like you're talking it down because its a "trial", could just be the way to sell it to the regulator, get more data & then go larger & larger in a years time?
We've got huge issues in the grid & this addresses those issues - I dont see it going the other way, but i could of course be wrong!

DIY electrical - not suggesting that, but installing a good hybrid inverter or replacing your string inverter with a hybrid will make it a good long term solution. If you put in solar - then put in a hybrid, then you can DIY batteries etc.
There's a few of us here (Aus/NZ) who put in Deye inverters - got them correctly signed off etc as fully approved installs.
Powerwalls are of course a joke of an answer... but you can get retail batteries here for $3k/5kw modules that can hook straight into a hybrid & really make it work well.

 

[wattmatters]

Trials - sounds like you're talking it down because its a "trial"

I'm not talking anything down, or up for that matter. I'm just stating facts which would be helpful to factor in if one were considering making a considerable investment on the basis of energy tariff forecasts. When the financial viability of an project is based on future export tariffs over which you have zero influence or control, then it naturally comes with quite some risk.

One thing you can be assured of and that's Ausgrid won't be doing anything which does not favour them. They are very quick to change tariff structures to ensure cost recovery. Lots of people are getting stung by the transition to demand tariffs.

The point of the trial is to see how much it influences consumer behaviour. There is no guarantee it will remain. Equally they might up the ante. Only Ausgrid can answer that.

Unfortunately affordable home storage solutions which can import and export are few and far between and the vast majority who are reliant on solar installers will struggle to make even this type of tariff incentive worthwhile.

If you can do a home brew set up and get it legal, then you are in a good place to take advantage while it's available.

I considered a Deye at one point but they are far too expensive (I need at least 8 kW). I can't justify that sort of money, which is why I've stuck with the PIP style of all-in-one inverter and just focused on taking loads off-grid. The less grid energy I use, the less their tariff regimes matter.

 

[nate_syd]

The point of the trial is to see how much it influences consumer behaviour. There is no guarantee it will remain. Equally they might up the ante. Only Ausgrid can answer that.

Well Sir you're 100% correct on your scepticism!
Just got a call from AusGrid & spoke with the staff at length - yeppas it'll be dropping significantly at the end of the trial & wont continue anywhere near its current form
*doths cap*

 

[wattmatters]

Well Sir you're 100% correct on your scepticism!

I might have been right on this occasion but that doesn't mean I'm happy about it.
Bummer.

 

[740GLE]

8-10 years ago I don’t think the grid managers thought they’d be in this situation, so hard to predict the price structures and incentives in say 4 years.

As for tracking current trends and offering carrots to fix it I honestly think there will still be carrots just may not look exactly like the current carrot offered.