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9 News telecast on 4th February announced a plan by the South Australian Government to roll out at least 50,000 home solar panels and batteries across the state and to create the “world’s largest Virtual Solar Power Plant”.
It revealed that a trial is already underway involving 1100 State housing properties provided with solar panel systems and a 13.5kWh Tesla Powerwall 2 battery, with no charge to residents. The installation is financed by the sale of solar power generated by the households. After the trial, systems will be installed at 24,000 more state housing properties and a “similar deal” will be offered to all South Australian households. The government expects at least 50,000 households to participate over the next four years and wants energy providers to help deliver the program, in the hope of creating greater competition. This arrangement is expected to reduce participants’ energy bills by 30%.
It will be interesting to see how the energy providers will respond to this solar power challenge. We at Energy Umpire are keeping a close watch on the plans the energy providers are unveiling shortly. Their track record has been even worse in SA where AGL dominate than in other States.
The consumers will have to decide the best plan for them, the best feed in tariff, when to export to grid, how much they should store, what happens when the providers change the prices, will there be new government policies getting implemented, and many more possible scenarios.
Virtual power plants are great development, but we are concerned that the benefits will flow to the aggregators and not to customers.
That’s where we come in. Our mission is to get our customers the maximum savings on every single bill.
Can the consumer cope with such complex matters and still be in the best plan and cheapest price? Isn’t there an easy way to manage this? Energy Umpire ticks the box and offers you answers to all these questions. Let us manage your energy bills and ensure you get the best out of solar power deals, all the time!