{"id":51302,"date":"2021-06-21T11:26:21","date_gmt":"2021-06-21T00:56:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/?p=51302"},"modified":"2024-10-01T13:08:58","modified_gmt":"2024-10-01T03:38:58","slug":"vpp-tips-advice-mb2045","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/vpp-tips-advice-mb2045\/","title":{"rendered":"3 Things I Wish I&#8217;d Thought About Before Joining A VPP"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"youtube-wrapper\"><iframe title=\"3 Things I Learned Participating In A VPP - Virtual Power Plant\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xCYDRlpPITE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>SolarQuotes Founder Finn Peacock offers some important advice for Australians considering signing up for a VPP (Virtual Power Plant) program.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Transcript:<\/p>\n<p>Four years ago, I signed up for an AGL VPP. I&#8217;m not going to bash VPPs in this video because I actually got a great deal. I got $14,000 worth of Tesla Powerwall 2 for about $4,000.<\/p>\n<p>So, I saved 10 grand by giving AGL permission to use my battery, almost in any way they want.<\/p>\n<p>What have I learned? Well, I&#8217;ve learned three things that are really, really interesting.<\/p>\n<h2>AGL Charging The Battery &#8211; At My Expense<\/h2>\n<p>Number one, how they&#8217;re using the battery. Now, the really interesting thing, if I look at my app, I can actually see how they&#8217;re using my battery. So that&#8217;s really good. I&#8217;ve got full transparency when they&#8217;re charging and discharging my battery.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s telling me, let&#8217;s have a look at over four years, they&#8217;ve only ever put 26.1 kilowatt hours into the battery from the grid. And they&#8217;ve only ever discharged 32.9 kilowatt hours out of the battery into the grid. So, basically bugger-all.<\/p>\n<p>But what is really interesting is when they&#8217;ve chosen to do that &#8211; which has only been the last three weeks &#8211; how they&#8217;ve actually gone about doing that. And they&#8217;ve done it in a way that I would have never thought they would have.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m going to show you three examples from the last three weeks.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-51303 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/powerwall-grid-charging.jpg\" alt=\"Tesla Powerwall battery charge and discharge\" width=\"800\" height=\"517\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/powerwall-grid-charging.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/powerwall-grid-charging-300x194.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/powerwall-grid-charging-768x496.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>On the 17th of May, if you have a look just before the sun goes down, essentially they charged my battery up with 11.1 kilowatt hours of energy. So, almost fully charged the battery. But then if you look below the X axis here, they discharged bugger-all of it.<\/p>\n<p>And then again here, just before sundown, they&#8217;ve charged it with 5.7 kilowatt hours, which is about half the battery, and then they haven&#8217;t used any of it. And then a couple of weeks before that they charged it with 8.3 kilowatt- hours &#8211; so about two thirds of the battery &#8211; they filled from the grid and used a tiny bit of it.<\/p>\n<p>So I think, AGL won&#8217;t tell me, we did ask &#8211;\u00a0 I think what they&#8217;re doing is they&#8217;re charging the battery from the grid for certainty; just in case they need that energy. That&#8217;s my best guess. And then often they&#8217;re using very little or none of it, but that&#8217;s a way I never considered they&#8217;d actually use my battery.<\/p>\n<p>They say, &#8220;you know what, we&#8217;re going to charge up the battery&#8221;. And I&#8217;ve got to pay for that, by the way. We&#8217;re going to charge up the battery, just in case we need it. And then often don&#8217;t use it. And certainly they&#8217;ve never used the whole, all the energy that they&#8217;ve put into the battery. So that&#8217;s interesting. Although they&#8217;ve used my battery very little, when they do use it, they&#8217;re using it in really interesting ways that you may not anticipate.<\/p>\n<p>So if you&#8217;re signing up for a VPP now, when they&#8217;re much less generous, you&#8217;ve got to do a bit of mental arithmetic. If they do that every night or every night over winter, how much is it going to cost you? If it&#8217;s costing you $2 a day and you&#8217;re saving $1,500 over the lifetime of the VPP, you could very easily be net negative.<\/p>\n<p>So these VPPs, they are an unknown. And as my mate Ronald has always said, if there&#8217;s an energy retailer running your VPP and controlling your battery, do you trust energy retailers &#8211; who haven&#8217;t got a great reputation in this country, let&#8217;s be honest &#8211; to look after your interests ahead of theirs? Or do you suspect that they&#8217;ll screw you over? That&#8217;s your judgment, but just be careful when you&#8217;re signing up for a VPP as you are letting these people control your battery.<\/p>\n<h2>Feed-in Tariff And Usage Rate Changes<\/h2>\n<p>The second thing that I didn&#8217;t really consider &#8211; and like normal people I didn&#8217;t read the gazillion pages of terms and conditions &#8211; is that recently they halved my feed-in tariff.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ll say without telling me &#8211; but they probably sent me an email that I didn&#8217;t read, because I don&#8217;t read many of my emails to be honest. Especially the ones from big companies, because often they&#8217;re threatening to sue me. I&#8217;d rather just ignore that. Oh, and by the way, don&#8217;t use AGL&#8217;s logo in this James, because we don&#8217;t want to get <a href=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/agl-greenpeace-emissions-mb1988\/\"> sued like Greenpeace<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>So they halved my feed-in tarrif, and I export quite a lot of solar &#8211; and that had a fairly big effect on my bill.<\/p>\n<p>Now I could go onto the AGL website and push a button and get back onto the original plan that I was on, which was a 16 cent feed in tariff &#8211; up from eight. But you know, four years ago, I just kind of naively assumed that the rates I was on are the rates that I&#8217;d have for the next five years while I was essentially locked into the AGL VPP contract. The contract &#8211; which I can get out of &#8211; but it will cost me thousands of dollars to get out of. Why would I pay thousands of dollars to save a few hundred dollars switching retailers &#8211; I wouldn&#8217;t.<\/p>\n<p>So the second thing: be aware, read the terms and conditions if you can get through them, but be aware that there&#8217;s going to be nasties in there like they can probably change the rates they&#8217;re paying you for feed-in tariffs and the usage tariff. They put mine up, they put my daily charge up. They can probably change.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re doing your math on the rates that they&#8217;re offering you initially, that may not work for the lifetime of the VPP plan.<\/p>\n<h2>Electric Vehicle Considerations<\/h2>\n<p>Now the third one that I didn&#8217;t think about &#8211; which is really interesting &#8211; I didn&#8217;t really care what they were charging me to pull energy from the grid as I was using bugger-all. It was, I think it was 36 cents, which is a bit extortionate for grid electricity. But I&#8217;ve got a six kilowatt solar system, I&#8217;ve got an efficient house and I&#8217;ve got a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/battery-storage\/reviews\/tesla-powerwall-2-review.html\"> Tesla Powerwall<\/a> 2.<\/p>\n<p>I was drawing bugger-all off from the grid, but two years after I got my battery, I bought two <a href=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/electric-vehicles\/\">electric cars<\/a> and got rid of my petrol cars.<\/p>\n<p>Now, if you get an electric car &#8211; simplifying it &#8211; you&#8217;re going to at least probably double your electricity usage. Now I&#8217;m in a position where I&#8217;m actually drawing quite a lot of electricity from the grid. And there&#8217;s all these beautiful kinds of EV plans being offered by other retailers where you can charge your EV at night, very cheaply.<\/p>\n<p>They make a lot of sense for me, trying to charge two cars, using a lot more electricity. But I&#8217;m essentially locked out of them because I&#8217;m stuck with AGL for another year. So, if you&#8217;re locking yourself into these multi-year VPPs thinking, &#8220;I use bugger- all electricity&#8221;, things change very quickly in energy in 2021. There&#8217;s a very strong chance you&#8217;re going to get an EV in the next 2, 3, 4, 5 years and if you do that, your electricity usage is going to go through the roof.<\/p>\n<p>You may want flexibility in your <a href=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/energy\/\"> electricity plan<\/a> &#8211; so think about that.<\/p>\n<p>I think <a href=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/battery-storage\/virtual-power-plants\/\">VPPs<\/a> are very important if done properly and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/battery-storage\/\">batteries<\/a>, very, very important. VPPs are a great way to maximize the value of those batteries, but just be careful before you sign up for them. These multi-year VPPs &#8211; there&#8217;s a lot of things you&#8217;ve got to consider that even so-called experts like me kind of glossed over because I was wowed at saving 10 grand on a Tesla Powerwall 2, which I really, really wanted.<\/p>\n<p>Now don&#8217;t get me wrong &#8211; I think I&#8217;m still $9,995 up. So I got a great deal. But the VPPs that are around in 2021 are nothing like as generous.<\/p>\n<p>Be careful signing up for VPPs. Do your homework, think long and hard about if your electricity usage habits are going to change and watch the retailers like a hawk, because they may well change your feed in tariff, change your usage tariff &#8211; and be aware that you&#8217;re giving them free range to do what the hell they want with that battery.<\/p>\n<p>They can charge it from the grid, which is going to cost you money at times when you might not want to charge it from the grid. And the whole point of getting a battery might have been for you personally &#8211; everyone&#8217;s different &#8211; that you didn&#8217;t want to import energy from the grid.<\/p>\n<p>So be careful &#8211; go into VPPs with your eyes open.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Related<\/strong> &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/battery-storage\/vpp-comparison\/\">Compare VPP Plans<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SolarQuotes Founder Finn Peacock offers some important advice for Australians considering signing up for a VPP (Virtual Power Plant) program.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":51304,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[551],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-battery-storage","entry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.2 (Yoast SEO v27.2) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>3 Things I Wish I&#039;d Thought About Before Joining A VPP<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"SolarQuotes Founder Finn Peacock offers some important advice for 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