When the calendar flipped over to October, EnergyAustralia snipped its solar feed-in tariff rates across the board – and they’ve had quite a haircut.
EnergyAustralia services residential solar customers in Victoria, New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory, South Australia and Queensland; and none have escaped the scissors. Here’s what’s happened with feed-in tariff (FiT) rates:
- Queensland – reduced from 6.6 c/kWh to 4.6 c/kWh
- New South Wales – reduced from 7.6 c/kWh to 5.0 c/kWh
- ACT – reduced from 7.6 c/kWh to 5.0 c/kWh
- South Australia – reduced from 8.5c c/kWh to 4.5 c/kWh
As for Victoria, on September 30 the single (flat) rate was 5.4 c/kWh and “Time of Use” FiT rates were:
- Peak (4pm-9pm every day) 11.7 c/kWh
- Shoulder – (9pm – 10am; 2pm – 4pm every day) 6.1 c/kWh
- Off Peak – (10am – 2pm every day) – 4.3 c/kWh
And as of yesterday, the single rate was dropped to: 3.3 c/kWh and the new ToU FiT rates are:
- Peak: 8.4 c/kWh
- Shoulder: 4.1 c/kWh
- Off Peak: 2.1 c/kWh
What About EA’s “Solar Max” Plans?
EnergyAustralia also offers “Solar Max” plans that offer higher rates than their standard feed-in tariff on the Flexi Plan. But this only applies to the first 12 kWh (previously 15 kWh) average solar energy exports per day across a billing period, after which the standard FiT rate will apply to the balance of exports.
In my corner of South Australia, the Solar Max rate was 10c/kWh (previously 12c/kWh) at the time of writing, but opting for that plan involves forgoing an 18% discount off the total energy bill in my case.
You can compare EA plans here and see if Solar Max is available to you and if it might be worth it in your circumstances.
… and on that note:
The Easy Way To Compare Electricity Retailers
Given the changes, EnergyAustralia customers might want to consider comparing electricity plans among all retailers to see if they are still on the best deal for their circumstances or if it’s time to shift. Note that it will be a day or two before the SolarQuotes comparison tool will have the latest rates.
Also bear in mind the best electricity plan for solar owners offers a balance of high (relatively speaking) feed-in-tariffs, low usage tariffs and low daily charges. Solar-only owners are usually better off with fixed tariffs, whereas the most appropriate plan for solar + battery owners is often a time-of-use tariff offering lower off-peak and shoulder rates.
Thinking About A Home Battery?
News like this tends to get solar households thinking about installing a home battery system; particularly if they aren’t able to time-shift appliance use as much as they’d like to maximise self-consumption and consume a significant amount of mains electricity in the evenings.
A home battery enables you to store the valuable energy you’d otherwise be paid a pittance for when exporting, and use that electricity overnight (or whenever it’s needed) – avoiding some or all mains grid consumption charges during that timeframe.
But a battery is quite an investment and one you shouldn’t rush into. Learn everything you need to know about residential energy storage – prices, general information on payback and brands – in this home battery guide.
To determine a pretty accurate estimate of savings and simple payback you can expect from a battery in your circumstances, try the SolarQuotes battery calculator, which was designed specifically for solar power system owners. Input your electricity tariff, the battery you’re thinking of getting, and upload your smart meter data – the calculator will provide detailed figures based on your real-world 12 month usage.
If you can’t (or can’t be bothered with) getting your smart meter data, have a fiddle with SQ’s original solar + battery calculator for an idea of savings and payback – but it won’t be as accurate.
About Michael Bloch
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Our FIT in WA dropped from 2.5c to 2.25c and now is 2.0c/kWh, but 10c after 3PM. We pay 28.7112c/kWh in the Home Plan (A1) Tariff.
Due to an election year, there is a “Commonwealth Energy Bill Relief (2024 Offset)” at $150, a “WA Household Electricity Credit (2024 Offset)” at $200 and a “WA Gov. Energy Assistance Payment”. at $48.32.
Great to be living in a state, where the gov. is responsible for power generation via coal and gas and my PV means I am in credit.
Hi Dominic, FYI you need to add GST to the 28c/kWh normal flat price to get the actual cost. Also the the government rebates are in two instalment so double your figures for the full year.
Noel Schubert
As a matter of interest how much do organizations like EnergyAustralia pay the big solar farms for electricity?
I saw a graph recently suggesting that the big solar farms are having their output curtailed for most of the day at the same time as residential solar is largely (or completely) uncurtailed.
That together with basic economic theory suggests that the big solar farms are currently charging more than the residential feed in tariffs. Market forces suggest that the big players will want to continue to reduce feed in tariffs until the big solar farms are price competitive.
That is just what happens when a market is saturated.
Frankly, we’re in a purple patch just now where batteries are barely break-even on crossing the import vs feed-in tariff spread, but FiTs are useless, so it’s lose-lose.
Another 30-50% reduction in battery prices will however open the “duck-curve” hunting season and it will be the end for greedy retailers.
One thing we could do while waiting, would be to legislate fairer pricing for energy which is consumed locally to production. It could be done with smart meters on both sides within localities. Solar soak for the consumers, better FiT for prosumers if actually matched locally.
We should ask the retailer industry about it and the louder they object, the harder we should pursue it!
We are heading to a point where people will get nothing for their solar energy fed into the grid.
Its not a bad gig when you never paid for the system install, pay nothing for the space they occupy, pay nothing for maintenance, then, offer people a pittance for their product..
The big push is now on for people to buy their own storage batteries.
Wake up people, size a system for your own needs and don’t connect to the grid.
Hi Bill,
I have to offer a rebuttal on this sort of nonsense. The system should be made more equitable, that’s not at question. However even for the big players the electricity market is arguably broken.
On the ground however, for consumers like you and I, the grid is a marvellous public good which must be maintained. Just like the sewer stops the neighbourhood smelling and keeps everyone healthy, the electricity grid means we can refrigerate food.
For those advocating “going off grid” they’ll soon find it’s very expensive to build something big enough; and needs an unreliable, expensive & noisy diesel generator to get through winter.
After 15 years building these systems in remote areas I assure you that the generator’s primary role was to make my phone ring…
The grid is a much cheaper, better quality and vastly more reliable backup to your hybrid battery system.
Believe me I understand the frustration, but collectively throwing our toys out of the cot doesn’t help anyone.
If you want to stay urban then stay on the grid. I’m off the water grid and have been for years in a community of over 8,200 residents all off the water grid. I have no water or sewage bills with an old fashioned septic system. I have 24kw of batteries and ultimately I’ll add more solar as a second array and more batteries and disconnect off the grid. I figured this all out 10+ years ago, so I chose a high rainfall, fertile, sunny block of subtropical land to retire to. The urban dream is broke where adequate solar access to mitigate the ever rising power prices might be shaded.
Ron Parker
So with so much PV electricity now hitting the grid it might be time for some rolling strikes (turn EV off )to push retailers into a ”fair” price for EV during the day. It would be so nice to get energy for almost nothing and sell it at
30cents kwh.
As a new comer to EV (not 1year since install.) I’ve just made the worst ‘investment of all time. System payback time has almost doubled. My small credit per qtr has disappeared to a bill of $300-$400 plus. Now you want me to invest $10000 in a battery system . Sorry once bitten twice shy. All system holders need to get a return on investment and putting a battery in is like throwing good money after bad.
Restrictions on feed it tariff will be just the start. Wait untill they have oversupply when Snowy 2.0 comes online and other storage systems.This is a bad deal . We must have a set return on investment like ”ANY ”’ commercial enterprise guaranteed. WE put the money up for the retailer and wholesalers to screw us when it isn’t working in their favour or over supply. .NO BATTERY UNTIL A GUARANTEE of return on investment.
Hi Ron,
The primary benefit of solar is to generate your own energy and use it behind the meter.
The days of large feed in tariffs are gone, as are the $12,000 per kilowatt system prices.
You would have paid one twelfth of that price in dollars per watt terms. $6000 or even less for a quality 6.6kW system isn’t uncommon now.
A storage hot water service, heat pump, RCAC and an EV are probably better investments than a home battery right now, but they all make good sense. Much better than our collective habit of sending Billions offshore every year to import 90% of our transport fuel. We literally just burn that money.
Snowy 2.0 should help increase FIT, along with other large batteries, as they’ll need to buy daytime energy to store.
What’s likely most valuable to you are a few links here; I hate to recommend the Zuccerburg empire but
https://www.facebook.com/groups/MyEfficientElectricHome
My Efficient Electric Home has a great community of 120 000 like minded Australians who are ready and willing to offer ideas and valuable expertise on electrification.
Getting off gas is also a no brainer. It’s cheaper, easier to clean and better for your health.
https://www.rewiringaustralia.org/
https://electrify2515.org/
One of the best things we could do at this point is recognise retailers are making a massive spread between FiT and import tariff for LOCAL energy. This CAN be levelled up with smart meters on both production and consumption sides matched up on a locality basis. Solar soak discounts if you use energy generated near you and generation premiums if you produced it and it’s consumed near you. It needs legislation to reallocate the super profits from the retailers’ pockets to the consumers’.
It’s a real problem isn’t it Bill. And of course the current trend is to give the powers that be an ability to turn off supply from residential users so they don’t even have to take their electricity at all.
You are right to say people should size their system for their own needs. The problem is that you’ve got to allow for cloudy days when you might get only a small fraction of peak power. And of course you have to plan what you are going to do at night.
Anthony is right that having the grid connected is a great backup even if like me you use almost no power from it ($6.70 so far this billing cycle). You can even use it at night (unless the grid goes down). That is of course at CURRENT connection fees of $1.40 per day. Who knows what those fees will be in 10 year’s time or even 1 year’s time.
And that’s the big problem for me. Sensible investment requires a much longer time frame than little people like us are given. Governments are just making up the rules as they go along.
The world is a long way from Utopia.
I am now using more electricity as losing 5c per kwh doesn’t hurt too much. Aircon turned up/down, being less fussed if I use the dryer even on a hot sunny day if it is convenient.
Am looking at batteries again as it feels like I rip off. I invested in good panels and 5c is around the breakdown mark.
Always need to look for unintended consequences- incentives to use more, not less power; and buy cheap panels.
Also looking at heatpump for hot water (possibly as a priority over battery) as i’ll save a good but getting gas use down.
Do feel duped a little and wondering if companies can have plans for longer than 12 months and provide future pricing a little further in advance
We had one company helping itself to power from our battery overnight at the low FIT and then, when the battery ran out early, we had to pay peak rates to power the house before there was enough sunlight to do so.
I started taking the house ‘off-grid’ overnight when I was confident the battery would see us through to sunrise.
Personally, I feel that act was the equivalent to theft. We changed suppliers.
I am an Electrician and gave seen many changes over my 40 years in the industry and I keep abreadt of imerging technologies.
The energy companies act like a bunch of bastards with the Governments, state and fed, who have utterly failed in their duty of care and broken promises which makes them a bunch of big fat looser liars!
Never to mind, like politians who have a very limited life in power, the day of reconing is coming for these energy companies, then lets see who they will be able to sell their antiquated electricity to!!!
100% agree with you on this. Both the government and providers need to be sacked, vote of no confidence. They are greedy manipulating bastards. It’s literally not worth having solar now. They want renewable energy but not willing to actually pay the ones with solar to help the cause.
Hi Vaughn,
Energy could be better managed in Australia but privatisation and bad market design by energy industry incumbents has got us here.
Despite that SA is kicking goals, leading the world in fact with renewable deployment, improved reliability and lower wholesale energy cost. Getting that value passed though will take some more political fortitude, such as started the transition 15+ years ago.
We have to remember this is the beginning, kicking the seats and complaining from the back of the car about “are we there yet” isn’t going to help much.
What really is helping is the Renewable Energy Target. It’s a pollution tax introduced by John Howard, Labor toughened it up into something useful, and ever since it’s been making solar at least 30% cheaper for you and I the end users.
The government isn’t paying for the glass on your roof, the 200 biggest polluters in Australia are.
We should be proud of that because it shows we punch above our weight and we can reap the benefits of showing the world how it’s done.
Not sure SA is kicking goals if it needs to curtails 75% of its big solar.. https://wattclarity.com.au/articles/2024/09/22sept-solarcurtailment/
It had 6 pumped hydro planned now has one..
Hi Dave,
SAPN are planning to double throughput on the energy network as gas disappears and we stop sending billions overseas every year buying 90% of our transport fuel.
“Excess solar” is a feature, not a bug.
And once the NSW interconnector is up and running that’ll help even more.
Afyer 100+ years of burning stuff for steam engines, we’re 15 years into the transition and it’s going well I’d say.
A feature not a bug. Too funny.
And then Anthony wants to change the subject.
Hi Ross,
We’re all here to help, so if you could explain what’s funny, then everyone is likely to learn something.
Cheers
I agree with you Greg, they tell us to get into solar give us a hand with a rebate to install well here in SA don’t no about any where else,But then the big energy companies slowly strip away any benefits that we may of had, we have all payed good hard earned money for our solar systems to try and make a difference to our life and as the government has been telling us to.But the energy companies see a way of making money out of us for nothing, like very low feed in tariff 3c, plus the up and coming maybe sun tax, the change to smart meter and the way we are now charged for that, the poor excuse that the energy companies us to strip away any benefits like not knowing that the amount of home roof top solar may over load the system at times because of the amount of homes that now have solar, get you head out of your ass energy companies this has been coming for decades we are not that dumb and as for the government state and federal that are missing in action once again grow some ball and look after us for once fix this money grab by big business.energy companies have known for 30 years or more that coal fired power generation was on the outer. As house/rooftop solar is getting bigger maybe it’s time that we somehow all unite to take on the big the energy and government over this ripoff.And once again why is the government so quite on this matter they should be standing up and fighting for us,
I am really curious as to the role electric cars will be able to play with regard to residential solar power in a home that doesn’t yet have battery storage but has solar panels. I believe certain makes of cars can act as a backup battery at night or on cloudy days. They can also be used to soak up excess solar rather than too much in the grid. I believe this was at trial stage. Although cost is an issue for me, I bought solar to reduce greenhouse gases.
Hi Julie,
Search out blogs for “bi-directional” and you’ll find some articles. It’s not really a goer just at the moment but it will be essential to the future grid.
Right now the best way to go about it is solar smart charging of your EV during the day.
Then come home and “siphon off some petrol” to run things overnight using V2L and a generator inlet like this one.
Tesla won’t do it without some aftermarket accessorisation, but many EVs will have 2, 3 or 4kW of on board “camping generator” for want of a better description. This V2L capacity is a real winner, especially in a grid outage.
I took my self-consumption from 40% to 75% just by smart-charging my Tesla. (Also took my 0-100km/h from 10 sec to 4.4 sec, but I digress). What I thought was going to be car-*anking turned out to be my biggest CO2 and financial cost reduction through the elimination of oil consumption. My solar produces for ~10c/kWh, so I make a loss if i export and a whopping profit on not buying petrol and self consuming at one-third the cost of grid, while minimising the former and maximising the latter.
Don’t sweat V2x, it’s small beer compared to just smart-charging your EV on solar.
For me the solution will be an EV with V2H and a bidirectional charger hooked up to my solaredge inverter to charge from solar and feed back to the house in the evening. LFP battery ( double the life cycles than NMC) to insure it lasts many years. The BYDs are actually compatible V2H without advertising it (tested in Germany against ISA standard), so that will probably be my choice at the end of the year, when the new chargers are supposed to hit the market.
I’m not sure I want my home power supply to be jolted around on the roads. Because that’s what will happen if you use your car’s battery to supply power to your house. The batteries have a short enough lifetime as it is.
I’m quite happy having my house battery on a concrete floor up against a brick wall.
And it’s not as though cars have a long enough range at this stage to warrant reducing the available charge.
Hi Ross,
I have two EVs that’re 14 & 15 years old and both have their original battery.
Not used them much then?
Hi Ross,
Kei cars aren’t inherently high mileage, they’re not designed for long distance touring. Rather you use them for trips around town.
Seeing as average Australian commutes are sub 20km, even a very modest EV is perfectly good transport for most people.
https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/cheapest-electric-car-australia-imiev/
https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/australia-cheapest-electric-car-2/
I just spoke with Energy Australia about their reduction in feed-in tariffs – they reached out to me because I am in the process of leaving them for a retailer with higher feed-in tariffs.
I was told that the drop was mandated by the government, all of the big retailers have or are about to drop their tariffs because they were forced to and the smaller retailers will eventually follow suit.
This does not sound right to me – I can imagine the government(s) dropping mandated minimum rates but telling retailers that they have to drop their tariffs seems unlikely to me.
Does anyone know the truth about this?
Hi Mike,
Sounds like spin to me.
In the past there have been mandated minimum FITs from some state authorities (like the Essential Services Commission in SA)
However they’ve always tried to maintain competition in the market, so higher FIT should attract some customers.
I’ve never heard of authorities mandating lower FITs.
The economic realities mean they are all likley to offer less going forward but that’ll incentivise storage.
https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/stealing-electricity/
https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/debunking-sun-tax-mb2941/
Relying on FiT for the economics of your solar is a dead strategy now.
I’d encourage EVERYBODY (including Bruce Mountain) to do the following:
1. Calculate the LCOE of your solar. It’s easy if you have it: Cost / (Annual production x 20-30 years x 0.8-0.9). If your FiT is less than this, which it probably is, you’re making a loss. Up your self consumption as far as you can and find the cheapest flat rate tariff while that’s still possible. (My solar is 9-10c/kWh, self utiliisation is ~70%, flat rate is 27.35c/kWh, FiT a mere 1.5c/kWh). If you get a higher FiT, it usually comes with a higher import tariff too & vice-versa. My lousy FiT is more than made up by savings on the lower import tariff.
2. Calculate the LCOS of your battery, or potential battery. Again, easy: Cost / (Warranted throughput x 1-1.5) – assuming it doesn’t blow up the day after warranty expires. Now your cost of solar energy from the battery will be about 1.1 x LCOE + LCOS or 1.1 x grid + LCOS if time-shifting. I can’t find a battery worth having much less than ~25c/kWh LCOS and can’t make my bill lower than what I get now on a flat tariff at that rate. When the ugly day arrives of being forced onto a ToU tariff, that will change …
Ask yourself whether a VPP or energy export covers your total cost before you give them any electrons. I’ll bet you’ll find they glibly peddle the line you’re making money if you sell for more than you buy at and are merrily skimming your sunk battery costs in preference to making their own investment in storage.
You can already smell the rat in the proposals to pay a slightly higher FiT after 3pm and a much higher import tariff after 2pm. Happy Hour for retailers, wot!
Cheers