Power prices on the way up but some good news on the way..

Whenever we talk about alternatives to high power bills you can bet your bottom dollar (and it will be your bottom dollars if prices continue to rise like they are in Victoria next month!), it will get a lot of attention from members.

Great news if you live in Sweden where the government announced this week a new significant incentive for homeowners to install battery packs. Starting this month, the government will cover 60% of the cost! In Sweden, Tesla sells the Powerwall 2 for USD$6,600, but with installation and additional hardware, Tesla estimates it will add up to getting an installed energy capacity of 14 kWh for less than $3,000.

The biggest barrier to home battery storage in Australia is the cost, which currently sits at around $10,000 on average. But the new Powerwall 2 is predicted to pay for itself in 6 years according to consumer Michael Vorstermans from Adelaide who broke down his estimated annual cost of combining his 4 kW of solar rooftop installation with a new Tesla Powerwall 2 and came to the conclusion that it would pay for itself entirely in 6 to 9 years depending on the grid connection he chooses.

He told the Australian Financial Review “I am buying between six and nine years of solar power in advance – that’s the way I look at it – and anything I get out of it after that is free power.” He had done the same calculation with the first generation Powerwall, but he arrived at an 18-year return on investment.

It looks like Tesla will be taking advantage of the Powerwall 2’s quick ROI in Australia since the company plans for the country to be the second market to receive the new home battery pack unit after the US. After the first installation in the US expected in January, Australia should get the Powerwall 2 as soon as February.

This will be good news for Victorians esepcially, who are bracing for steep rises in their power bills. Victorian electricity prices will now return to the heights of the carbon tax with the average Victorian household to cop a 10% or $200 price rise next month.

This follows reports in July that Victorians already paid electricity providers more for their power than any state in Australia and any other OECD country. The Victorian government this week announced an investigation into energy price gouging by former ministers John Thwaites and Terry Mulder.

As more than 200,000 solar households in Australia get ready to lose their premium feed-in- tariffs at the end of the year, most are wondering if the glory days of making money on the power they generate are over…well maybe not.

An innovative new trial is aiming to harness rooftop solar and home energy storage to cut costs and improve the stability and reliability of Australia’s electricity supply. The Australian Renewable Energy Agency is providing nearly $2 million in funding for the Institute for Sustainable Futures to lead the trial in conjunction with the University of Technology Sydney.

Chris Dunstan from the Institute believes it’s possible in the future you could still get paid for the energy you produce, if your inverter can provide voltage support and reliability. Reliability in the market came to prominence back in September when the whole of South Australia was blacked out during a storm.

This is where new technologies such as the “blockchain system” come in. These technologies will allow for smaller and smaller participants to transact energy in the retail and wholesale markets, through peer-to-peer rating and community-focused energy systems – such as micro-grids – and in some instances may by-pass the major utilities all together – in other words, sharing power with your neighbour or street.

This technology holds the promise of lower bills for consumers, more localised and community-based energy, greater resilience for the entire electricity system. To date, Australians have been passively involved in where our electricity comes from but if US models are anything to go by, you will have the capacity to actively buy energy from your local community, rather than the major energy retailers.

If you live in Northern NSW or Victoria and have solar panels, UTS is looking for you to take part in their trial. If successful, it will not only demonstrate how solar and battery storage can help support reliable networks, but also accelerate uptake of rooftop solar. 

Essential Energy will recruit households in the NSW demonstration and United Energy will recruit households in Victoria. For more information about the trial, visit isf.uts.edu.au.

*Based on an analysis of the ABS Electricity Price Index and applying