As Australia enters winter, a new generation of free daytime electricity tariffs has hit the market just in time to keep your home warm affordably. Here’s how to control your electric heating and cooling to make the most of the Solar Sharer offer’s free electricity period.
Solar Sharer launched on July 1, 2026This gives households in selected areas of Australia the opportunity to switch to a tariff with three hours of free electricity per day.
Electricity retailers with more than 1,000 customers must offer a plan offering up to 24kWh of free electricity per day from 11am to 2pm in NSW and southeast Queensland. In South Africa, the free period extends from 12pm to 3pm, while Victoria is launching its own version, the Midday Power Saver, on October 1st.
It’s a real opportunity to reduce your bill, but only if you can shift usage to free electricity periods. Your air conditioning/heating system is the biggest lever you have. If you time it right, you can heat or cool your entire home for next to nothing. If you do something wrong, you’ll just move your usual bill to a different time slot.
Is Solar Sharer actually worth it?
Solar sharer plans only help if you can change your electricity usage. There’s a catch that retailers don’t mention: They often offset the costs with higher peak prices and/or daily delivery fees.
The free period only saves you money if you actually use it. So what should you postpone at this point?
Heating and cooling typically run most of the day to keep your home comfortable. They use more energy than anything else you can control, so it’s best to focus on them with this strategy.
Heat your house, on the house
A modern reverse cycle system uses most of its energy to raise or lower your home to the desired temperature. Once this point is reached, it uses much less energy to keep things stable.
That’s the basic idea: get your home to the right temperature and then let the system maintain it.
Aim 24-26°C in summer and 18-20°C in winter. Going above or below these ranges uses much more energy and results in diminishing returns.
Start right at the beginning of the free phase and use the first 20-30 minutes to get your home to the right temperature. For the most energy-intensive part, you use free electricity. Even if you leave your air conditioner running beyond the free period, you will have saved a lot of the operating costs.
However, a built-in air conditioning timer can only work on a fixed schedule. It doesn’t adapt to today’s weather and can’t tell if you’re home.
Intelligent control: Sensibo and Solectair
If your split system has a remote control, you don’t need to replace it to make it smart. Devices like Sensibo attach to the wall and read the infrared signals from your remote control, so they require a clear line of sight to work well.
Sensibo lets you set up 7-day schedules, use your phone’s location, and create rules in the app. This allows you to program your system to start heating or cooling as soon as free time begins, without having to do anything manually.
Courtesy of Sensibo.com
Geolocation turns off the system based on your phone’s location when you leave the house. An optional room sensor can monitor the temperature where you are, not just where the device is. It can stop the system if you leave the room or a door is left open. This is a cost-effective way to make an old air conditioner smart again.
SolectairA ducted solar heating system, which has been around for decades, draws warm air directly from the roof space and pushes it into the house through ducts.
On a sunny day, even in winter, the temperature in a roof cavity can be significantly higher than room temperature. Solectair’s controller turns on a fan when the roof surface is hotter than the house, transferring free heat into the house and allowing the house’s thermal mass (walls and floor) to absorb it and release it slowly overnight.
Courtesy: Airgroup.com.au
Insulation: Think of your home like a battery
Once your home is at the right temperature, the insulation will determine how long it stays comfortable. Good insulation can retain heat or cooling for hours, while poor insulation causes it to escape quickly.
Think of your home as a big battery. It stores energy as heat. Anthony Bennett, SolarQuotes’ in-house installer, points this out Winterize your homeBlocking drafts from doors and windows is your first task – this can reduce heating costs by up to 25%. A single bare pane of glass loses 10-15% more heat than an uninsulated wall of the same size.
“It’s great to get thermal mass under control, but if the house is leaking, it’s a losing battle. I know this because the floor falls out of my house and leaks like a sieve… A good Passive House design maintains the temperature for days because it’s sealed like a drum and the windows are well positioned to warm it,” says Anthony.
If you feel confident with a little DIY glazinginsulate your window and sliding doors (if you have them). Anthony found that with a little ingenuity, a temperature increase of 3.5°C could be measured.
Everyone loves a roaring fire on a cold winter night. But Chimneys, especially unused open chimneysinvite drafts into the house. This is one of the quickest ways to lose the temperature you paid to create. Invest in a chimney blocker, as pictured below. They are flat felt squares with a handle that clips right into your fireplace when you’re not using it. It’s not perfect, but it helps reduce heat loss.
A few years ago, Anthony set up a simple fan with a timer in his old double-brick house, which had no ceiling insulation or smart controls. Previously, he came to an empty house at 6 p.m. and found it colder inside than outside because no one had turned on the heating.
After setting the fan to run from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., he noticed a change toward evening. On cloudy, cold days the house didn’t feel much warmer. But on sunny days it was often much warmer at 6pm just because of the air flowing through the house while the sun provided warmth.
What to do next
Check whether your reverse cycle system has a built-in schedule or whether it makes sense to add something like Sensibo or Solectair. Then check your home’s weak points, such as doors, windows or an old fireplace, and insulate where possible. These factors will determine whether the benefits of your free period last just an hour or the entire afternoon.
When you get the timing and sealing together, a free power window becomes truly free convenience.
For more information on efficient electric heating and cooling, see our guide Reverse cycle air conditioning.
To browse Solar Sharer plans and see if they’re right for you, we’ve updated ours Electricity tariff comparison tool – After entering your zip code, simply click on “Features” and “Free electricity periods” to compare only those tariffs.
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