This has been happening since solar came into play. I have had mine for over five years and when you renew your usage it goes up above the discount given. When I put mine in I was told it would be a payment of 66cents and pay for your panels. It since dropped to 60cents and now it is 6cents and the price still goes up. I have never and never will get back what I paid it cost me at the time over $12,000. Talk about been sucked in. Al
Many people were able to pay their systms off in under 5 years with the 60c Gross FiT, and made good profits afterwards, until the end of the scheme in December.
Even now with a 6c NET FiT, a system can pay itself off in well under 10 years.
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Wow, I donāt have solar yet but was hoping to in the near future, thanks for the info, I will look at going off grid, but I wonder at the life of the batteries and cost of replacement. Iād go off grid now if I could Just to give the energy companies a polk in the eye.
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Going off-grid is a very big step for most people- you need to taylor your energy use to availability, ie when there is plenty of sun make the most of it, and economise when it is cloudy. Youād also need a backup generator, but in reasonably sunny locations and with low energy usage, it wouldnāt be needed all that often.
Batteries arenāt cheap, but the price is likely to come down over the next few years as battery production is ramped up. Iāve had my current LiFePO4 battery going since late 2012, and expect a few more years from it. Thatās a DIY battery (made up of 16 cells), which cost a lot less than the commercial offerings from Tesla, Sonnen, Enphase, LG, etc.
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I always had difficulty in understanding why the government or other electricity consumers should subsidise households with solar installed. High FITs (higher than the energy price) need to be paid by someone.
A fairer system would have been to base the FIT on the regulated retail tarrif for domestic consumers. The energy component has traditionally been about half of the tarrif rate. This is the value of the electricity to the local network and say in Queensland for Tarriff 11, would correspond to about 10-12c/kWh.
The 6c/kWh is based on the long term electricity pool price of about $60/MWh. The pool price is not what most domestic consumer payā¦historically only those on the contestable market pay anywhere near this. 6c is not fair unless the energy component of the metered price is also 6cā¦which is not the case.
I suspect that the discounted 6c is to allow thise who paid for the high FIT to claw back some of the costs of subsidising the high FIT.
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Well, what a wake up call it has been reading all this information on Solar Panels, Off-Grid, Smart Meters, blackouts, inverters, voltage spikes/peaks and tariffs. It seems that the Government has lived up to expectations, short term thinking and no concern for the long term. Trusting companies or the Government to ensure that a consumer gets a fair deal is a pipe dream. Lots of elaborate prose but little if any substance for the future. Living in a villa I have not had the option to install solar panels due to trees and the direction my roof faces, that is if I could get body corporate approval. I was always under the impression that solar panels were supposed to reduce green house gasses and help the Government reach green house targets. After reading all this information I am of the opinion that Solar panels are not worth consideration for strata title properties and maybe not worth consideration for anyone until batteries etc get cheaper and you can disconnect from the grid. That is if it is legal then.
Hi dawnkidgell.
As a rule having a āsmart meterā installed is a benefit as they are capable of ātime of useā metering (ignore the āconspiracyā theorists who make wild and weird claims). The benefit occurs because it is possible to shift some of the power consumption from the āpeakā to times when electricity is cheaper, i.e. āoff peakā and āshoulderā. The general rule is the more power you can use during āoff peakā the more you save. āOff peakā is only overnight when general power consumption is low and the bulk electricity cost (i.e. from the generators) is very cheap.
However, the experience you have with āAusnetā is scary. I have checked the various rates for electricity for Ausnet (Victoria) and they are more than double the charges for ACTEW/AGL (ACT), with Energy Australia (NSW) being a little higher than ACTEW. So, you are being hit heavily before anything else is added. I could not find any schedule for Ausnet showing the solar rebate, every other Victorian retailer appears to have a link to their cost schedules. If the information given in the letter is correct, I believe that it is an unnecessary cost imposition as the standard schedule of costs includes a āDaily Supply Chargeā of 157.94 cents per day - THIS is to pay for the construction and maintenance of the electrical infrastructure! It is a flat rate, so it does not matter whether you use no power or use huge amounts of power, particularly in āpeakā periods - it even applies if you have solar and you generate more power than you use! Rather than punishing people for having solar panels generating power during peaks, the electrical retailers should be rewarding them. It is the peak periods that drive most of the need construction and maintenance of āpoles and wiresā; so, if the peak is reduced, there is LESS need to do any work on the infrastructure! Not only that, there is a looming power crisis on the way this summer as Victoria (in particular has a very real risk of having not enough power generation to meet the demand - and donāt blame the closing of the Brown Coal power stations, it has been coming for a long time. So the people with solar panels who are helping reduce the peak load (when the power shortage will happen) are helping to mitigate a power supply shortage!
In summary, I wondering whether additional charge for people with solar panels may be a form of price gouging? Could Choice investigate this?
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The Smart Meter I have installed is a PRI iCredit 500 with Silver Springs networking for remote reading & control. The meter doesnāt have the capabilities of reading the maximum mains voltage.
There is only two buttons on the meter & one of them is sealed as it is the technicians āConfigā button. The other button scrolls through data such as time, date, & energy consumed. Even holding the button down for a few seconds will not allow it to go into other modes.
My meter is not read remotely, even thought it could be, if the infrastructure was installed. It is read āmanuallyā by placing an electronic device on to the ports at the top right.
I am on a fixed rate of General Domestic, since it cant be read & controlled remotely. This means I cant take advantage of off-peak power usage, which was one of the main reasons it was installed. I have written to PowerCor today to ask them why this is so.
Meanwhile I continue to pay off the smart meter through daily supply charges and canāt recover my cost through off-peak savings.
While I can measure the incoming mains voltage at any time, there is no need for me to do so, as I donāt have solar panels, and donāt have problems than can attributed to over-voltage.
Thanks for your information as it will be useful to a lot of consumers.
In Victoria it appears all the electricity companies charge more for solar customers to use power from the grid. They also pay you the minimum feed-in tariff while charging you more for that usage. Looks like a no-win situation for the customer as far as I am concerned. They are allowed to up their tariffs twice a year (in December and June) with the changes taking effect 1 month from publication. I donāt think there is a ceiling on this arrangement either. Victorian electricity users can find these changes published in the Victoria Government Gazette or on the electricity companies own website at these times. This system definitely looks like it it geared for private companies making money and not to reduce our reliance on electricity from fossil fuels.
Potential solar customers need to check what the rates will be (in their respective States) once they are on solar and I know that most people are not aware that the costs for usage are higher than just using power from the grid.
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That is precisely what privatisation is about.[quote=ājulieden, post:29, topic:14004ā]
most people are not aware that the costs for usage are higher than just using power from the grid
[/quote]
and regardless of solar, many people are buying discounts (eg 20%, 30% or even more), not final costs. The higher the discount the higher the base rate, as often as not.
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Iād like to get off the grid but currently it is an absolute mine-field, you donāt know if you are getting good advice or not. I think some energy companies and providers are making this issue overly confusing.
Perhaps Iāll waite a while.
For people used to using electricity from the grid, going off-grid is a pretty big step, one that many installers/solar companies have no experience with, so their advice is of limited value IMHO.
Many of the off-grid systems I have seen advertised are manifestly unsuitable for their claimed daily energy usage capacity, as they just do not cater for cloudy winter weather without excessive generator use. I think I have a pretty good handle on what is required, having been off-grid since 1991.
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We got the vic grant and interest free loan - . The process was incredibly painful but we now have 24 panels on the roof. We asked our energy provider to connect to the grid to gain the feed in tariff of 12 cents per kilowatt(kWh). We were told that we would now need a new contract and our rate for using would go up from 22 cents to 34 - a 12 cent increase. Our dedicated water heater meter would be removed and the price for heating water would go up from 15 cents to 34 per KWh. We could get an alternative plan of 57 cents per kWh but that was way more complicated. All of these plans are called the Solar Reflective Tariff - which is odd but I suppose the Energy folk need to make a profit. Also AusNet charge over $400 dollars to change the meters. As we spend most of our day at home we opted for the third option offered by Tango - not to connect to the grid but use our own electricity - which we have selected. So although we did a huge amount of research we were never told about the Solar Reflective Tariff - so if you are thinking about getting solar please really investigate all the charges because if we signed up for the new tariff our energy bills in winter would go up by a third - and rumours in the financial and business world suggest that the feed in tariff will be abolished - win win for the Big Energy World ! I know I should have investigated more but in all in all I would not have gone for solar panels through this scheme - or any other- you are just ripped off.
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Welcome to the Choice Community Forum Gippslander 
If you put a timer on your water heater to operate through the middle of the day, you can heat it for not 34c/kWh, not 15c/kWh, but for free! (marginal cost of solar power = essentially zero)
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There are many pitfalls and Ausnet is not fully responsible for anything except the meter part of the equation. When I installed solar I was with Red. The ānew solar rateā they offered knocked me off my chair, as did yours you. (I changed to tango after asking my solar company which were the better suppliers as soon as was practical. I was also warned changing suppliers in the āwrongā order, eg prior to the system and billing having settled down to whatever solar plan was offered with the then current provider could also add costs.)
However, my meter reconfiguration was $32 (Dec 2018) - it is clearly stated it can range from tens to hundreds of dollars, case specific. If you are one of the rare sites that did not have a solar feed in friendly smart meter you apparently got hit for the full cost of replacing your old one, whether mechanical or not so smart.
Your highlighting what can happen when
- you have a peak, off-peak electric water service
- you are home all the time rather than out and about during daylight (working or whatever)
is right on. There are ways to adjust such as the timer @gordon mentioned, as well as setting other appliances to operate during your solar production.
In earlier days the feed in tariff caused solar installation to be designed to generate as much power as possible through the day as the FiT exceeded the usage charge. Those days are long gone for most and it has never been a secret that the FiT will eventually be phased out. The better sales companies now design a solar installation to generate power when you use it to minimise what you buy from the grid, not to maximise generation.
I compared the Tango single rate to their peak-off peak and even though we are home 24 x 7 types the single tariff would have been more expensive based on our actual consumption.
The cost of the meter, absolutely on the high end but now that you have done it, it is done. Your should be able to change your plan now that you have experienced the pitfalls.
FWIW my electricity bills reduced from about $150 pcm to $30~40 pcm averaged over 12 months after solar. A lady I know who has far more modest use has been in credit most months. (both in NE Melbourne)
It is good to highlight it can go wrong for some, but your present situation can be reviewed and changed noting you obviously have some justifiable anger about āwhere you areā with your solar.
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If you are not aware, in addition to whatever monitoring is provided by your solar system, AusNet has their own monitoring facility. (<- You can register from that login page.) By plugging in your personal tariff details it will show you your use and costs broken down by multiple criteria, not quite the same as the solar system provides.
That data is essentially what AusNet sends to the retailer for their own billing, and thus is the basis of your billing.
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About time too! I think most installation companies have been rather slow in realising north-facing arrays are not ideal in most cases, something I have been promoting for over 7 years, written up here: https://forums.energymatters.com.au/solar-wind-gear/topic5064.html
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