Three ‘Free’ Hours Of Power: Seizing The Means Of Solar Production?

You’re likely sick of the headlines by now: “Three hours of free power for everyone!”

Most readers of those headlines will assume three free hours of energy are about to land in their current plan, like magic. They won’t. Instead, it looks like the plan is to force each retailer to offer at least one “free-hours” plan among all their others.

If, next July, you jump onto your retailer’s “free” Solar Sharer Offer, brace yourself for higher peak rates and bigger daily charges to make up the gap. The government isn’t cutting your bill; it’s just moving the pain around¹.

Clever Politics, Dumb Policy

It’s brilliant politics – but terrible policy that won’t change much at all.

And that’s because consumers can already get these “three free hours” if they want them. Last time I checked, OVO, GloBird and AGL all offer plans with free daytime power. They’re not doing it out of charity – they’re probably losing money during those hours, treating it as a customer acquisition strategy. That’s fine as a business decision. What’s not fine is the government stepping in and forcing every retailer to do the same. It stifles competition and forces every player to offer the same model.

It’s a bit like the government noticing Nando’s offers free drink refills and deciding every restaurant in Australia must do the same. Sounds generous – until you realise someone has to pay for the extra syrup. A clever marketing perk becomes a forced loss-maker and pushes up the prices for people who prefer tap water with their extra-hot quarter chicken.

Will This Really Help Renters?

The idea is to help renters and low-income households by pushing energy use into the middle of the day when solar is plentiful. Fair enough: renters can’t install panels, and most people don’t shift demand unless there’s a clear reason to.

But my back-of-a-Nando’s napkin maths says you’ll need to shift at least 6kWh of use from evening to midday to be ahead on a “3 free” plan. It’s easy to use 6kWh in 3 hours. Just leave the oven on. But shifting – not using those 6 kWh in the evening – is much harder.

And let’s be honest about who can actually load shift. It’s not the battlers in rentals or the people working shifts. It’s the well-off. They’re more likely to live in well-insulated homes, have one partner at home during the day, work flexible hours, and own smart appliances. “Free power at lunchtime” helps the family with the EV, home battery, smart home and home office, not the one rushing home at six to cook dinner. So even though this policy is wrapped in fairness, it quietly deepens the divide.

Renters absolutely deserve a leg-up. The smarter approach would be cheap daytime tariffs just for renters, paired with plug-in batteries enabled by relaxed (but still safe) standards so renters can dodge peak rates. Instead, this blunt policy locks in inequality: the new gap won’t be solar vs. no solar – it’ll be battery vs. no battery.

EV owners are set to be one of the bigger beneficiaries from the new plan, as highlighted in the federal government’s promotional materials. But why the hell is there a cable wrapped around a Sunny Storage Battery Inverter and where is it going? And I hope that LG Chem RESU has been recalled. And what’s the box on the LHS with the green cable? I smell Photoshop or AI or both…

Will This Slow Solar Uptake?

It also kills one of the best reasons to buy solar panels. Until now, although a handful of retailers offered limited free-power deals to attract customers, savvy homeowners suspected those offers likely wouldn’t last, so installing solar still made sense. Now, with government-mandated free energy baked in, the logic flips: “Why buy panels when I already get free power from noon to three?”

To be clear, it can still make sense to buy solar. If you own panels, you can opt out of the “free power” plan and onto one with far lower daily and peak rates. In other words, solar still gives you choice – and that choice is valuable. But that’s a subtlety only energy nerds will notice. For everyone else, it just looks like the government made solar pointless. And perception drives behaviour. If people stop buying panels, the whole transition slows down.

That’s dangerous. Australia needs to double or triple solar capacity to reach 100 % renewables. We need the daytime oversupply – even if it’s often curtailed – to cover winter, cloudy days, early-morning and late-arvo demand. If solar installs slow, the whole plan wobbles.

Politics Shouldn’t Override Pricing

I grew up on benefits in a housing association home, and I rented for most of my adult life. I understand why cheaper electricity matters – it’s not abstract to me. But I’ve also started and run businesses, and I know what happens when the government starts forcing companies to give things away for free. It’s a dangerous precedent. The moment politics overrides pricing, things break.

When Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen announced the policy, he claimed – as he spoke – electricity prices were negative in SA, SE QLD, and NSW. Technically true – for two 30-minute periods in NSW. For the rest of the day, prices were positive, peaking around $200/MWh (~20 ¢/kWh wholesale).

Wholesale prices only briefly dipped into negative territory in NSW on the day Bowen announced the Solar Sharer Offer.

“Free power for everyone!” is a vote-winning headline that distorts the market and risks slowing down the very transition it aims to accelerate.

Pure political clickbait.

Footnote: Yep, I know SolarQuotes is now owned by Origin. Before anyone fires up the comments, my opinions on this stuff were exactly the same before I sold. I’ve always backed a profitable, sustainable grid, even when it’s made me unpopular.

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.