Emergency solar management in Western Australia – what is it? And should you be worried? SolarQuotes Founder Finn Peacock explains.
Transcript begins —
There is so much solar in WA right now that the government is worried. They’re worried occasionally there’s going to be more solar being generated than can be used. Now, that’s a problem because the WA grid has to balance supply and demand every second. And if there’s more supply than demand for too long, the grid will shut down.
Emergency solar management is a way of remotely shutting off new solar systems to reduce the amount of solar going into the grid – and this is important in emergencies.
So, how’s it going to work?
Well, every solar system installed in WA after the 14th of February, 2022 needs to be capable of remote switch-off. It needs to be capable of remote switch-off with two methods.
The first method is a contact in your smart meter. That’s your utility meter. So, when the government hits the big red button to switch off the new solar systems, it opens a contact in your smart meter and it kills the power to your inverter. Your solar system switches off. There’s no solar being fed into the grid. They don’t have to worry about it.
The second solution is more elegant. It’s called an API solution – that stands for Application Programming Interface for the non-nerds among you. They send a command over the internet. Your inverter “hears” that command and it shuts down until they get the command to switch on again.
Now, that is not the best solution they could have done there; because if they’re talking to the inverter, what they could do is they could say: “don’t shut down altogether. Keep generating, just stop exporting,” because that’s the problem. But for some reason, the WA government wants to shut down your inverter with the API solution and not just stop exports. I don’t know why – we’ll have to ask them at some point.
Now, is this a problem? Should you be worried if you have a solar system or if you’re thinking of buying one? Well, if you already have a solar system and it was installed before the 14th of February, 2022, it doesn’t affect you. This is only for new solar installations after that date. If you’re thinking of buying solar, then you might be worried that this is going to kill the economics of your system because it’s going to get shut down all the time.
Well, I’ve got news for you.
Solar Power System Shutdowns A Last Resort
In South Australia, we’ve had almost exactly the same scheme for 18 months. It started in October, 2020 and the amount of times the government has used it has been once for about an hour. So, they hardly use it. As the name suggests, it’s only for use in emergencies. That shutdown may have cost a typical solar owner in South Australia 50 cents, maybe a dollar. So 50 cents to a dollar in 18 months; that’s not the kind of money that should stop you buying a solar system if you want to get one.
So, this is a short video to tell you that we’ve had this system in South Australia for 18 months. It’s been a complete nothing-burger; despite when it came out everyone panicking. I remember the headlines on the ABC: “The government wants to shut down your solar! Is it worth buying solar anymore?”
Take our experience in SA if you live in WA as an example. It’s a good problem to have. It means you’ve got loads of solar in WA. If very, very occasionally you have too much solar to handle, that means for the other 99.9% of the time, you’ve got heaps of solar in the WA grid. That does two things. It reduces the cost of your electricity because it’s the cheapest electricity that can be generated, and it reduces the emissions from your grid.
And if you don’t think that’s a good thing, then you probably shouldn’t be watching this video. That’s a really good thing; so it’s a good problem to have. It’s nothing to worry about. And we’ve had it in South Australia for 18 months and it’s been a nothing-burger. So, that’s emergency solar management in WA.
— Transcript ends
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I would not be surprised if WA uses the emergency solar shutdown a bit more than SA has so far because:
1. The lack of a Nullarbor interconnector to export surplus power (referred to above/in the video as the need to balance supply and demand in WA).
2. WA still has coal generation.
3. WA policy appears to be less solar friendly than SA.
But probably at no more than a few times the shutdown rate in SA, so presumably not enough to significantly effect the viability of solar.
The article contains content from people who have not experienced the open hostility of the WA state parliament, regardless of the party in government, to householders who dare to use clean energy rather than the state imposed fossil fuel burning generation of electricity.
The actions of this state government are designed to force the use of electricity generated by burning organic matter, due to the money paid to the major political parties by the fossil fuel companies.
It is that simple.
WA govts have had that mindset for a long time, Potatoes and Water come immediately to mind.