Since the early days of rooftop solar, many Australian academics & commentators have warned of a grid death spiral.
Here’s how it was meant to play out:
More homes get solar. Then batteries. They disconnect from the grid. That leaves fewer people paying to maintain it. Prices go up. More people bail. Eventually the last poor sod stuck on-grid gets a bill for thirty grand a quarter just to keep the lights on.
Never happened.
Won’t happen.
Here’s What’s Happening Instead
People are buying massive batteries (typically 20-40kWh) now there’s a rebate, but staying grid-connected. The grid makes their stored solar more valuable – if sold during peak prices via Amber or a good Virtual Power Plant (VPP).
But it’s not all about money – a surprising number of Aussies (43%) value energy security more and want to keep the grid as backup – the best backup they’ll ever get. For a bit over a dollar a day, they get effectively infinite backup capacity, with 99.98%1 uptime, no hardware to maintain, no diesel to pump. Off-grid can’t touch that.
Retaining a grid connection means you can export your stored solar for a tidy profit, although for most Australians the real value is the energy security it offers.
Batteries Don’t Mean Rejecting The Grid
You want resilience? Keep the grid connection.
I’ve been saying this for years. Hopefully with battery quotes going through the roof, the death spiral story can finally die.
Now, about last week’s column , “Make Solar Panels Great Again”. I made the case for taking control of your own bill. Some readers thought I was taking a swing at the grid. Not so. I like the grid. It’s the greatest shared infrastructure Australia has ever built. Buying solar and batteries doesn’t mean rejecting the grid. You can believe in autonomy and believe in the good of the network.
When you add big solar, you reduce the need for midday grid imports. That helps your neighbours. When you oversize your system, you generate more on overcast days, and more early morning and late afternoon – when the grid needs it most.
When you add a battery to the grid, you shave evening peak demand.
When you join a VPP, you help shut down coal faster.
With solar, battery and grid you get lower hardware costs, lower bills, blackout protection, and better returns. The grid gets stronger. Everyone wins.
The Death Spiral Myth Is In A Death Spiral
So let’s bury the death spiral myth. The grid isn’t doomed, it’s more important than ever.
With a well-sized solar and battery system, you’ll have your cake, and help feed the community too.
Phase Shift is a weekly opinion column by SolarQuotes founder Finn Peacock. Subscribe to SolarQuotes’ free newsletter to get it emailed to your inbox each week along with our other home electrification coverage.
Footnotes
- The AEMC Reliability Standard for the National Electricity Market (NEM) is < 0.0006% unserved energy per year. That means 99.9994% supply reliability across the grid. For end-users, actual uptime is typically lower due to distribution faults, but still bloody good: often better than 99.98% in metro areas. ↩
About Finn Peacock
RSS - Posts
Finn says for a $1 a day you get cheap backup from the grid. Some retailers charge over $2 a day from the supply charge. Add that to the Amber subscription and it’s over $1000 PA.
Not too long ago that was my entire energy bill prior to solar.
On top of that factor in the constant battery cycles associated with selling your own produced energy. How long does that take off the life of your battery?
Still not sure about the grid? Need more convincing.
Amber don’t charge a big retailer daily fee. It’s their $20 per month plus a pass through of the distributor charges. For me the total of them is $2 per day.
Amber fee for the 30 days of June was $19.73
Consumption was 560.62 kWh from the grid at 0.1524 $/kWh $85.45
Demand Charge was $17.32 *
Network daily supply charge of 0.9263 $/Day $27.79
So +GST $15.31 that’s a cost of $165.60 for the month
I’d exported to the grid 168.5 kWh from my 15kWh 3.3kW battery at 1.1504 $/kWh (on average)
So that’s a profit of $193.84
So a resonable and average profit for a winter’s month when I can only export from the battery at 3.3kW
The battery had cycled once per day just like it would if it was in self consumption mode and getting payed only 4c per kWh and paying who knows per kWh for consumption on a ToU + Feed-in plan.
* (Demand charge is where Ausgrid measure the highest 30min usage window between 3pm and 9pm for the month and then multiply that by a demand tariff and the number of days in the month. Basterds)
It’s not difficult to find a cap city retailer charging less than $1 a day supply charge.
It is difficult in the bush.
Indeed; $1.7937 here in the Clarence Valley with Essential Energy is the cheapest rate, with $1.9497 per day the most expensive.
Hi Jason,
Have a ring around and see what the cost is for a mobile mechanic to do an annual diesel generator service… it makes the grid look cheap.
Mark, the DSC here in SA is $1.10 for me with AGL now.
I’ve seen many with DSC of $1.80 a day or more, and for them it’s a touch under $900pa with the Amber sub added.
Ef, apples for apples, those that charge low DSC in general charge more for power tariffs, and vice versa.
It’s a good way to cloudy the waters for people comparing.
Mind you, the $1.10 a day here for the DSC also has SA rates for peak (13 hours a day !!) tariff of nearly 54c as well, and those times are for power use between 0600 and 1000, and then 1500 to midnight, so not much escaping those !
I might be oversimplifying things in my mind but it seems the role of the grid simply changes. Instead of a distribution network for centralised generation sources it becomes a decentralised “peer-to-peer” network for energy sharing. How to effectively and fairly share and maintain that resource is the primary thing that really needs additional thinking and transformation.
Eventually the problem will be solved by nationalising the grid and taxpayer paying for that, whether you need it or not. Will be worse than Medicare, which supports medical industry that makes sure they perpetuate the problem to which they are a solution and do procedures the way to maximise their profits.
Well that is not going to happen while private companies are making millions from the grid. You’re probably too young to remember but all the grids used to be state owned and they were sold off to balance budgets (the NSW grid for example consistently made profits for the State until it was sold off). If you want to understand why electricity is as expensive as it is you have to understand how grid operators are actually rewarded for excessive investment in infrastructure.
I agree, the whole grid concept needs to be rethought and appropriately managed through the transition to the new norm.
While staying on grid does serve a cheap backup plan at present, we know the electricity costs continue to go up, even though we bought solar and reduced the amount of electricity bought.
SAPN charge both a supply charge (which costs us via the retailer at typically $1.20 per day, and another amount as a part of our kWh usage/demand charges.
Clearly if we enlarge our PV and produce our own electricity and store it in large batteries we will reduce (or hopefully eliminate) the need to buy electricity, which will 1/2 the amount of money that SAPN receive for supplying their service, so ultimately the supply charge will have to double to keep them smiling.
We should plan now for the ability to cut the cord when that happens,…unless we want to keep the grid insurance for $900 per year
Jeez Tim, where are you in SA, and is that for domestic, not commercial ?
I’m concerned seeing demand tariff brought in for residential, it’s primary introduction was to encourage commercial use in non peak times, not gouge households (working families).
I know, if you plan right and spend to have enough PV and battery, you won’t HAVE to use any peak, but as we see, the electricity industry sees more and more ways to make solar alone impossible (in SA particularly) . . .
Increasing daily supply charges, introducing demand tariffs, solar soak penalty, and all these can be raised gradually eroding benefits of solar / battery over time.
People should know even staying on a grid PV / battery setup, the norm for suburban home self sufficiency, you should go big, as big as your roof and budget will allow.
It’s even more important with going off grid, but then you also have to really look at the whole home energy picture more, especially making the home more non power reliant, appliances etc.
Absolutely agree with all of this Finn, and am constantly taken by how many active supporters of solar seem to be in it purely as a survivalist ethic thing, off-gridders with axes to grind.
Are you uneasy at all about the degree of privatisation of the renewables grid we’re building? Both at grid and domestic level, a huge percentage of what’s being done is in private hands. Might that be a longer-term concern for stability, not just in a technical but also energy governance sense? A huge proportion of Australia’s future energy needs will be at the whim of millions of homeowners, and private companies.
Nick,
A good survivalist off-gridder needs to keep his axe ground – to split firewood.
(A block splitter is better, though.)
And a good non-denialist works to increase climate resilience, whether on-grid or off. European countries *now* mandate a minimum of 3 days of household food & water reserves for disaster resilience. That will grow, as they heat at double the global rate.
The incipient democratisation of energy is a threat to both corporate profits
and socialist control. Deplorable as that must seem, it also appears unavoidable, as technology frees us from death by coal addiction.
Communists decry independence of any kind, perhaps, but let us not allow dogma to interfere with ramping up our climate resilience as the need becomes ever more evident.
In times of transformational change, it is the adaptors who thrive.
Nothing is 100% resilient Erik. You can see on TV what happened to solar panels in Gaza. Also do not forget that Australia outsources the pollution and CO2 emissions to industrial countries. Cold climate countries do not even have sun of wind during winter.
You can make Australia 100% renewable and it won’t change much globally until a better virus kills most of the planet’s population or we finally succeed starting the WWIII. That may fry your beautiful Solar system and your vehicle, so learn from Palestinians how to survive without all that; start with acquiring a donkey 😉
ah, acquire a donkey? – we elect those dont we?
The elected ones won’t be pulling your cart when every computer in your car gets fried, you need the one who is a real Labour donkey. The https://media.defense.gov/2018/Nov/28/2002067172/-1/-1/0/LP_0002_Demaio_Electromagnetic_Defense_TASK_Force.PDF gives some perspective. It also explains why nuclear powerplants are not such a bright idea.
Gate, clobbering the whole world as hard as Gaza is beyond any military. It’d take widespread vulcanism & earthquakes to do in lotsa aussie panels, and we’re on a great solid tectonic plate. And we have just signed up to buy nuclear sub tech from UK, so there’ll be no money for land bases to bomb. We’re irrelevant now.
My concern had been endless overcast reducing solar yield, as +2 °C = +14% atmospheric water content, but it’ll take more than that, as we have so much desert to glaze over. Tornadoes can rip panels up, but only in narrow strips. Rebuild is rapid & cheap.
Get off low land, become energy & fuel independent with solar, battery, and BEV, heat tolerant with aircon, and insulate well. Preparation is to reduce the impact of known threat – it is not a recipe for immortality. I see no point in your reference to 100% resilience – life is the art of the possible, and life is not permanent.
Farmers ate a lot of rabbits in the depression – but better than donkey?
Stay positive.
Community-owned and controlled batteries are emerging and will continue to grow in popularity. Big energy corporations hate this concept, but the appeal to householders is enormous. In the short term the community profits from arbitrage, selling energy back to the grid at peak demand times. And in the long term, there’s the security of knowing your energy is not reliant on a foreign-owned, unreliable, aging grid. Local poles and low-voltage wiring can be managed by a local cooperative, no transformers required. Notice how often I used the term ‘community’? Notice also how community sounds like the ‘communism’ we’ve all been programmed to fear since the Cold War.
AGL just purchased Teslas VPP network in SA, supposedly to be used in a community battery sort of way.
Not sure how Tesla powerwall owners feel about that, what control might AGL now have if people on the Tesla deal are somehow locked in, I can’t recall if there were terms that had to be met.
Might be a good article for SolarQuotes.
Nice try Finn 🙂
I understand that your job is to prevent or at least delay that death spiral, and of course the situation is a mixed bag rather than what academics are saying. Having said so, you can’t stop the technological progress. The panels and batteries are becoming cheaper. While those in power made it nearly impossible to buy from a warehouse so that you pay over 100% spread on top, still it makes more sense to subsidise China and parasites than builders of transmission lines that are required for insanely distributed generation. The grid may be reliable until it runs out of money. Generators and wood burners are as reliable (no way to buy coal in this country, LOL). You pay for grid connection every day. With a large system you need generator once in a blue moon.
This country needs a heavy industry to make the grid financially viable. That industry needs a reliable energy supply, plenty of water and relaxed environmental laws. That is not going to happen in near future.
Unless you re-imagine the grid and the energy paradigm. What about if we let the DNSPs (Grid Operators) install their own slow AC EV chargers on poles all around their network ?? (Lets cap them at 7KW). They are allowed to make an uplift of say 20% on whatever the wholesale FIT is for the area.
Multiple problems solved –
alternative revenue stream for DNSPs to offset decline in avg customer throughput
On Street charging available for everyone who does not have their own charging
Set them up in carparks in commuter areas where they can round robin during the day to charge all the parked cars and use the locally produced power.
Allow DNSPs to distribute batteries in areas with proven grid congestion – they charge during the day at FIT + 25% and sell that back into the evening peak at the same rate + 25%
Lots of ways to skin the cat and solve many problems along the way
Craig
Try over $2 a day supply charge in regional areas along with rates that would that metro consumers don’t believe.
The problem I see, is that the residential customer has been subsidising big industry for so long, paying 10 times the rate for power that big industry does, they are burnt and many would go of grid if they could. But they really can’t.
Off grid reliability for a solar and battery system adds a multiplying factor of 4 (or more) to the cost of residential solar and battery setups by the time you size it correctly, add a back up generator and robust inverter.
One day it might be feasible to go off grid in suburbia, but it isn’t currently.
But if they dont want an exodus from the grid when it does become feasible to do so, they should actually try treating us a little bit better now, instead of using us as cash cows.
It all depends how much tight your money will become overtime. With 10kW system (I mean properly oriented and tilted panels rather than what school dropouts would install and report ‘installed’ capacity) and 25kWh battery, I can now comfortably live with grid fuses removed. It is an old house with no thermal mass or proper insulation. On occasion I have to supplement by burning wood (no privilege to buy coal in the coal-exporting country), but that is because my comfort baseline is from elsewhere. My neighbours are comfortable sleeping at 14-16C.
Eventually I might just rebuild that house made of sticks and put more panels on the roof and even walls. Chinese offered concrete sandwich panels already double-glazed shipped from their factory at a fraction of AU price. Just sinking extra electricity into inderfloor heating will not require an extra battery to live a comfortable off-grid life.
Surely eventually the Crown will tax assets like that as it taxed windows in Britain 🙂
Agree that very few battery owners should/will cut off from the grid to save the daily charge. But there will still be more and more people not buying power from the grid and therefore not paying DNSP charges for kWh usage. And so the ones left buying will be the ones paying all the DNSP charges within their kWh charges. I suspect the end game will be higher daily charges or charges applied to FIT so the cost of the grid is shared by all users
You are thinking today technology Mark. In less than 10 years the market will be flooded with Sodium-ion batteries or something better and the panels will become more efficient. Buying directly from a warehouse was already a no-brainer these days.
Othersise, why are you writing your messages from your personal phone or PC instead of a terminal connected to a mainframe which represents a centralised community processing power?
Yes that 99.8 % security IS a big deal for around a $ a day PROVIDING it doesn’t go to 4 or 5 $ a day !!
99.98% uptime sounds good, but a blackout for one hour every three weeks doesn’t sound like a success story to me.
Sorry 30 weeks.
If as you say more people sign up for a VPP ( Amber specifically ), they pay market rate and it can be quite lucrative (so we are lead to believe). If everyone is signed up to Amber, there won’t be so many times when it is lucrative as they are all using their own electricity and the grid won’t be stressed.
On a slight tangent, as I understand it, The ATO don’t regard FIT as income and so is not taxable (for residential users). This also means you can’t offset solar/battery purchase/running costs. This makes sense for now and maybe you should mention this in your wise words. On the other hand, those that rely on Centrelink ( Aged Pension for one, but many others) MUST declare any funds that are credited to bank accounts ( not credited to their bill) as income and may reduce or disqualify them from any benefit. Also worth mentioning – even though you can’t give financial advice.
It is cities and their heavy industry which need a national grid. Just as Melbourne sucks water from the Thompson dam, half a state away, reducing water for city-feeding farming, It needs wind & solar from dispersed locations to survive. Urban households will stay on-grid, lacking a reliable alternative.
Smaller towns can do well with mini-gridded solar, wind, massive batteries, & ToU charging. They will increasingly need to, as HV pylon flattening winds increase above +2°C. A grid connection reduces the initial size of gridscale battery, filling need while battery prices fall. Undergrounding tens of thousands of km of grid may otherwise be essential in 4 or 5 decades.
The grid is good for now. It’ll last as long as it serves needs – and adequately pays for nightly feed-in. It may fragment and shrink city-ward as the longer lines cease to pay. Re-nationalising it would be in the national interest – so very hard to achieve.
We adapt reluctantly, I think. Belatedly.
The grid is one of the most essential services and won’t be allowed to collapse. Solar panels, and to a lesser extent batteries, make it cheaper for those in the right physical and financial situation (I haven’t paid a power bill in over 10 years with a 6kw pv system, an excellent return for me!). Expensive gas and pumped hydro will be increasing needed as back up as coal power stations are retired. The extra cost will mainly affect renters, unit owners and, very importantly, industry. The arguments of government subsidies, hydrogen economy and grid scale, or household, batteries are just spitting into the wind. I wish it wasn’t so but look at Germany for an example.
Bob, it’s different now with solar, with no more generous grandfathered FITs.
And states / regions vary SO much with benefit of solar now, FITs vs usage rates . . . some are fine with decent PV (larger to cater for modern FIT usage tariff rates), but others like here in SA it’s abysmal. (Caveat, unless you can consume almost ALL of your production through the day.)
We now have peak TOU tariff or 53c, vs FIT of 2c, some 26 times disparity !!
And peak hours are 12 hours of the day !!
0600 – 1000 and again in the critical 1500-midnight.
You either need a decent sized PV and self consume a lot, or a battery as well to charge from solar or shoulder / special rate times of day, and use in the peak hours.
Yep a daily service charge is cheap backup and a no cost backup if you export enough FiT electricity ( that would be normally curtailed if ‘offgrid’ ) to pay the service charge.
Eventually the electricity service charge will be mandatory regardless whether you are connected to grid or not if present. Just like water and sewage daily charges apply, even if you have a vacant lot.
We would need to export 482 kWh/day to cover the daily supply charge. That’s more than four times the energy we could possibly export per day with the export power limit.
FITs are all but non-existent in many areas.
Alex, is that for DSC and usage ?
Even if DSC was $2 and FIT 2c, that’s 100x.
Here in SA the disparity between peak tariff 54c and new FIT from July 1 of 2c (down 50%), I need to put 27kwh into the grid to cover that, and of course my usage if I was want to be as close to bill neutrality as possible.
Using about 15-18kwh a day avg winter now, I can’t manage that with the 27 times disparity.
In summer I was doing fine last season 24/25, not sure I will manage no bill this summer 25/26, but by next spring I will get 20kwh of battery setup, and that should cover us until the rules are changed far enough in the future to again eat up the advantages of self investing in PV and battery.
Sorry Alex, the DSC here in $1.10, and I need to put in 55kwh to cover that, was thinking too far out with the tariff / fit disparity.
In summer I can only put around 70kwh tops on those perfect days, so without a battery I won’t keep up now.
I give AGL that 85% of my production for 2c and see them sell for up to 54c, so the battery is priority saving right now ready for next spring / winter.
LYLE YOU ARE CORRECT
The people who work for Origin Energy are telling us to stay connected.
Rest 100% assured..these companies are not going to sit back and allow taxpayer subsidies put them out of business.
The supply charge will continue to increase and yes, will be payable even if you’re not connected..it’s just a matter of time.
Hello I’ve,
To my knowledge there’s no proposal to have a daily charge for the electricity infrastructure that passes your house.
Mind you there is for road, mains water & sewerage because these are all a universal public good which maintains public health & productivity.
Ive never known anyone willing to surrender their Medicare card, yet they decry the system which keeps the lights on at the hospital and keeps their food cold in the fridge.
I’m always curious to know how these people seem unable to figure it out.
I guess someone has to vote for those who lie to us about the “benefits” of privatisation.
Personally I’m happy to pay for electricity if it means I don’t have to listen to my neighbour’s generator wailing all night to run their heating.
Yes customers can cancel their electricity account entirely and their contract immediately expires. The key rule though that many electrical contractors are not fully aware of is that cancellation requires a full disconnection and removal of service lines from the overhead power cables to the premises, or for underground services, a disconnection at the service pillar (removal of underground cabling is not required). Both these services come a a cost and generally require an ASP rather than an electrician.
After that the account for that premises is fully closed. Billing ceases.
Lawrence Coomber
A generator is not so bad compared with the daily supply fee in our region which is approaching $3. $1/day supply is fantasy land here.
We have literally just half an hour ago had the grid supply go down and our new grid-tied battery system has done its job and kicked in to keep us powered. Grim day here, bugger all solar PV and it does mean our (ducted RCAC) heating system is down as that is not backed up.
I’m not surprised by the outage, we average 15 longer outages per year.
Alex, I’m not sure what you’re running your generator on, but in the decades we only had a little Honda generator powering no more than a few lights and TV, and only from sunset til 10 p.m., it chewed through $4 to $8 per night, depending on season. And we have a small stack of the motors – only the alternator is original. Thus $3 grid connection fee plus a few kWh for lights & TV would be about the same daily, but no generator replacement costs.
More than one outage per month ought to be compensated monetarily. Future storms may worsen that. More rural off-gridders = smaller more cheaply maintained grid, better for all.
If double glazed & highly insulated, & the RCAC not ducted (too lossy), then a big battery can suffice for half a house, perhaps? (My small RCAC is using only 800W for lounge & kitchen tonight. Projected independence: 1d 17h, but that assumes the sun doesn’t rise tomorrow.)
No wood heater? Ligneous solar energy storage lumps re-emit warming sunlight. (And hygge)
Staying connected to the grid at $2+ a day makes a battery very poor value. Disconnecting and buying more solar and a bigger battery may be just as bad.
I am on solar (8kwh of panels) and over this financial year I project to be paying about $1200 to my electricity provider and of that $800 is the rip off connection charge. (The solar paid for itself in about 1 year)
I feed in about 20kwh a day (15cents p/kwh) and buy about 14kwh from the grid, we have a pool so daily usage of solar is also high. So I need a battery that will allow me to eliminate that 14kwh. Is that 16kwh or 20kwh. If so my entire feed in will now be charging the battery.
Thus the Max I can save with a battery is $400 as that is the power I currently buy and I will have no feed in credits and I am still up for the daily charge. I will need new batteries long before I have paid off those I may buy now.
This can’t be right, or is it? Someone please explain to me where my calculations are wrong
If you are feeding in 20kwh a day, you could easily support a 20kwh battery. You want a bigger battery to cycle deeply daily, you will probably need some more panels on the roof.
But a bigger battery will easily store more juice for those overcast or rainy days, and you dont necessarily need more panels for that, the battery just wont deeply discharge daily.
Mine rarely gets below 50% when bookended by sunny days in winter, i dont put anything into the grid though. But i am good for at least two overcast or rainy days in winter when needed.
Finn this strong Grid you are praising:
Is that the one supporting the suburban solar and battery users, like the ones commenting in this blog.
Or – is that the other grid?
Like the one supporting Australian Commercial and Industrial users, and those businesses and manufacturers that employ the suburban solar and battery users.
And if so; can you steer some praise towards that grid, and also offer your observations on how well that grid is is doing, in encouraging and facilitating, new age energy intensive technologies industries, and businesses, to start up and flourish.
Lawrence Coomber
I am mystified by this idea of withering DNSP usage or income. Off-gridders will be few. Meanwhile home electrification and EVs means more kWh moved around, the DNSPs wetting the beak with each. Add population growth and urban infill where existing infrastructure can already do the work. People with batteries will make things easier for the DNSP, holding back some of that pesky daytime oversupply and shaving the evening peak.
One has to suspect that they are bleating for a better profit margin while at the same time trying to grow their business into mid-scale batteries and EV pole charging.
Erik Christiansen’s comments:
Underscore an important normalised conundrum that people have become far too comfortable with.
Understandably many ordinary folk have probably pulled up stumps on giving much, if any, serious thought about the important subject: “New Era clean energy fuels, power sources, and generation technologies”: because they have been incessantly led to believe, and now accept, that what they currently see increasingly around them, represents the “apex of the global scientific and technological research and development” in this area of scientific endeavour.
And even worse: that everyone should now roll over and accept the current situation as an ad-infinitum truth; locked in till the end of humankind!
Well get over that thinking – it is wrong – and shake yourself out of this nonsense.
Global research has only just started on this exciting new scientific pathway, and by definition, the start is never equal to the finish.
Lawrence Coomber
Finn Peacock states: “The grid isn’t doomed, it’s more important than ever.”
Indeed, the grid provides critical energy supplies that contribute to our economy.
No energy = no economy…
Meanwhile, humanity’s current energy use is putting us on the road to ‘climate ruin’. See my presentation slides outlining our current situation at:
https://www.lithgowenvironment.au/docs/road-to-climate-ruin-geoff-miell-4jun25.pdf
In the last of my presentation slides (#12) I put the following question that that I think should be seriously pondered by all Australians: Where will Australia’s affordable, reliable, sufficient-for-our-needs energy come from in the coming years/decades?
Diesel fuel is the lifeblood of the global economy. It seems to me Australia’s diesel fuel supplies are looking increasingly more precarious.
https://crudeoilpeak.info/australian-diesel-import-dependency-on-middle-east-oil-update-april-2025
Geoff, electric tractors with swappable battery packs for a full day of farming are still thin on the ground and expensive. They’ll depend on a “fat-pipe” grid connection to any substantial farm. So, yes, diesel will be needed in agriculture for some years yet.
But there are now 1.4 MWh battery trucks carrying goods from Germany to Sweden, and returning without stopping to recharge. Diesel transport is obsolete and too high in running costs to remain viable. Within a decade, it will vanish – just not soon enough to avoid a great deal of painful climate disruption.
Change seems glacial below the S-curve inflection point, too little too late, but in just 10 years, the changes will astound. OK, no hydrogen-fuelled transport – that’s being abandoned by most players, ditching billions in investment, but BEV trucks will suffice.
The $2.3B buys $7.7B batteries, dwarfing the Snowy, firming the grid, & bypassing gridscale batteries, too slow to the party. It steals the corporates’ lunch.
Are referring to “new era” – alternative clean liquid fuels technologies Erik?
Lawrence Coomber
In contrast to some pilot methanol efforts, intended for shipping when scaled up, I haven’t heard of a lot actually happening with vegetable oils yet – at least not beyond a 20% blend in jet fuel on a couple of flights so far. Do you see much more than that? I think Mærsk has one trial methanol fuelled ship.
Vegetable oils for trucks would buy us time, or rather, reduced climate disasters during the transition. It could be locally sourced, I figure. On-farm crush/refine would be ideal – a prime tech business opportunity. Or one district farm could specialise, for secure supply.
After the imminent population peak, some land could be diverted from food to fuel, but Denmark is already embarking on diverting around 15% of farmland, 140k Ha of previously drained marshes back to wetlands, & 250k Ha back to forest, complete with reintroduced wolves. No need for diesel there. Seven new battery-electric trains going into rural Jutland service now, obsolete diesel decommissioned. History.
Erik Christiansen stated: “Vegetable oils for trucks would buy us time, or rather, reduced climate disasters during the transition.”
I think you don’t understand the magnitude of the challenge. Per the Australian Petroleum Statistics data, for sales of petroleum products (megalitres):
Year _ _ _ Automotive gasoline _ _ Diesel oil _ _ Aviation turbine
2025 (to end-Apr) _ 5,196.8 _ _ _ _ 10,555.4 _ _ _ 3,234.5
2024 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 16,245.5 _ _ _ _ 33,418.4 _ _ _ 9,353.6
2023 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 16,072.9 _ _ _ _ 32,574.1 _ _ _ 8,445.8
https://www.energy.gov.au/energy-data/australian-petroleum-statistics
Where would these sufficient, affordable vegetable oils come from to “buy us time”?
Meanwhile, the Earth System has already warmed +1.5 °C relative to the 1850-1900 baseline. The current 1.5 °C climate is not a point of system stability.
https://www.climatecodered.org/2025/07/the-15-degrees-climate-advocacy.html
Geoff Miell: “Earth System has already warmed +1.5 °C”
Yup, June was only the 3rd month in the last 24, under +1.5 °C.
https://climate.copernicus.eu/climate-bulletins
Copernicus might say the last two graph points at https://climate.copernicus.eu/ entitle them to not recognise it until May 2029, but the current trend still has us over +2 °C by 2045, even if the post-1997 acceleration is not repeated, due to feedbacks.
Crash adaptation is called for, but we are so slow, so reluctant. Inaction is taking us above +3°C at least. Talk of atmospheric CO₂ extraction is delusion. By then, CH₄ extraction would also be needed. Whackamole in an alligator swamp fails when feedbacks breed ’em faster than we can whack.
Mountains of cheap batteries are becoming available barely in time – now let that drop BEV prices faster. China’s 12M EV sales in 2025 will dent fossil fuel burning, >>60M in 5 yrs. The west is delinquent, missing out on the cost & security benefits.
$2.3bn buys 3.42GWh of home storage, including the private capital mobilised. Snowy 2.0 will be one hundred times that.
Snowy hydro as it is has about 4GW max output. Home batteries, should they mostly all export into an evening spike will maybe nudge over 1GW.
It’s not nothing, but won’t eat the gentailers’ lunch. But it it will take a bite out of their very expensive evening supper.
OB, please read:
https://reneweconomy.com.au/household-battery-rebate-smashes-forecasts-could-deliver-twice-the-energy-of-snowy-hydro-by-2030/ which asserts:
“If that rate continues until 2030, and these batteries are cycled once a day, that would deliver almost twice the energy that is currently provided by the federal government’s existing Snowy Hydro power system on average across the year.”
Their surveys show batteries going in at $850/kWh, so $7.7B = 9 GWh battery = 2 x Snowy.
The $1.2B about to be added to the rebate pool makes it: $4.5B/0.3 = $11.7B = 13.7 GWH, which is 3 times Snowy.
I don’t know why you spuriously rope in Snowy 2.0. I made no comparison with that. Yes, its 350GWh/13.7 = batteries x 25, for a little while, once built. 😉
But its puny 2.2 GW output makes it useless on a 45 – 50°C day. Only batteries can meet that demand.
Batteries also eliminate feeders to remote hydro sites, for lower cost and greater climate resilience. They’re optimal for now.
Erik Christiansen stated: “So, yes, diesel will be needed in agriculture for some years yet.”
But will global diesel fuel supplies continue to remain affordable and sufficient in the coming years/decades? It seems global ‘peak diesel / gasoil’ supply may have already occurred. It’s only in hindsight will we know for sure.
https://crashoil.blogspot.com/2024/01/el-pico-del-diesel-edicion-de-2023.html
9 Jan 2025, Antonio Turiel wrote:
https://crashoil.blogspot.com/2025/01/the-oil-crash-ano-19.html
The furious global rearmament effort can only creep, then surge, into more horribly destructive conflicts in a few years. Oil shipping will likely cease, as USA is now self sufficient, and has abandoned Pax Americana. Even a raggedy bunch of Houthis now sink ships at will. Then add Iran, blocked Hormuz.
*Secure* transport energy, next decade, will be local (vegetable) oil or batteries. Our national fuel reserves are still derisory? Clockwork doesn’t cut it, and bullock wagons are slow. Bananas may be $5 each in Victoria.
By war’s end, +5 years or so usually, we may have few ICE cars & trucks to import fuel for. Two railcars of batteries make a diesel-electric locomotive pure battery with just 2 wires, inverters in the loco. The transition will have been accelerated by half a decade or more.
The steep part of a disruption S-curve is dizzying. We face several concurrently, each massive. Combined, they will change our tech, our way of life, and our population future. Buckle up. 😉
Erik Christiansen stated: “Oil shipping will likely cease, as USA is now self sufficient, and has abandoned Pax Americana.”
Clearly, you have no idea.
Shutdown crude oil flows and watch the global economy quickly crash.
The US is NOT crude oil self-sufficient. The US is a net importer of crude oil. The US is a net exporter of refined products. Furthermore, most of the US crude oil produced is tight (shale) oil, which is not suitable for refining into diesel fuels.
https://www.artberman.com/blog/energy-aware-3-u-s-energy-independence-and-other-dumb-memes/
Erik Christiansen stated: “By war’s end, +5 years or so usually, we may have few ICE cars & trucks to import fuel for.”
It would likely take well over a decade…
As of January 2023, there were over 21.1 million registered motor vehicles in Australia. In 2023, a record-breaking 1,216,780 new vehicles were sold in Australia.
I recommend the concept of ‘superpower’ as a counter to that idea.
https://www.rethinkx.com/energy/in-depth/super-power
Geoff Miell: “Shutdown crude oil flows and watch the global economy quickly crash.”
Your other intemperate words suggest the prospect shocks. In the wartime context of the thread, closure of Hormuz & many shipping lanes is not unlikely, and a global economic crash is then just part of the problem.
In WW2, crash building of Liberty ships saved GB from starvation. Lacking fossil fuel locally, 10 years of BEV transition can readily occur in 5, so long as China still supplies. Lacking shipping for exports anyway, oilseed-based wartime diesel would be mobilised fast enough to please even Lawrence. (Else not just rows of Queensland police cars would stand rotting for 4 years.)
Bulk BEV adoption now would be a great national fuel security move. CIS pushes batteries & solar well, so no energy shortage expected. Otherwise replace city roads with bikelanes for 5 years? A lot of weapons are being bought on the basis that it won’t be avoided, so spend a $ on civil amelioration? It can’t hurt.
Erik Christiansen: – “Your other intemperate words suggest the prospect shocks.”
It’s not shocking to me. I think it’s now inevitable that global petroleum fuel supplies will likely decline well BEFORE alternate solutions can be deployed at large-scale in time.
Erik Christiansen: – “In the wartime context of the thread, closure of Hormuz & many shipping lanes is not unlikely, and a global economic crash is then just part of the problem.”
Indeed – Australia’s diesel fuel import dependency is looking highly precarious:
https://crudeoilpeak.info/australian-diesel-import-dependency-on-middle-east-oil-update-april-2025
Australia’s in-country consumption cover for diesel fuel is averaging at 27 days for year-2025 (to May) – see slide #14:
https://www.energy.gov.au/energy-data/australian-petroleum-statistics
Disrupt Australia’s diesel fuel flows and Australia stops functioning in about a month. ‘Oil-seed’ can’t be deployed that quick!
Geoff..! Eric…!
Stop it please.
You’re both incredibly well reasoned and valuable contributors here compared to the fossil powered trolls we have to moderate.
Now play nicely or I’ll force you to write guest blog posts 😉
Yesterday in Perth my 10kW system produced a paltry 11kWh fro the whole day. We consumed over three times that. I’m still waiting on a 16kWh battery but even if I tripled the size of it I would have put roughly 0 kWh into storage yesterday.
We’d be freezing and starving if it weren’t for the grid bringing us some power from the wind farms.
Dead right, imagine how big a PV and battery you’d need for off grid, or have to use the genny a lot through winter.
Try Adelaide in past wintry days though, our 11.23kw system will produce 80kwh a day in summer’s nice days, send 70kwh to the grid, but lately when it’s dark grey clouds and raining almost all day, had the worst production since late 2023, a paltry 3.2kwh, sending 20% of that to AGL.
Sunny / part cloudy winter we are making 30kwh and sending 75% to the grid.
So yeah solar is carp in winters worst days.
With the battery you get onto the best plan / rates for charging from the grid in winter, so you can have enough to carry you through the peak tariff.
I note some Amber users switch to a retailer for winter, reap wholesale FIT benefits for the summer and shoulder months, then retreat to safety of retail for the colder season . . . more relative in the southern latitudes.
Les.
25kW PV | Automated Load Logic Management System | 48 kWh Battery | will put you in a strong Stand Alone Solution position.
Lawrence Coomber
Cheers Lawrence, there’s a limit with how much PV and battery an urban household should consider for offsetting grid connected retail energy consumption.
If I could double my roof area suitable for PV, ie double home size, the block could handle it, my desire to have a space double size, no, nor could I ever justify such an upgrade financially.
48kwh is about double what I’d like to get next Spring in battery capacity, and not at all viable financially to get off grid. (X years expected here, cost, outgoings expected, etc, etc.)
I’ll be self sufficient enough for 8 – 9 months a year with what I plan, perhaps with more and more care / some slight adjustments into the next decade, and who knows, perhaps renewables will start to save the overall grid, and cost savings passed on to consumers . . . that’s something no one should hold their breath for, just try and do your bit, be conscious of power use, have some PV etc to cut your grid needs / bills, contribute in some way to the grid.
That’s a fair summary Les. All the best for your plans moving forward.
Lawrence Coomber
Les if you add an Off Grid PV array to your premises, you get the full quota of STCs for the kW PV rating up to a maximum of 100 kW (total kW of PV installed at the premises).
For example: Existing On Grid System = 10 kW; leaves a maximum of 90 kW Off Grid PV left for full STCs.
Perfect for small commercial premises, farms, residential, or selected circuits designs.
Lawrence Coomber
Yup, if you off-grid the garage, with battery & two or three 7 kW BEV chargers for a multi-car family, there could eventually be three or four cars with zero fuel costs and no oil changes from here on out. Battery and STC rebates combined might be worth looking at, for a big family with adult children unable to move out.
There are no grid restrictions on array or inverter power – the roof’s the limit.
And Lawrence is spot on about domestic off-gridding – I have essentially just what he postulates, and the generator hasn’t run yet – in 1.5 years. Heating with RCAC tonight, the system says it can do that for 2d 10h on battery. The BEV’s at 100%, 20.9 kWh charged this afternoon, after waiting out two gloomy overcast days.
No, it’s generally not economic in town, but I can’t afford to connect to the grid – it’s 1 km to the Bairnsdale 22kV distribution line. What would that transformer cost? And 1 km underground? (I’m not flattening the intervening forest.)
I fail to understand how ‘freezing and starving’ is related? I thought that problem was solved after Prometheus gave fire to mankind. There is nothing more primitive than using fire for heating and cooking. What you really need electricity for are devices that are not that hungry.
Even if you live in a dysfunctional house or an apartment, you can cook on a portable stove, which is prudent to have for emergencies anyway.
You will be starving when there is no diesel for trucks to bring food to your supermarket, but again you should follow directions of the brave European governments and have at least a week of non-perishable supplies. I reckon my battery can run my fridge for at least a month until I need to hook 1kW inverter to my car to replenish the battery. Likely by that time I just have nothing in the fridge to worry about. My wood burner can be used for 4 pots simultaneously while heating the room.
I used the phrase “freezing and starving” as a shorthand, semi-comedic way of saying that life would be considerably less convenient without the comforts that modern science can bring via the grid.
I’m not really interested in the survivalist manifesto.
I think my point is that we don’t need to instinctively rebel against the grid for enabling industries we might not like. It also enables things I do like, e.g. my house and my 21st century indoorsy lifestyle.
Unfortunately even after the introduction of the Cheaper Home Battery Program, some of us are locked out of increasing our battery storage even if we wanted to. My particular set up is 22 panels with Enphase IQ8 and 2 Enphase 5P batteries. Due to the way Ergon assess the Enphase batteries, I am unable to increase my battery storage due to 10kVa solar and 10Va battery limits.
I found this Oversubscription Mode in Enphase literature which would seem to get around this but communications with Enphase support aren’t very helpful.
It seems to me that while Enphase promote themselves as premium systems, there is a huge trap waiting if you want to increase your battery storage and Enphase seem unwilling to provide much assistance.
As another note, my system was required to have a dynamic exports connection when installed in November 2023. Despite many promises and a brief (now retracted) showing on the Ergon approved list, I am still waiting for this to be implemented in July 2025.
Carl you will never be locked out of adding both Solar PV and Storage to your premises;
And moreover as a bonus; if you comply with the SRES Scheme currently in force, up to 100 kW total PV (if you elect to add a standalone PV Array) will attract full STC’s.
With Solar PV prices per kW being very affordable at the moment, you can install a large PV Array with the STCs paying a large slice of it.
It is very generous, and most would be able to take full advantage of this situation if they seek the right technical advice.
Carl my suggestion is educate yourself about some common system design terms that every experienced Off-Grid System Design Engineer focuses on when designing Energy Plants: (1) Daytime Loads vs Nighttime Loads (2) Loads Duty Cycle (3) Load Diversity and Timing Control Management Systems. There are others, but these are the heart of efficient and practical Off Grid Power Plant designs.
Something to think about moving forward perhaps.
Lawrence Coomber
Lawrence
My issue is with grid connection. There are a couple of issues happening here.
1. My connection is supposed to be dynamic but Enphase seem to be dragging there heels on this and I am still waiting at least 18 months after installation for Enphase to be compliant
2. The limitations imposed by Ergon for my system as far as I can determine are
“For a single-phase connection, you can have up to 10 kVA solar inverter capacity plus 10 kVA battery inverter capacity.”
We are talking different languages Carl. Off Grid has no interest in Ergon and Ergon has no interest with Off Grid Systems.
There is no such thing as an approval system for Off Grid Installations.
Premises can have both On Grid and Off Grid Systems installed. Maximum combined limit is 100 kW total for full STCs.
The key determinant is the 100 kW limit.
Importantly you don’t need roof space to install Off Grid Solutions. Talk with an expert.
Lawrence Coomber
Hi Carl,
You might be interested to know that new Enphase batteries can be dialed down so the 5kWh storage has an assessable 1kW inverter. You’ll still need lots of money and wall space but much more stroage is available doing this.
We won’t hold our breath on delivery times because IQ8 was a case of coming by christmas and nobody could predict which year, however they are promising an integration with Amber too, which is a break from their walled garden approach that’s promising.
I hope the grid does go the way of the dodo. We have planned outages here every couple of months. They charge like wounded bulls for the daily supply fee, and electricity isn’t going to get any cheaper. I’d happily disconnect from the grid if I was able to afford a solar system and battery to accommodate our needs.
I am confident you can Jason.
Depending an your specific circumstances, you are very likely to be both able and suitable, to be a part of an Off – Grid Micro- Grid Generation Plant, cost effectively, that would also attract the full quota of Renewable Energy Certificates (STCs) Govt Rebate, applicable to the name plate value of kilowatts of solar PV installed.
Search out experienced and licenced RE Engineers in Off-Grid / Micro Grid Solutions, and learn more about the range of options that might suit your circumstances.
Lawrence Coomber
Hi Anthony
Thanks for your reply as you have been much more helpful than Enphase support. Is this a completely new battery system or is it available as a retrofit to existing batteries.
On diesel supply in Australia:
https://crudeoilpeak.info/australian-diesel-import-dependency-on-middle-east-oil-update-april-2025
funny to read this article after Armidale had the biggest snow fall in 40 years took out power for 38,000 homes. we didn’t have power for four days. there’s still 800 homes with any power coming up to 7 days without heating. without electricity i can’t start my gas heater and also no hot water too. so no heating no internet. and then the gas bottle ran out so no tea too. Armidale. Living the dream.
Funny to read that in a post-COVID era people still don’t have anything to boil and cook on. Should take a ‘holiday’ with Médecins Sans Frontières to learn basics of life.
Gerard you have been converted: in less than a week, through being one of the global energy starved.
Energy or lack thereof is a great social leveller.
Join the other ordinary global citizens (about 10 billion) who also have an interest and concern in an enduring global power generation technology moving forward that would satisfy the global energy imperative of:- ‘providing all citizens in perpetuity with; enduring, abundant, clean, safe, low cost and highly reliable power, to power homes, businesses, factories, infra structure development, and industrialization of undeveloped nations through new age energy intensive industries, to modern day standards’: that simultaneously would reduce Global Greenhouse Gasses (GHG) to insignificant proportions.
Now there’s a Nation Building Project for some far sighted leader or nations consortium to run with. JFK might have taken that one on.
Lawrence Coomber
Ah, there’s a helluva difference between the grid being abandoned by replete self-reliant producer-consumers, and dependent consumers being forced to find what self-reliance they can muster in blackouts. (We were without for 5 weeks in the Dandenongs a few years ago.)
As atmospheric energy increases with global heating, and wind power increases with the cube of velocity, just 10% higher wind speed has 33% higher power, and +20% yields +73% power. In a couple of decades it may become essential to underground the grid in order to maintain supply. Repeated recent collapses of HV pylons in today’s comparatively moderate storms point to increasing grid unreliability, if not addressed, I figure.
Ample solar & a substantial battery can provide hot water, heating, and cooking for long periods of no grid power, 1.5 years here, so far, without one generator start. Battery fed RCAC has the living area at 24°C, with 12.2°C outside tonight, using only 700 W in a modest 6-stars living area.