Australians to Receive Free Midday Grid Solar Power – But Don’t Charge your EV

Essay by Eric Worrall

h/t Observa – Happy exploding transformer day: “… very high levels of consumption during the free-power period … may lead to increases in network costs. …”

Shared solar: Labor’s “free power” plan to have daily cap to stop abuse by EV and home battery owners

Giles Parkinson
Jan 23, 2026

Any thoughts that Labor’s proposed Solar share offer would deliver unlimited free power to fill their EVs and home batteries have been dashed, with the federal government proposing a 24 kilowatt hour cap.

…

Federal energy minister Chris Bowen wants retailers to be required to offer three hours of free power to customers, enabling households who do not have access to their own rooftop solar to share in the benefits of the solar surplus that regularly pushes wholesale electricity prices below zero.

…

However, there are caveats. Among the six proposed “guidelines” for the Australian Energy Regulator to consider as it weighs up the design of the scheme, the government proposes a “reasonable use” criteria that would cap the daily consumption of free power to 24 kWh.

…

Submissions also highlighted that, in the absence of specific safeguards, very high levels of consumption during the free-power period could create localised network impacts that may lead to increases in network costs.

…

Read more: https://reneweconomy.com.au/shared-solar-labors-free-power-plan-to-have-daily-cap-to-stop-abuse-by-ev-and-home-battery-owners/

You couldn’t make this up. If say half or even a quarter of the population took up this offer, supplying those people would require concentrating an entire day’s worth of electricity into a few hours. No existing grid could take that kind of load.

Entire suburbs would black out as overload breakers tripped. If you are lucky. Otherwise you might lose a few transformers and power lines, along with anyone unlucky enough to be walking underneath when the grid started falling apart.

Let’s hope the government finds a free supply of high voltage electrical cable, to go with their free supply of electricity.

Any retailer who tries to recover costs by say jacking up evening electricity tariffs would likely face immediate price controls. The current federal government has proven to be very quick on the trigger with market interventions when their disastrous energy policies cause visible problems – which when exercised lead to even greater problems, more borrowed money subsidies and payouts to producers to cover up the mess.

Maybe politicians should have talked to a few killjoy engineers before getting all excited and announcing policy. But our energy and climate minister Chris Bowen has a track record of not seeking or listening to advice before opening his mouth.