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Comment by surfmike | Hacker News Reader

Sounds like an ideal market for home solar and Tesla powerwalls.

Once enough solar farms are built, australia will have some of the cheapest energy in Asia. This is a transition period due to dirty coal plants closing and uncertainty in policy from governments.

The solar exposure is extremely high and the outback has limitless sunny land... You could build and charge all the world's batteries with solar there and ship it out on the Pacific or Indian oceans...

> cheapest energy in Asia.

No, it will probably cost the same because business.

Australia does actually have the highest level of home solar installation in the world. Unrelated to very low government investment in it.

What about the massive massive rebates that were available a few years back to drive uptake? Not direct govt investment, but with a similar effect - people got some money back from the govt when they installed solar, then the govt mandated a high feed-in tariff for some years (has since dropped/been abolished)

That's still available for new installations, I believe. The feed-in tariffs have all but gone, but solar is still well worth getting purely for the reduction in power bills (especially if you can schedule the bulk of your energy usage to be during peak solar generating hours).

The flip side is that the power grid is now going into a death spiral where falling kWh sales are pushing up prices per kWh, making solar even more competitive, etc. etc. They're going to have to start charging a large flat rate for connection (which they can't do, politically) or the whole thing's going to fall in a heap within a decade.

The electricity grid needs to transition into an energy market kind of deal where their role is to balance supply and demand across the entire grid rather than a net flow in any direction.

Of course it'll never happen, the privatised incumbants will fight innovation tooth and nail to the grave like you say

You're right this is correct. I was thinking about commercial infrastructure aka power plants but said the wrong thing.

I suspect that's actually part of the problem: a massive buildout of renewables without full accounting or planning for the complications to the grid, i.e. all the shock loads and lack of storage. Then the consumer is left footing the bill.

At the same time, we have signed long-term LNG contracts while simultaneously large gas projects are delayed by various red tape and doesn't look like it'll clear up any time soon. I read at some point Australia is importing LNG just to reexport it to meet contract requirements.

Powerwall would certainly help with storage, wouldn't it? And consumers have an incentive to buy Powerwall to decrease the amount of power they need to buy from the grid.

Numbers don't make sense yet. Plus it takes up space, is a fire hazard, and I am doubtful the 10-yr+ warranties will actually hold up past year 5, especially for third parties.

Right now it's mostly for conspicuous consumption and virtue signalling. Those of us number nerds are waiting for the tech to improve and the price to drop more. A move off toxic/flammable lithium tech would be good too.

Huh. Well, you'd better call these people and tell them to cancel the order: https://electrek.co/2017/06/17/tesla-powerpack-australian-el...

Meanwhile in America: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Roadways

Unlike that debacle, this might even make economic sense once you factor in the government rebates/sweetheart deals and the PR bonus. Alas, nobody gives me anything on the side for buying a powerwall.

What I've heard from people installing solar at home is that even though you install solar and a battery, you are not allowed to disconnect from the network unless you are a rural property.

can anyone confirm this?

I don't know about this one, but I'm not sure why you would. A lot of that investment gets paid back by feeding energy back into the grid - you would be throwing money away.

Because network costs are extremely high, and ideological machinations render these (and feed-ins) subject to ongoing uncertainty.

Net metering is under heavy pressure from utilities because it costs them a lot. They'd also like connection fees to pay for the infrastructure they have to maintain, even if you aren't using (much of) their electricity.

We don't do raw net metering in Australia. You pay 30-40c/kWh on the way in and get 8c/kWh on the way out. Utility is still profiting nicely.

I don't think that is the case at all. From a practical perspective many people probably choose to stay connected (particularly in the southern states) to ensure they have a reliable energy supply over winter.

Sure you could guarantee your energy and completely disconnect from the network with enough power walls and solar panels, but the capital investment would be relatively huge - so it will be a principle based decision and not based on pure economics.

I have stayed in off-grid AirBnBs in urban areas, so it is presumably legal (though there might be jurisdictional differences between States).

sounds like that's part of the problem.

I agree that it is part of the final solution - but getting there is going to be very expensive with the current regulation.

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