There is a new myth that floats around: If your energy retailer gives a free 3-hour energy window in the middle of the day, you do not need solar panels. Just get a large battery, load it free of charge during the Magic window and run your house for 21 hours a day with battery power.
Or the somewhat more reserved version:
“I already have a modest solar system, but if it is ever neglected, I will fill up the battery during the free window – no more solar collectors”
Sounds clever.
In practice? Not really.
Let’s start with the appeal. The logic is tempting: skip the costs for solar collectors. Just buy a battery. You can fill it out of the network with free streams. Maybe even recharge your EV. Feel like you are playing the system.
But the system plays you.
Not as easy as it sounds
To do this work, you need:
- A large battery in terms of capacity (kWh) to survive the other 21 hours.
- A powerful battery inverter (KW), which quickly accumulates in the 3-hour window.
- Enough grid connection headroom to do everything without stumbling your main breaker.
Let me explain this last. Say you have a 10 kW charger that runs for 3 hours. This draws 43 amps on a single -phase connection. If your main crusher is 63a, you have 20a left to run everything else in the house. That’s not much. Add a kettle, a tumble dryer and you are in Trip City.1
Even if you are on a powerful supply of 100a, you can charge your EV at 7 kW 32a. Add this to the 43a and you are 75% of your capacity without regular devices being executed. Suddenly her free electricity lesson turned into an episode of the weakest link.
But worse than the technical challenges are that they have lifted their autonomy. You trust your retailer to keep the window open.
Forever.
You bet that you will not change the plan quietly or increase the prices outside the window. And if you do it? Bad luck. Your system is now built around this window.
A breakdown of the electricity price components for residential buildings. If you rely on your retailer, sooner or later make sure you pay the costs.
Solar is a ticket to independence
Energy independence was the jumping point of the solar. They had their panels. You have made your own strength. You used the network like a backup. Batteries became part of the same story. A way to rely even less on the net.
This free window idea turns on the head. Now you rely on you – on the retailer – the company Solar should free you.
And let’s be real. No retailer gives you free electricity from kindness. If you lose money 3 hours a day, make it back somewhere. Maybe it’s the shoulder frequency. Maybe it’s the daily care. Perhaps it is the tiny (or non -existent) fit.
Electricity prices in South Australia last week. The short dips below the line are the only points to which the prices were negative (apart from the Sabbath – Amen).
There is no free lunch
And if negative wholesale prices are rare (like most of the winter in SA), the retailer is not paid to take this electricity. You pay transmission, distribution, environmental and measurement costs. These do not become negative. So advise who subsidizes your “free” strength?
Yes. You are doing. Only somewhere else on the bill.
I love a lot as much as everyone else. And if you already have a battery, you can give it free of charge if you can. But panels in total? Or don’t expand your solar because you use three free hours a day? That is short -sighted.
Aussies that were used to install panels to take back control. Your invoices for the future. Let’s not forget that. Don’t let us go backwards.
Let us make solar modules great again.
The phase shift is a weekly opinion column of the solar quotes founder Finn Peacock. Subscribe to the free newsletter from Solarquotes to receive it every week together with our other home electrification reporting by e -mail.
Footnot
- If you have installed a strong battery, please make sure that your installer configures it so that it carries out dynamic load management in real time, and don’t even remember to buy a battery without this function. It constantly monitors your household burden and choose your loading force when this is necessary to avoid that you stumble your main switch. ↩
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