Will the new “Solar Sharer” plan kill rooftop solar?
22 November 2025
With three free hours of electricity in the middle of the day being mandated from next July, is there any point in buying rooftop solar?
We say, yes!
A drone image of three neighboring houses, each with rooftop solar.
Here I draw on the expertise of my energy guru to explain why rooftop solar still makes sense, and why the plan promotes a bit of fairness into what so far has been a very inequitable clean energy transition.
Federal energy and climate change minister Chris Bowen announced on November 4 that NSW households will have access from July 1 next year to a new Solar Sharer program, whereby electricity companies will be forced to offer three hours of free electricity in the middle of the day, typically between 11am and 2pm.
My guru today is Ty Christopher, until 2020 head of engineering at Endeavour Energy, the poles-and-wires business that powers Parramatta, western Sydney and the Illawarra. Ty ran a half-a-billion dollar capital works program at one of Australia’s largest networks. He now runs the Energy Futures Network at the University of Wollongong.
Here are his thoughts on Solar Sharer, which we endorse from our position talking to people about solar and batteries most days of the week.
First, the big question for a community energy group promoting solar: should households who were planning on going solar next year (and remember the Inner West still has one of the lowest uptakes of solar in Australia) not bother as they will soon be getting three hours of free power daily?
Ty Christopher expects a few households might make this decision, but many households are unable to manage their lifestyles so they only run their washing machine, dishwasher and other appliances in this three-hour window.
Besides, for those who can afford solar, the window of free power from solar energy is much bigger - as long as daylight hours. For those who also have a battery, the window of free power becomes pretty much 24/7.
Inner West Community Energy members today with solar and battery are now typically getting between 95 and 97% of their power from the sun. We have the data.
So Ty expects a few might now decide not to proceed with solar, but for most people who can, solar and a battery will still make sense financially. And it still makes total sense for the climate.
Second, Solar Sharer will promote a bit of energy equity in the energy transition to renewables, something that has been completely absent. Tenants, those in social housing, and others without solar will soon benefit from the huge amounts of solar energy feeding the networks in the middle of the day.
This is a good thing. “It’s about access to solar energy for large numbers of people who are currently locked out of the benefits of solar,” Ty says.
Third, Solar Sharer will force the energy retailers, especially the big four who form a price-setting cartel - Origin, AGL, Energy Australia and Red Energy - to supply free electricity when the wholesale power price is zero.
“Solar Sharers means the retailer cartel will do what they should be doing, passing on the energy for free, because at those times it is free,” Ty says.
And four, providing free power will increase demand for power across the electricity market in the middle of the day. There is so much solar and wind energy feeding into the grid during the middle of day as summer approaches that as much as around 10,000 megawatts of renewable energy output has to be throttled back because there is no demand for it. (Supply must always equal demand on an electricity network.)
“If, say, we could attract another three thousand megawatts of middle-of-the-day demand into the NEM [National Electricity Market] by enabling Solar Sharer, that’s three thousand megawatts less of the pricey fossil-fuel power needed later in the evening,” Ty says.
No wonder the electricity retailers are unhappy!