{"id":90455,"date":"2025-03-18T10:18:10","date_gmt":"2025-03-18T00:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/?p=90455"},"modified":"2025-03-19T10:57:13","modified_gmt":"2025-03-19T01:27:13","slug":"storing-sunshine-the-key-to-free-energy-transport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/storing-sunshine-the-key-to-free-energy-transport\/","title":{"rendered":"Storing Sunshine: The Key To Free Energy &#038; Transport"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-90519\" src=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/sun-EV-charger.jpg\" alt=\"A man charging an EV with the sun behind him\" width=\"1200\" height=\"628\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/sun-EV-charger.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/sun-EV-charger-300x157.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/sun-EV-charger-1024x536.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/sun-EV-charger-768x402.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/>What if told you there was a petrol station selling half-price petrol?<\/p>\n<p>Forget the dollar figure, just imagine the traffic chaos and thousands of manhours wasted queuing.<\/p>\n<p>Read on and we&#8217;ll explain how to get cheap fuel dispensed with zero effort from the convenience of your own driveway&#8230; it&#8217;s an absolute no brainer.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<h2>Of Course We&#8217;re Talking About Electric Vehicles<\/h2>\n<p>They&#8217;re perhaps more accurately described as storage with a steering wheel, transport appliances or passenger batteries.<\/p>\n<p>No matter which way you look at it, EVs are <strong>large<\/strong> batteries, they allow you to store free energy AND eliminate your petrol bills.<\/p>\n<p>While compliant, warranted and well-installed home batteries cost around $1000\/kWh, a 39kWh Nissan Leaf can be had for $35,000&#8230; the battery is cheaper, and you get a free car!<\/p>\n<p>Plus, there&#8217;s the fact petrol is hellishly expensive compared to grid electricity as a motor fuel.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_90491\" style=\"width: 878px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-90491\" class=\"wp-image-90491 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/wattpilot-smart-charging-2.jpg\" alt=\"Solar smart charging graph\" width=\"868\" height=\"633\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/wattpilot-smart-charging-2.jpg 868w, https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/wattpilot-smart-charging-2-300x219.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/wattpilot-smart-charging-2-768x560.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 868px) 100vw, 868px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-90491\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">In this complex graph we see real time, self consumed solar in yellow, with almost all the solar energy available captured. The bright green is yield stored in a house battery, and purple represents charge to fuel an EV. In both cases these batteries are charged by &#8220;smart solar&#8221; that follows the inverter output without importing any energy. Only once both these vessels are full of sunshine, does the grey area show export of excess energy to the grid.<\/p><\/div>\n<h2>Is The Fuel Really Free?<\/h2>\n<p>Well yes, more or less. It can depend on how ruthless you are in counting beans but we&#8217;ll explore a few figures here using a rough average of 15kWh consumption for 100km travelled.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A reasonably efficient car burns petrol at 10 litres\/100km. By the time that fuel has been shipped halfway across the world it is $1.85\/litre. 10 x 1.85 means the fossil industry has consumers well-conditioned to pay <strong><strong><strong>$18.50\/100km.<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/li>\n<li>The most expensive electricity dispensed at highway fast chargers can be up to 80c\/kWh. However Evie Networks provides very fast 350kW DC charging at 65c per kWh. Highway food might be bad and expensive but road trips are now much cheaper. 15 x 65c equates to\u00a0<strong><strong><strong><strong>$9.75\/100km.<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Some slower EV chargers are used as loss leaders to attract customers to a winery for instance. Others like Jolt offer your first 7kWh for free, which is more than half a tank of fuel in my<a href=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/australia-cheapest-electric-car\/\"> adorably modest EV. <\/a>However, in traditionally expensive South Australia I&#8217;ve recently paid 25c\/kWh. So CBD parking may still be a ripoff but charging while you&#8217;re at work isn&#8217;t. 15 x 25c equates to <strong><strong><strong>$3.75\/100km.<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/li>\n<li>If you&#8217;re <a href=\"https:\/\/wattever.com.au\/retailer-solar-feed-in-tariffs-by-state-and-territory\/\">very lucky<\/a> there are retailers paying 12c\/kWh for energy you export to the grid. Forgoing this credit on your account means you &#8220;pay&#8221; 12c\/kWh for storing energy. So at worst, home charging from solar is still less than a tenth of the cost of petrol. 15 x 12c equates to <strong><strong>$1.80\/100km.<\/strong><\/strong><\/li>\n<li>If you live in Victoria your retailer may be particularly scummy and only offer the mandated minimum <a href=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/victoria-solar-tariff-2526-mb3093\/\">0.04c<\/a> per kWh. At this point solar yield is almost free energy. 15 x 0.04c equates to <strong>0.6cents\/100km.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>What About Sunk Costs?<\/h2>\n<p>If you invest $1 per watt installed, or $10,000 on a 10kW system, it should yield around 40kWh\/day. Over 20 years that yield will have cost about <strong>3\u00bd cents\/kWh,<\/strong> which considering inflation, is a lovely steady number.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>So it&#8217;s not unreasonable to say<a href=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/electromobile-renewable-future\/\"> home grown energy<\/a> to fuel your transport needs is 3\u00bdc\/kWh. 15 x 3.5c equates to <strong>52\u00bdcents\/100km.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I&#8217;m not about to calculate the opportunity cost of missing a perfect <del>ponzi<\/del>, <del>crypto<\/del>, stock market investment where I could have better invested my money using 20:20 hindsight, personally I&#8217;ve got more interesting grass to watch growing.<\/p>\n<p>However, if you&#8217;ve installed a 10kW solar power system which has a fixed 5kW <a href=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/solar-export-limiting\/\">export limit<\/a>, <strong>your yield can be wasted by curtailment.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This is the worst kind of waste, where you&#8217;ve paid the money but the energy simply cannot flow to anywhere useful.<\/p>\n<p>If we assume the worst case where your bell curve of potential is reduced to an Uluru of practical execution, there could be 13% of the energy you have paid for up front simply not coming to fruition.<\/p>\n<p>While it&#8217;s raining down on your roof, curtailment sees energy pour down the drain. Using storage means you&#8217;ve captured truly FREE energy.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_90490\" style=\"width: 793px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-90490\" class=\"wp-image-90490 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/simple-hot-water-diversion.jpg\" alt=\"solar yield and hot water load graph\" width=\"783\" height=\"525\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/simple-hot-water-diversion.jpg 783w, https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/simple-hot-water-diversion-300x201.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/simple-hot-water-diversion-768x515.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 783px) 100vw, 783px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-90490\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">To start, the simple way to explain what I call a sunshine circuit is simply to turn on a load when your solar has ramped up to a certain yield. Solar diversion is the common terminology, because you take electricty destined for export to the grid and divert it into your own storage or consumption.<\/p><\/div><\/blockquote>\n<h2>Storing Solar Energy Will Save You Thousands<\/h2>\n<p>They say planting trees is best done 20 years ago, so you&#8217;d best start digging today.<\/p>\n<p>As batteries are many times cheaper now than they were 20 years ago, storing solar electricity is increasingly viable economically.<\/p>\n<p>We aren&#8217;t talking about seasonal duration, like a tank of heating oil or a tonne of wood for your combustion stove. Rather it&#8217;s a shift in mindset, a matter of gathering fresh energy every day and using it over the next night or two.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_90493\" style=\"width: 910px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-90493\" class=\"wp-image-90493 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/night-peak-consumption-battery.jpg\" alt=\"solar yield graph\" width=\"900\" height=\"472\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/night-peak-consumption-battery.jpg 900w, https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/night-peak-consumption-battery-300x157.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/night-peak-consumption-battery-768x403.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-90493\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Here we see light blue turns to purple once the battery (represented by the pink line) is full. The major consumption of stored energy runs 6pm till 9:30pm. Next day we do it again.<\/p><\/div>\n<h2>It&#8217;s Time We Got Smart<\/h2>\n<p>When there&#8217;s abundant sunshine, then really, there&#8217;s no problem. Having lots of electricity available is a feature, &#8220;wasting&#8221; it with mid-summer curtailment is not a bug.<\/p>\n<p>What we need is clever ways to generate and store energy when conditions aren&#8217;t so generous.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s why efficiency will always be king, especially in a long overcast week of winter. Insulation, double glazing, thermal mass, automation &amp; clever design will pay huge dividends economically.<\/p>\n<p>What&#8217;s harder for the accountants to quantify though, is comfort. Going home to a place you find relaxing improves outlook, lifts productivity &amp; lowers anxiety.<\/p>\n<p>As does slashing your electricity and fuel bills, in any case. To turn your home into a giant storehouse of free sunshine read our guides on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/panels\/\">solar panels<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/battery-storage\/comparison-table\/\">batteries<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/ev-chargers\/\">EV chargers<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><em>Note: the original version of this article wrongly described Victoria&#8217;s minimum mandated FiT as four tenths of a cent, when it is actually 0.04c, not 0.4c. Apologies, and thanks to Les in the comments for the correction.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What if told you there was a petrol station selling half-price petrol? Forget the dollar figure, just imagine the traffic chaos and thousands of manhours wasted queuing. Read on and we&#8217;ll explain how to get cheap fuel dispensed with zero effort from the convenience of your own driveway&#8230; it&#8217;s an absolute no brainer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":90519,"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-90455","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 v27.4 (Yoast SEO v27.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Storing Sunshine: The Key To Free Energy &amp; Transport<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Heating with oil is so 1970, so why are you still running your car on it 55 years on? Solar and storage is here now to save you thousands.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/storing-sunshine-the-key-to-free-energy-transport\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Storing Sunshine: The Key To Free Energy &amp; Transport\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Heating with oil is so 1970, so why are you still running your car on it 55 years on? Solar and storage is here now to save you thousands.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/storing-sunshine-the-key-to-free-energy-transport\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"SolarQuotes Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/SolarQuotes\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-03-18T00:48:10+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-03-19T01:27:13+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/sun-EV-charger.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"628\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Anthony Bennett\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@solar_quotes\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@solar_quotes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.solarquotes.com.au\\\/blog\\\/storing-sunshine-the-key-to-free-energy-transport\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.solarquotes.com.au\\\/blog\\\/storing-sunshine-the-key-to-free-energy-transport\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Anthony Bennett\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.solarquotes.com.au\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/eda68c24a3d87f41fa51e57c03d2ac2d\"},\"headline\":\"Storing Sunshine: The Key To Free Energy &#038; Transport\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-03-18T00:48:10+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-03-19T01:27:13+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.solarquotes.com.au\\\/blog\\\/storing-sunshine-the-key-to-free-energy-transport\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":1105,\"commentCount\":53,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.solarquotes.com.au\\\/blog\\\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.solarquotes.com.au\\\/blog\\\/storing-sunshine-the-key-to-free-energy-transport\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.solarquotes.com.au\\\/blog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2025\\\/03\\\/sun-EV-charger.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Battery Storage\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.solarquotes.com.au\\\/blog\\\/storing-sunshine-the-key-to-free-energy-transport\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.solarquotes.com.au\\\/blog\\\/storing-sunshine-the-key-to-free-energy-transport\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.solarquotes.com.au\\\/blog\\\/storing-sunshine-the-key-to-free-energy-transport\\\/\",\"name\":\"Storing Sunshine: The Key To Free Energy & Transport\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.solarquotes.com.au\\\/blog\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.solarquotes.com.au\\\/blog\\\/storing-sunshine-the-key-to-free-energy-transport\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.solarquotes.com.au\\\/blog\\\/storing-sunshine-the-key-to-free-energy-transport\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.solarquotes.com.au\\\/blog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2025\\\/03\\\/sun-EV-charger.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-03-18T00:48:10+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-03-19T01:27:13+00:00\",\"description\":\"Heating with oil is so 1970, so why are you still running your car on it 55 years on? 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