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Australia proves that solar can be easy and widely adopted
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this post was submitted on 22 Jan 2026
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The only problem is that in areas with higher populations, Australian residents now PAY to export solar energy to the grid instead of getting paid for exporting solar energy
That's not accurate. When the grid doesn't want my excess solar, it just stops accepting it. My solar panels then sit idle until the grid wants more.
In fact, that doesn't happen much either, but the grid does routinely take only part of my capacity, say, 2kw, when the panels are capable of generating 6-8kw. The grid takes an equitable amount from all houses in the zone.
https://www.ausgrid.com.au/-/media/Documents/Tariff/Solar-Factsheet-two-way-pricing-for-grid-exports.pdf?rev=2cef76fd13444c80b26df4c1a3213833
It's nice that your retailer turns your exports off
What the fuck? Okay, sorry, I made my comment based on Western Australian electricity providers, not NSW. Modern solar systems here use smart controllers that can turn off export as required. You can also join the Virtual Power Plant network where they will pay you a premium to supply power from your solar AND battery during huge power events where they would otherwise need to spin up a gas turbine.
But I've never heard of charging the homeowner for exports. This must have a specific application to grid tie solar that doesn't have a smart controller to limit grid export when the grid doesn't want power and they have to transmit and consume it somewhere.
My system first supplies my consumption needs, then charges the battery til it's full or at a max of 5kw, then exports power to the grid if the grid wants it. If the grid doesn't want it, solar only generates my consumption needs. I never get a charge. Although I also never get paid, technically, my exports just generate a credit on my power bill, so I have a positive credit on my bill of hundreds of dollars. But because I almost never need to import power from the grid, this will forever go unused.
I don't know how they justify it but my assumption is that the grid has not been properly maintained and they're unable to automatically control solar feed in for many areas. Sounds like WA has it right. Maybe will be less of a problem once the snowy 2.0 battery is online in 2027/2028
In NSW there are a huge number of competing retailers, each with their own incompatible smart meters to each other. We had to pick between at least 3 different meters for our place for the solar upgrade even though there is one distributor here
Yikes, that sounds like a mess. In WA we have one fully connected grid (SWIS) and one provider (synergy). Western Power used to be the provider, but now they only run the power stations and maintain the infra. There are multiple electrical generation companies that run power stations, but the customer doesn't deal directly with them. They all sell power to synergy, who sells it to the customer, and synergy pays western Power to maintain the SWIS.
There are some pockets that live outside the SWIS with a different arrangement but they are a tiny minority.
Synergy is owned by the state govt, so there is a monopoly, but it's more benevolent to the customer, and hostile to the generators. They do what they can to keep prices low. But the infra is aging, and western Power spends increasingly more each year to maintain it and replace wooden poles. Western Power is also wholly owned by the state govt.
Govt owns 49.6% of Ausgrid here lol, I think the rest is mostly AusSuper
Just a good reason to install batteries and not rely on the grid at all.
I mean you can literally just kill your feed, often times remotely, if that is happening (and a problem for you)
Lots of people can deal with many problems, that doesn't mean they aren't problems
There hasn't been enough infrastructure investment and the cracks are showing. Solar energy going to waste, not getting paid for it, or having to pay to export it are all non ideal
That's just the invisible hand of the market directing people to use batteries to store the cheap power and export in the evening when the price goes up again.
Also it's because the big coal plants can't quickly turn on and off, so theres too much supply basically whenever the sun is out nowadays.