Solar Sharer In Winter: Heat Your Home For Free

With Australia in the grip of winter, a new breed of free daytime electricity plans have arrived just in time to keep your home warm on the cheap. Here’s how to time your electric heating – and cooling – to make the most of the Solar Sharer Offer’s free electricity period.

Solar Sharer launched on 1 July 2026, giving households in select areas of Australia the opportunity to switch to a plan with three hours of free daytime electricity.

Electricity retailers with more than 1000 customers are required to offer a plan with up to 24 kWh of free electricity a day from 11 am–2 pm in NSW and South East Queensland. In SA the free period covers 12 pm–3 pm, while Victoria is launching its own version, the Midday Power Saver, on October 1.

It’s a genuine chance to cut your bill, but only if you can shift usage into the free electricity period. Your aircon/heating system is the biggest lever you have for doing that. If you get the timing right, you can heat or cool your whole home for close to nothing. If you get it wrong, you’re just moving your usual bill into a different time slot.

Is Solar Sharer Actually Worth It?

Solar Sharer plans only help if you can change when you use electricity. There’s a catch that retailers don’t mention: they often make up the cost with higher peak rates and/or daily supply charges.

The free period only saves you money if you actually use it. So, what should you move to that time?

Heating and cooling usually run for much of the day to keep your home comfortable. They use more power than anything else you can control, so they’re the best things to focus on for this strategy.

Heating Your House, On The House

A modern reverse-cycle system uses most of its energy to bring your home up or down to the temperature you want. Once it reaches that point, it uses much less power to keep things steady.

That’s the main idea: get your home to the right temperature, then let the system maintain it.

Aim for 24–26°C in summer and 18–20°C in winter. Going higher or lower than these ranges uses much more energy for diminishing returns.

Start as soon as the free period begins, using the first 20–30 minutes to bring your home to the right temperature. You’ll be using free electricity for the most energy-intensive part, so even if you keep running your aircon past the free period, you’ve avoided much of the running costs.

However, a built-in aircon timer can only work on a fixed schedule. It won’t adjust based on today’s weather, and it can’t tell if you’re home.

Smart Control: Sensibo And Solectair

If your split system has a remote, you don’t need to replace it to make it smart. Devices like Sensibo attach to the wall and read your remote’s infrared signals, so they need a clear line of sight to work well.

With Sensibo, you can set up 7-day schedules, use your phone’s location, and create rules in the app. This lets you program your system to start heating or cooling as soon as the free period begins, without needing to do anything manually.

Courtesy: Sensibo.com

Geo-location turns the system off when you leave home, using your phone’s location. An optional room sensor can track the temperature where you are, not just where the unit is. It can pause the system if you leave the room or if a door is left open. This is an affordable way to make an old air conditioner work like a smart one.

Solectair, a ducted solar heating system that’s been around for decades, pulls warm air directly from the roof space and pushes it through ducting into the house.

On a sunny day, even in winter, a roof cavity can sit well above room temperature. Solectair’s controller switches on a fan whenever the roof space is hotter than the house, transfers free heat into the home, and lets the home’s own thermal mass (your walls and floor) soak it up and release it slowly overnight.

Courtesy: Airgroup.com.au

Insulation: Think Of Your Home As A Battery

Once your home is at the right temperature, insulation determines how long it stays comfortable. Good insulation can keep the warmth or cool for hours, while poor insulation lets it escape quickly.

Think of your home as a big battery. It stores energy as heat. SolarQuotes’ in-house installer, Anthony Bennett advises that in winter-proofing your home, plugging draughts at doors and windows is your first task – this can cut heating bills by up to 25%.  A single pane of bare glass loses 10-15% more heat than the same-sized uninsulated wall.

“Getting thermal mass under control is great but if the house leaks it’s a losing battle. I know this because the floor is falling out of my house and it leaks like a sieve … good passive haus design will hold temperature for days, because it’s sealed like a drum and the windows are well positioned to warm it,” Anthony says.

If you’re feeling confident with a little DIY glazing, insulate your French and sliding doors (if you have them). Anthony found that a little ingenuity can measure a 3.5°C rise in temperature.

Everyone loves a roaring fire on a cold winter’s night. But chimneys, especially an unused open one, invite draughts into the home. This is one of the fastest ways to lose the temperature you paid to create. Invest in a chimney blocker, as pictured below. They’re flat squares of felt with a handle that wedges right up into your fireplace when you’re not using it. It’s not perfect, but it will help reduce heat loss.

A few years back, Anthony set up a basic fan on a timer in his old double-brick house, which didn’t have any ceiling insulation or smart controls. Before that, he would come home at 6 pm to an empty house and find it colder inside than outside, since no one had turned on the heating.

After he set the fan to run from 10 am to 3 pm, he noticed a change by evening. On cloudy, cold days, the house didn’t feel much warmer. But on sunny days, it was often much warmer by 6 pm, just from moving air through the house while the sun provided the heat.

What to Do Next

See if your reverse-cycle system has a built-in schedule, or if adding something like Sensibo or Solectair makes sense. Then check your home’s weak spots, like doors, windows, or an old fireplace, and insulate where you can. These factors decide if your free period’s benefits last just an hour or all afternoon.

Get the timing and the sealing right together, and a free electricity window becomes genuinely free comfort.

For more about efficient electric heating and cooling, read our guide to reverse cycle air conditioning.

To browse Solar Sharer plans and see if they are right for you, we’ve updated our electricity plan comparison tool – once you’ve entered your postcode, just click ‘features’  and ‘free power periods’ to only compare such plans.