Charging Home Owners for Exporting Power

Having solar panels on the roof might become less profitable in future.

Households with solar panels that export power to the grid could be slugged a fee under a proposal by the Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC).

Modelling completed by the AEMC suggested introducing an export charge would slightly reduce the returns solar customers received.

A medium-sized unit would still see a $900 return per year — a reduction of about $70.

Large rooftop solar systems earning more than $1,200 a year could see their benefits drop by $100.

Smaller systems of 2kW to 4kW — which is most households with rooftop solar — could lose about $30 a year.

They would still earn about $645 per year from feed-in tariffs.

The same modelling also suggested that if the changes were adopted, all Australian households could save up to $25 on their bills each year.

SA Power Networks spokesman Paul Roberts supported the tariff system and said the organisation wanted to double the amount of solar panels in its network by 2025.

Localised congestion issues have forced market operators to intervene recently and switch off thousands of solar panels to ensure grid stability.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-...grid/100027514

Re: Charging Home Owners for Exporting Power

Interesting article about the problem of too much solar generation and how to solve it

https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/...grid/100035198

I thought this quote was quite interesting.

For her Churchill Fellowship in 2017, Dr Kuiper travelled to North America and Europe to study how countries there managed the transition away from having grids built around large centralised power stations.

She concluded that, despite lagging on climate in other ways, Australia was leading the world in innovation around rooftop solar.

"Yes, we can learn things from overseas, but Australia is really at the forefront," she said.

This is partly because rooftop solar is so popular here.

Australia has more solar panels and more watts of rooftop solar per person than any other country in the world.

Re: Charging Home Owners for Exporting Power

I thought having your own solar panels helped save money? Not that we here in Scotland have to think about that, given the amount of rain we get

Re: Charging Home Owners for Exporting Power

It is to save money that is for sure but there is a large upfront cost to install the panels so the savings is defrayed over several years. The cost of storage batteries is prohibitive with the pay back period about the same as their anticipated life.

The problem at the moment is that the huge take up of solar power has turned electricity generation on its head for several reasons.

Historically the greatest demand for power was during the day so generators were fully deployed then to cope with the morning and evening peaks. because of the cost of starting a generator electricity was made cheap at night to encourage people to use it to keep generators turning. (My hot water is heated with off peak electricity for example)

Solar has changed this to the point where there is too much generation during the day and the generators have to be shut down but as soon as the sun goes down then they are needed again. People are now being encouraged to point their panels at the morning and evening sun rather than the midday sun to spread the generation out a bit.

The other problem is voltage, the whole system is designed to transport power from a central location and distribute it to individual locations (ie your house) it was never designed to have hundreds and thousands of individual locations feeding into the system. In some localities with a lot of roof top solar the mains voltage is threatening to exceed the maximum design voltage of the household appliances (ie your fridge or TV)

Re: Charging Home Owners for Exporting Power

Over here in the UK we have two power output caps for micro-generation. One of 4kW to receive the maximum Feed-in-Tariff (government incentive) and 5kW output so as not to overload the National Grid.

Theoretically we could generate 5kW and export it all, but only receive the FiT payment up to a maximum of 4kW.

Many new installations now have battery storage to even out power loads and power export, so I think it may become compulsory if it starts to create a problem as more installations are completed.

As for Scotland, they have a lot of small water turbines in certain areas to utilise the extra rainfall.

Re: Charging Home Owners for Exporting Power

Perhaps in the case of Australia which has huge solar generating
capacity potential ,they should work towards a system whereby
it is possible to to switch off the generators during the day and
only switch them on at night time ??
This would mean that at time of maximum demand the power would
generated completely carbon free, whilst at night time only minimal
power would be generated using fossil fuels ??
This seems obvious to me ! but maybe some more technically
minded person could find some pitfalls??

Donkeyman! 👍🤗👍

Re: Charging Home Owners for Exporting Power

You do not "switch off" a generator. To get the boiler restarted, it takes up to 8 hours of firing using diesel oil at a rate of consumption that would make your eyes water. You cannot run entirely on coal until the generator is producing about a third of its rated output below that the fire is too unstable.

The turbines are massive blocks of steel, you cannot just bung tonnes of superheated steam into them, they have to be warmed through very slowly to prevent distortion, rubbing and cracking. For example the shaft is relatively very light and expands much quicker than the casing, so it gets too long for the casing if heating is not managed, likewise the top of the casing tends to heat quicker and expand faster than the bottom - this takes hours.


That is a very simplified version for you Assman but I hope it helps.

Re: Charging Home Owners for Exporting Power

Yes, l am aware of all that Brucy ?
But l said WORK TOWARDS a system ??
By that l meant to eventually replace the turbines with diesel
engines , as all large ships currently use ?
This would solve yuyour problem?
Another advantage of my idea would be that due to the lesser
demand for power at night time, less horse power would be required
to generate it, leading to even more carbon reduction ??
It is obvious that any new system can't be set up over night, but
a start has to be made, ?
My system would have the advantage of using much of the existing
infrastructure, and as has been mentioned on the forum you allready
have adequate solar capacity during the days ??
Why continue polluting your lovely enviroment just through what
appears to be a lack of imagination !!

Donkeyman! 👍🤗👍

Re: Charging Home Owners for Exporting Power

Here you go Assman, to save me wasting my time any more having to walk you through this - here is a real time mix of energy generation. I doubt there will be much solar because you will see it in the middle of the night


https://www.energymatters.com.au/ene...ty-statistics/

Re: Charging Home Owners for Exporting Power

One thing that your link makes clear Brucy is that Australia doesn't
have a hope in hell of ever getting rid of fossil fuels !!
The amount of coal fired generation you still employ is disgusting !!
Both brown and black coal predominates in your graphs and it
is quite clear that solar hasn't a chance of usurping coal while
present. policies are followed ??
I wish you luck !!

Donkeyman! 👍🤗🤗👍