wattmatters
Solar Wizard
In some places it is becoming more common for grid utility suppliers to offer free energy periods to household customers. I am curious as the experience of forum members around the world as to whether/where this might also be occurring.
Typically it is tied to an over supply of energy generation during particular times of day, or days of the week when wholesale electricity prices regularly fall into negative territory.
Here in the eastern states of Australia we are now seeing the emergence of retailers offering plans with free energy periods. One offers free energy between the hours of 11AM to 2PM every day. Another between 12-2PM on weekends. I am on this latter plan.
There are of course also options to purchase energy tied to the wholesale price directly. That's a much riskier proposition as there is both significant up and downsides to that approach. If you can store enough energy to consume later and automate loads to avoid the peak price periods, then it can work very well. If the wholesale price is negative enough to cover the distribution fees then you can be credited for consuming energy. But beware of price peaks.
Here this is being driven by the wholesale price of energy often going negative during the middle of the day caused by the large amount of solar PV on the grid. Power distribution companies (who run the poles and wires but do not retail energy to consumers) are also introducing "solar soaker" tariff structures for energy retailers - with cheap daytime service rates for electricity distribution, so this trend is likely to continue for a while yet.
There may be some locations with free energy overnight, perhaps under utilised nuclear power stations want the load. But here it is being driven by the impact of solar PV, not least of which is rooftop PV which generates more energy than does grid scale PV.
Naturally in order to consume free energy from the grid, you need first to chew up your own grid-tied generation (or turn it off).
As an example, yesterday the weather here was pretty poor, so my own generation was lousy. But I still get free grid energy between 12-2PM. I have some load automations set up to make the most of it. This was the result:
Automations commence charging the off-grid battery and the EV at its maximum rate (until it had reached the set state of charge), and I switched the water heater over to full power "heat now" mode instead of its normal mode which just uses available excess PV energy. Washing machine and dishwasher running too (they heat their own water).
I ended up importing 27 kWh in that time.
Is this the future, or just a temporary scenario during the energy transition to low carbon energy sources?
One thing which springs to mind is this sort of tariff structure makes solar PV a bit less appealing - you might instead consider going battery only, provided you can power the loads you need to power. Whether 3 hours is long enough to capture enough energy for the rest of the day is the question I guess.
Curious to hear what might be the situation in your part of the world.
Typically it is tied to an over supply of energy generation during particular times of day, or days of the week when wholesale electricity prices regularly fall into negative territory.
Here in the eastern states of Australia we are now seeing the emergence of retailers offering plans with free energy periods. One offers free energy between the hours of 11AM to 2PM every day. Another between 12-2PM on weekends. I am on this latter plan.
There are of course also options to purchase energy tied to the wholesale price directly. That's a much riskier proposition as there is both significant up and downsides to that approach. If you can store enough energy to consume later and automate loads to avoid the peak price periods, then it can work very well. If the wholesale price is negative enough to cover the distribution fees then you can be credited for consuming energy. But beware of price peaks.
Here this is being driven by the wholesale price of energy often going negative during the middle of the day caused by the large amount of solar PV on the grid. Power distribution companies (who run the poles and wires but do not retail energy to consumers) are also introducing "solar soaker" tariff structures for energy retailers - with cheap daytime service rates for electricity distribution, so this trend is likely to continue for a while yet.
There may be some locations with free energy overnight, perhaps under utilised nuclear power stations want the load. But here it is being driven by the impact of solar PV, not least of which is rooftop PV which generates more energy than does grid scale PV.
Naturally in order to consume free energy from the grid, you need first to chew up your own grid-tied generation (or turn it off).
As an example, yesterday the weather here was pretty poor, so my own generation was lousy. But I still get free grid energy between 12-2PM. I have some load automations set up to make the most of it. This was the result:
Automations commence charging the off-grid battery and the EV at its maximum rate (until it had reached the set state of charge), and I switched the water heater over to full power "heat now" mode instead of its normal mode which just uses available excess PV energy. Washing machine and dishwasher running too (they heat their own water).
I ended up importing 27 kWh in that time.
Is this the future, or just a temporary scenario during the energy transition to low carbon energy sources?
One thing which springs to mind is this sort of tariff structure makes solar PV a bit less appealing - you might instead consider going battery only, provided you can power the loads you need to power. Whether 3 hours is long enough to capture enough energy for the rest of the day is the question I guess.
Curious to hear what might be the situation in your part of the world.
