By Jo Nova
Who wants to buy a battery to help save the Energy Minister?
Spread the word, the new desperate plan to rescue the Transition Fantasy is to trick Australians into buying home batteries (and EVs) because the wind and solar factories can’t afford to pay for their own backup. But read about the experience of poor Mr Anderson. He accepted a $1,000 discount off the price of his battery, and in return agreed to allow AGL to draw off emergency power from his battery to “stabilize the grid in times of drama”. But he didn’t realize that the Australian electricity market did drama all the time. It’s like The Hunger Games at 6pm and he’d just volunteered as tribute.
It seemed like a good idea to sign up to be part of a virtual power plant (VPP). It was fine for the first year, he says, but then AGL started draining his battery at dinnertime, leaving him buying electricity when it was the highest price. Worse, they also changed his payment plan — and he got suckered with the “Demand Tariff” surprise — the diabolical plan which takes someone’s single greatest half hour consumption and then charges them that high rate for the whole month.
AGL disputes his claims (but the more they say, the worse it looks). They declare they don’t flatten home batteries “below 20%” and insist they sent him a letter about the tariff changes. Don’t we all feel so much better, eh?
The reputational damage of this kind of behaviour needs to be known far and wide
Let’s do our part to share his story.
Trust ‘on the line’ amid claims AGL drained householder’s battery at peak times
May 9th 2025 [ABC]
Mr Anderson says that in the first year after joining the scheme and getting the battery, he barely noticed a thing. “It was all very gentle and easy going,” he says.
“The idea of it was to help stabilise the grid in times of drama. “So it all seemed very reasonable. “And for the first year, I don’t even think they touched the battery.”
That all changed after a year or so when Mr Anderson says he started noticing some dramatic shifts. They changed the way they use the battery,” he says.”It went from these little bites every now and again to just full on sucking the thing down to its 5 per cent reserve level, just dragging everything out of it. “And you could map when they were doing that to when the price on the (national electricity market) had skyrocketed.”
They drained the battery and flicked the pricing plan:
Mr Anderson asserts AGL also started “draining” his battery at times, forcing him to buy power from the grid at peak prices.
To compound his frustrations, he says the changes amounted to a double whammy — by forcing him to buy power from the grid at peak times, he claims he was driving up his costs under a demand tariff.
Oh Great: AGL will only drain 80% from your battery?
AGL, which is Australia’s biggest energy retailer with more than 4 million customers, defended its actions in relation to Mr Anderson and its management of the VPP. A spokeswoman rejected claims AGL ever entirely depleted the batteries of participating households, saying it was the company’s policy to always leave at least 20 per cent of a charge remaining.
What good, exactly, is a battery left at 20% charge? For practical purposes the last 20% is untouchable. Beyond that, the homeowner risks permanent damage to the battery. At that point it’s not backup power for your home, it’s a placebo with a lithium core.
So when they say “we’ll never drain your battery below 20%”, what they really mean is: “We’ll take everything that’s usable — and leave just enough so the warranty doesn’t catch fire.”
AGL kept digging — pointing out that the tariff change was completely separate from the VPP deal
It’s true that AGL surprised all kinds of customers with the “Demand Tariff” bomb, not just battery owners, but they can’t pretend they cared about their customers in either situation. AGL was separately awful in two different ways.
The Demand Tariffs, by the way, were so noxiously unfair and unjust that after the backlash last year, AGL is no longer using them.
Mr Anderson has said his experience was so bad he’s left the VPP scheme.
Funny (not!) how we never had any drama before fake conservative Howard and his successors started dismantling one of the best most reliable electricity grids in the world with some of the world’s cheapest prices.
590
This is a good lesson to those thinking of going to a battery.
510
If you have a battery and potentially are vulnerable to drainage of your battery by the company, can you turn off your main switch at 5pm and isolate the grid, and just run on your battery overnight, and thus stop the electricity company from draining your battery?
340
It would probably be a condition of signing up that your battery is accessible to them 24/7.
210
Ah, a honey pot battery then. 😁
60
You do not even need to be smart to know how to operate the battery isolator. It is a required safety feature.
You would be foolish to sign up to a contract that allows others to control the battery. The batteries are capable of exporting power but deep cycling reduces their life.
This sort of shenanigans just encourages people with batteries and solar panels to leave the grid.
The National grid has been stuffed since 21 December 2000. The question yet to be answered is how long before it collapses and there is a reset. Texas is the only large regional grid that has collapsed and now has sensible requirements for generators.
370
“You would be foolish to sign up to a contract that allows others to control the battery.”
Just as the mouse doesn’t realise why the cheese is free, consumers don’t realise why they are offered ‘battery discounts’.
350
“You would be foolish to sign up to a contract that allows others to control the battery”
This is the part that gets me. I guess it sounds cool and so leading edge to say you are part of a VPP, bet seriously what di they think companies like AGL are going to do. The naivety is amazing.
80
“Texas is the only large regional grid that has collapsed”
You forgot South Australia in 2016 and Spain/Portugal in May. Both of them went “Black System”.
50
let’s not forget Broken Hill
30
I thought that was the ultimate aim for those people with solar panels and batteries. Yet very few have done it apart from those who were not on the grid in the first place.
Maybe it is too hard to do. Or too expensive.
10
Might need to thoroughly read your contract and note any ‘penalties’ applied in event of ‘non conformance’.
170
They have thought of that Vicki, and many battery storage devices need mains power and offer perhaps one outlet that can act as a UPS. The moral of this story is to not trust anyone with the power to feed your battery back into the grid ahead of when you need it. I am still in shock at my $5.58 power bill last month.
50
Sooner or later it will become compulsory to contibute your battery infrastructure to be part of this fake “virtual power station”.
And let’s hope that the batteries don’t have backdoors for external control by hostile actors like Chinese solar panel inverters.
300
No it won’t. People will just leave the grid.
50
I don’t agree Rick.
As I said, I expect they will make it compulsory, “to save the planet”.
They won’t let you leave.
You will be an energy slave, and in other ways as well.
Remember that Australia is effectively a One Party State now. The Government do as they please.
310
Even if you decide to leave the grid, don’t the power companies still hit you with a charge, ‘because the wires go past your property’.
80
Ronin,
I don’t think that applies to electricity in NSW, but Sydney Water certainly has an availability charge for properties with no connection, just because there’s a water main in the vicinity.
As David Maddison says, it’s quite likely state governments will use similar measures if off-grid starts getting too popular.
210
No.
I just “disconnected” from gas and have no more gas bills. I asked the plumber to turn it off once the last gas appliance was removed. The Australian Gas Network came along and installed a tag that said the gas had been disconnected. There is no lock on the valve and no gardens were dug up so I presume the tag is all there is.
I priced going off-grid electrically and checked with Ausnet what happens with the meter. Your last retailer is left with the maintenance cost of the meter unless they pay Ausnet the $250 to remove it.
Most networks are now privately owned – Ausnet is owned by Brookfield – North American based. It used to be owned by interests in Singapore. Sao you would need the International owners to approach local councils to collect the charge on their behalf. Nearly al councils are left leaning and hate big business.
50
Rick
IIRC Brookfield is Canada’s new prime minister’s finger in your pie
20
For Queensland AI states:
In Queensland, if you disconnect from the grid, the power supplier may remove the service fuse, but you will still receive a monthly bill for the line usage even though no power is flowing through it. This situation is considered somewhat unreasonable since there is no active power usage, yet you are still billed for the service.
It then, seemingly having accessed web chat sites (quotes whirlpool archive and energy council) suggests that:
To officially disconnect from the grid, you should turn off the main switch in your meter box and inform your retailer that you are moving and wish to close your account. This process allows you to reconnect to the grid quickly if you decide to do so later.
Nothing like having an official system that provides what the consumer wants…. if they are prepared to lie. As far as disconnection from the grid goes we might say No Doubt Its Simple.
30
To stop receiving bills Earl is correct, just cancel your account as if you are moving out. “Re-energisation” is easy in this scenario.
However, to run off-grid, you will need to get an electrician to install (at a minimum) a grid isolation switch, and have the approval/certificate of electrical safety to do it. You cannot generate your own power and still be grid connected without an account/meter/service charge etc. And then, only approved generation – eg. Solar/battery via an approved inverter and smart meter setup. That also now includes the ability for the distributor to shut off the exports in times of “need” via the emergency backstop program (at least in Vicallenistan)
If you really want to go off-grid you need to abolish the supply to the property. This removes the service line, service fuse and the meter. Reconnecting requires effort and more cost via electricians and connection fees.
(None of the above is to be taken as advice)
10
You aren’t allowed (in urban areas) to run your rainwater tanks into anything but toilet flushes because ‘the Council is responsible for the quality of your drinking water’.
So would not be surprised.
00
Quit a few people have become ‘ungridded’ because they couldn’t pay their power bills.
80
Or simply not buy a battery.
60
The batteries are at huge risk of remote damage or control. You can’t safely operate them without a Battery Management System, (BMS), in place. This is supplied within the battery, (in most cases), and is impossible to remove without complete damage to their operation.
Who knows what is in the BMS code or hardware. They are often internet linked so that they can be monitored by your installer, (and whoever has access via the manufacturer’s links). For a domestic solar/battery system, if malicious damage was to be caused by an external entity, it will be to the BMS units. Something as simple as lowering the acceptable discharge limit, (kills the battery), or to raise the acceptable maximum voltage per cell, (kills the battery and …..).
Allowing a third party to control the battery is a recipe for disaster. Who knows what a simple software glitch could do? Imagine if the numpty doing the coding ‘slipped’ when typing the cell minimum voltage, instead of 2.5V, typed 2.4V. It’s a simple ‘mistake’. Who’d know the damage that a global update could do before the fix was implemented? And of course, the damaging limit would only kick in slowly, being only encountered as the battery is drained deeply, maybe after a week of dreary weather. That could be a year in the future. If you never deeply discharged your battery, you’d never know.
One more reason to turn off the remote access, if you ever needed it. Tinfoil hats are cheap insurance.
240
I don’t think there wouldn’t even need to be a glitch. As I understand it, constantly draining and recharging a battery causes wear-and-tear that can lead to increased likelihood of fires. Particularly if they really are violating warranty conditions by draining down below 20%. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to see a substantial increase in house fires for homes on the VPP plan.
130
” It wouldn’t surprise me at all to see a substantial increase in house fires for homes on the VPP plan.”
What a great reason for the state government to increase the fire services levy, all for our own protection of course. Don’t worry about increases to your general insurance either.
230
Don’t worry about increases to your general insurance either.
Or the increases to Western Australian home owners’ insurance to cover the cost of eastern coast flood/fire damage?
90
Our daughter in Bondi has a 100yo wooden house, with solar, a battery affixed to a wall close the the front door and two EV cars (could not tell her!) constantly charging. I told her to check with her insurers, not sure if she ever did. I hope for the best.
20
Once they have shut down all the power stations, as is the plan, this “virtual power plant” will need to supply power all the times the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine.
Standard domestic batteries and solar panels will not be able to supply the deficit of power needed, especially in winter. The batteries will have to be increased in capacity and there may not be enough roof space for the required number of panels.
Essentially they are imposing the capital cost of a power system onto the consumer. Not to mention extra battery degradation due to high levels of discharge.
Perhaps RickWill or others could do the calculations to demonstrate this?
The whole Net Zero fiasco just looks worse and worse by the day, especially as the Government can do whatever it pleases since Australia is effectively now a One Party State.
340
“since Australia is effectively now a One Party State.”
And looks to be the case for the next six years.
220
Ronin,
Remember the LNP has the exact same energy policies. So I’d suggest you recalibrate your 6 year prediction.
This will all end in many tears somewhere between 6 & 8 from now. Suggest we just build a wall around Canberra & keep the whole lot locked away until 10 years after some genius gets around to fixing the whole f up.
80
Six years?? Try 26 yrs. If Covid showed nothing else, it showed 80% of the population don’t have a clue or don’t care as long as the government promises to fix it or give them money they steal from the 20%. Australia doesn’t have a Trump/Farage or Wilders to save us anytime soon. We won’t get change until blackouts become a daily way of life. We,ve got the diesel generator hooked up to kick in automatically and a few thousand litres of diesel in tanks. A few cows and sheep, a dozen chooks and the vege garden-i wont be feeling sorry for my friends who still think a vote for the Liberals is a vote for a better Australia
50
The response to covid was a big mistake … the cover up afterwards was not. It was the coverup that really destroyed trust.
10
Roof area: –
On a dreary day, a solar panel will output about one tenth of its rated capacity. Assume your house uses 14kWHr per day electrically and that you have access to 7 hours of winter daylight.
So the panels will need to produce 14/7 = 2kW to maintain a battery charge. 2kW, on a dreary day, will require 20kW of installed panels. At 20% efficiency, that will mean a surface area of 100m2.
With this system, you could effectively operate a 14kWHr house demand throughout the year, even if the sun never breaks through the gloom.
Battery: –
IF you had the solar installation as noted above, you could get by with just a 14kWHr battery, but that would be a very thin margin for outages, breakdowns, etc. A better solution would be to have 4 days of demand up your sleeve, allowing for a technician to arrive at your house and fix anything that breaks, even over a long weekend. So aim for round 50kWHr of storage.
There are plenty of battery rack systems now available that contain 10 of 5kWHr packs, in a tidy rack measuring 0.6m x 0.6m and around 2m high.
Costs: –
Battery, allow $3k per 5kWHr pack, so $30k.
Solar panels, allow $1/W, (installed), so $20k.
Inverter and misc, allow another $5. Plus misc installation, siting, quotations, etc, etc. The total is going to come to circa $60k.
And that’s for a house that will effectively NEVER need a grid connection again.
Business…. Never going to happen, the batteries would be huge, the solar panels grossly exceed the roof area of the building and the required management of the system is another wage to be paid.
If you ever see a sign saying that a supermarket is 100% renewable powered, ask them where the batteries are. They lie by omission. On a cloudy, still day, they burn coal and gas, just like everyone else. It’s the umbilical that they just can’t afford to cut.
290
Interesting calculation Ian, now lets do the other side of that calculation. You invest $60,000 (assuming you have a spare $60,000 otherwise you also pay interest charges) at day 1. If instead you had invested in an interest returning modality your could probably get 4% fairly easily so $2400 per year. Of course if you had a spare $60,000 you could have invested the money say into superannuation the return is far higher – as much as 7%-8% compounding. Now,how long will your system last? What I am hearing is 20 years. So after 20 years is your $60,000 system worthless? No actually its worse than that because you will have to pay the removable and disposal cost for battery (toxic waste) and panels. Lets guess its $10,000. Thus over 20 years you have expended $70,000 or $3500 per year. We will ignore maintenance charges and possibly higher insurance premium because of the additional fire risk, loss due to hail damage to panels etc. So overall between loss of capital and loss of interest your system will cost you $5900 per year – based in 4% RETURN IE: a term deposit type of investment. If you use 14 kwhr/day that’s 5110 kwhr per year so your effective cost of your electricity is 5900/5110 = $1.15 per kwhr. A few years ago electricity cost around $0.18 per kwhr, now it costs around $0.30 per kwhr, still a long way from $1.15. And of course all of this assumes the government will not do something to extract more money from you such as charging infrastructure costs whether connected or not, or maybe forcing you to connect to the grid so they can drain your battery and reducing its life not to mention the loss of the power at minimal return. Its not an investment I would be keen to make.
240
The whole irony of the home electricity generation sector is that the systems only look half attractive, because the price of electricity has been artificially increased mostly due to subsidising people like RickWill. It’s like a dog chasing its tail. Does nothing for the environment, wont change the weather either. My total energy costs have gone from $4073 in 11/12 to $9328 in 23/24. So more than doubled. Even at those higher costs, the investment in home solar/batter/backup is still not that attractive. Maybe if I bought a new house it might.
40
Michael,
All VERY good points. When I went off grid, 15 years ago it was because it was a new build in a rural location and the cost of the poles to the house was over $60k, long before a transformer, cabling, installation, design, etc came into the picture.
So for me, the money has been well spent. With regard to the batteries, I started with lead acid, gel cells, they lasted 15 years and are in the process of being changed out now. So 20 years is a STRETCH. I’d say 15 is a better bet.
With regard to costs of dismantling, the batteries are worth about $900 scrap, (cash back to me). So some win there. My new batteries, including complete new charging circuit(s), is costing just under $20k and that is for 35kWHr, installed, usable capacity.
I don’t think it is economical YET in the burbs to go off grid but it is getting closer by the day.
40
To throw a fly in the ointment of ROI, choosing to use Amber Electric (I am not with them, as it makes no sense for me ATM) as your *wholesaler*, not retailer of electricity, then you get to play directly in the wholesale market, at those 15 minute price intervals.
Most recently, they have *paid* homeowners $19/kWhr at the peak rate, (obviously not everyday, just a particular evening peak). Further, during what retailers call “solar soak”, the wholesale price can go negative, which means you get *paid* to charge a battery (there are retailers who offer free solar soak charging, and 16c/kWhr peak feed in tariff).
Eng_Ian’s 50kWhr battery can feed in a single phase maximum of 10kW; over 3 hrs of peak feed in, with Amber, he can earn ~ $550 on that good day, leaving enough charge to be comfortable. Even better, assuming the negative price was $2/Kwhr, he could be *paid* another $60 to re-charge that battery. So, a solid earn of ~$600, in one DAY, on top of what should be a zero dollar electricity bill, over the year. You can guarantee, those days will become MORE common, as the grid deteriorates.
To add a further twist, there are off-grid style battery setups which offer input(s) for a generator. The meter has no idea of the source of electrons, what’s the ROI on a 3.6kVa generator, if you can get $60/hr running it at peak times?
The way the grid is trending, price wise, Eng_Ians proposed setup could be turned into an income stream, the equivalent of a second job….
10
Sounds about right. My home solar system that can deliver up to 35 kWh in summer is currently delivering less than 10 kWh every day, due to a recent wet period. Only delivered 4 kWh one day recently.
50
A typical LiFePO4 battery pack is rated for around 6000 cycles, from 100% down to 20%.
If you do that once a day, you’ll get the lifespan. IF you allow the grid to do it once in the morning pea and once again in the evening peak, then you have halved the life.
Simples.
160
To go off the electricity and gas grids, you first have to reduce your demand. That means better insulation unless you already have a high standard. If I was building again, I would have double glazing. Heat pumps hot water is good value as are reverse cycle heating and cooling. All lighting LEDs. Modern refrigerator/freezer are usually very efficient.
Making these changes can get daily winter demand down to around 10kWh (45m^2 of panels) To meet that, you need 10kW of solar panels and 20kWh of battery capacity.
The panels would be favourably aligned for worst Sun. About 60 degrees to horizontal at 37S. That means their shadow is almost twice their height. Tilting panels at this angle makes them immune to observed hailstones in Victoria. For Brisbane, the tilt will be less and hail from a supercell would likely wipe them out. I have seen cricket ball size hail take out roof tiles so only metal roofs survive them.
You would be well advised to have a small auto start diesel.
With current subsidies in Victoria the costs would be:
Say $10k for the panels, $15k for the battery and $5k for the diesel. The battery price includes the inverter. That would require favourable installation. You would need to allow another $10k for site specific works.
It is my view you will be able to get off grid for the price of a new medium size vehicle once it becomes normal practice. 10kW solar systems are the standard size now.
There are firms doing off-grid systems but they are not yet common.
Over time, housing will be better integrated into its energy system. Good insulation; north facing steep roof; energy efficient appliances. Meter boxes will disappear. You will be able to phone up for a diesel delivery like many people do now for LPG delivery.
In my view the National grid has been in mortal decline since 2000. Texas is the only large grid that I know has made a corrective reset.
92
RickWill,
Your figures certainly don’t make a good case for going off grid at the moment. Over 20 years you can expect to replace the battery twice and the panels once (if you’re lucky on both). That’s $40,000, paid mostly well in advance.
At 10kWh per day consumption, say at a pricy $0.40 / kWh, that’s $4 per day for on-grid supply plus (say) $1 for access. So $5 × 20 years × 365 days is $36,500.
So you’re $3,500 worse off, have also paid installation and maintenance fees, lose sleep about being burnt to a cinder overnight, get into a tizz about hailstorms, etc. And how would you feel if sanity returned in five or ten years’ time and we started building some decent coal-fired power stations?
110
Sanity returns. That would make my day.
I’d stay off grid due to the cost of cabling to my house.
Back to the sanity, the economy needs it, and that cannot be avoided. Without coal fired power stations all employment will end once the money runs out. And it will.
120
Robert,
Easy one first ” if sanity returned in five or ten years’ time and we started building some decent coal-fired power stations?”
The time from first decision (let’s do this) to first electrons is AT LEAST a full decade… Given the Election debacle, we likely have 6 years of Hard Labor to do BEFORE any “let’s do this” occurs. Only total grid collapse will expedite *decision* making, NOTHING will shorten procurement times, so figure on TWO more DECADES of things getting worse.
I just looked up an older electricity bill.
Supply charge has increased 10c/day/yr for 8 years (love them poles and wires). Electricity is up 33% (to that 40c/ kWhr) in that same time.
Prices rise again in July.
So, assuming linear rise, at the 10 year from now price ($7/day), $7x20x365 = $51 100 vs initial system cost of $40k AVERAGED over the 20 years.
The “tipping point” where batteries make a LOT of sense is arriving fast.
00
Nigel W,
Fair comment, but predicting is hard etc.
My calculations balanced ignoring inflation by also ignoring the cost of all the up-front money for the off-grid setup. You can call that AVERAGED if you like (even with upper-case) but coming up with $25,000 this year and another $15,000 in a decade is quite spiky compared to the steady growth in electricity bills.
00
You are looking at the current costs for the electricity. The electricity price inflation over the last 10 years has been around 8%. It gets harder now as more coal stations are kept alive but not renewed.
My lithium batteries are 13 years old and still doing the job. They are rarely deep cycled.
It is not economic now to go off the grid if you already have grid connection but it is the end stop for price increases because everyone who can afford to leave the grid will. The grid is no longer a commercial asset.
Right now the lowest cost option for those with solar is a battery around 10kWh. Most days it will cycle about 50%, which will give good life. Then when the grid costs go up, leave the grid. You already have sunk costs.
00
Amazing he got the first year troublefree.
100
Nah
It’s a classic sales technique … the first hit is free. Drug dealers use it, social media companies use it, gaming companies use it, etc. Give the product away, get the consumer hooked (either through brand loyalty or addiction or habit and sloth), then hit ’em up with the costs and keep raising ’em right up to the very edge of their pain threshold. The same applies to VPP. Get ’em hooked with the credit/rebate, give ’em a grace period to feel good about their decision, then start picking their pockets once they’re all in.
260
It’s even more sneaky than you imagine. When calculating the interest rate for a number of repayments, if they are all the same the polynomial equation where “interest rate” is the variable has only one sensible solution. However if instead of just repayments you add a negative number (give back money), the interest rate polynomial then has several different solutions for “what is the interest rate” … so they can pick an alleged interest rate that is a lot smaller.
In other words it’s a mathematical con to manufacture a low interest rate for the same overall payments
20
Buy a Mahindra. My 2012 model still has it’ original battery. There’s a lot to be said for old fashioned engineering. Not related to the article but things are engineered for replaceability.
60
I believe Mahindra are known for tough, durable vehicles designed for rough Indian roads and repairability.
50
I purchased an XUV500 SUV AWD from a country dealer who had decided to stop stocking road vehicles and concentrate on farm machinery, the price I paid was cost to that dealer. Over the next four and a bit years I drove to many places around Australia and covered over 200,000 Kms, and often towed a medium size caravan comfortably, it was 1,800 kg legally loaded and the XUV500 towing capacity was 2,500 kg and it handled the caravan well.
The 2.2 litre intercooler turbo diesel engine was designed and manufactured in Austria and the 6-speed transmission was from US Jeep.
There were no major mechanical problems and some relatively minor warranty covered items.
The build quality was very good and the on road handling too.
My one complaint was that first gear was too high and getting off the mark towing on a hill was a struggle.
30
Another way they will be able to steal your power is by the mobile battery in your EV with a V2G, Vehicle to Grid, connection
Hence another reason the Government wants people to own EVs.
It will be too bad when you get in your car in the morning to go to work to find a flat battery. But then again, they want you to work at home anyway like many federal public serpents do (and remember the outrage when Dutton wanted to stop them).
130
I can see a train driver ringing in and saying my car has a flat battery, I’ll just work from home today.
180
Dutton was on a winner with the public serpents being told to go back to the office. They were never going to vote for him anyway. The masses, (WHO PAY FOR THE PS), wanted them to be working, nor off shopping and child minding.
And with regard to the car battery, AGL will only take power until you are down to 20%, (so they say….). I dare you to drive to work, with your lights on. I dare’s ya.
150
Re the EV battery.
How about if you had planned a small round trip of say 200-300 kilometres for the morning and woke to find your battery at 20%?
Cancel your trip?
Hire a real car?
Realise that you know don’t own the electrons in your EV? That some other entity comtrols those electrons that you paid for and will use them at will?
This is stupidity in action.
121
The best thing about a battery is that even when flat, it has the same number of electrons in it.
Bowen will undoubtedly state this shortly, “We won’t take the electrons from your battery”.
And that’s about as far as I’d trust him. I’m sure he’s working on legislation to thwart the laws of physics as we speak/type/read.
50
Apology for the down vote. I meant to do an up vote but touched the wrong button.
00
And Albanese warned voters that the Coalition intended to stop all employees from working at home, and despite Peter Dutton and other Coalition MPs repeating that the plan related to public service employees in the ACT.
10
By now you should have worked out that wind and solar energy are among the greatest frauds in the history of human civilisation. Even solar, with only a capacity factor half that of wind is a waste of minerals and land even for sunny Australia.
You would see that the EV rollout is just a scam to get you to buy a wind turbine backup battery when the grid blacks out.
Realising all that, you would also know that ending coal power electricity is moronic and that Australia should have overturned our ban on the nuclear power industry decades ago and by now possibly had one on-line.
You probably realised years ago that recycling is a giant con and is just getting worse because higher energy prices prevent any local processing.
You’ve no doubt heard there is some magic gizmo that will make their pet green project (eg. Hydrogen) viable, or claim that it is functional based on some small scale experimental project.
You’ll predict that the green revolution will not create jobs because when did making energy more expensive ever create new jobs?
In fact, there isn’t a single facet of Net Zero that’s beneficial to Australia and any emissions reduction target is both unachievable and unaffordable.
Net Zero is a transition to a mineral intensive energy system which will require multi-factor increase of minerals mining, and that extraction process is not “green”.
If you’ve worked all that out then you know there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to vote Labor, Greens,Teals and perhaps even LNP. Collectively the present major parties will more destroy the Australian economy and its infrastructure than the Japanese could ever have dreamed of during WW2
270
The latest wrinkle on power is for those with solar to sell their output to those who don’t have or can’t have it.
Not sure how that’s going to work, maybe a bit like green offsets.
40
If other people need electricity at some time then then chances are that you’ll need it too.
It’s that simple.
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A battery pack can supply a lot more power than you need at any one instant. As a guide, a simple 50kWHr battery rack, (as I mentioned above), can supply power at 50kW. Of course, your inverter which connects to the grid will be the limiting factor. If it’s a 10kW unit, that’s what the grid can take. Your house is likely to be consuming 5kW during the same period. So the battery CAN supply you and the grid at the same time.
And of course, if you have a battery, how long before the government insist that your inverter be increased in size, for your own good, of course.
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how long before the government insist that your inverter be increased in size,
How about allowing for winter output of your system?
I would settle for Horizon to allow me 6kw of inverter (yes a WA 2 phase connection with a current 5kw maximum on a 10kw grid transformer). Allowing installation of another 1.5 kw of primarily winter useful panels. At just over 6kw on the roof I am at the summer (and legal) maximum for the current inverters.
35degS means wall mount is (almost) useful as well during the winter with minimal summer output.
So far this morning output seems to be in the 1-2kw range on a very cloudy day.
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Eng_Ian Most local grid operators limit input from each home to 10kW per phase.
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Someone please let me know When WA permits home connections to have an inverter greater than 5kw grid connected.
Single or two phase.
Rare to have a home connection on three phase.
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Quit a few people have become ‘ungridded’ because they couldn’t pay their power bills.
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I asked Goolag AI:
how many Australians have had their electricity disconnected due to inability to pay bills”
And a link is provided:
https://www.esc.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/RPT%20-%20Victorian%20Energy%20Market%20Report%20-%20Annual_1.pdf
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It will only get worse when the government rebates end.
Never forget all the politicians, bureaucrats and media who told us that renewables are the cheapest form of power.
We knew it was all a lie, when will they admit it?
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The last thing the power bill collectors want is to disconnect you, but they also want to be paid , so there are ways to pay affordable amounts off your bill, possibly weekly if the customer contacts the provider in time. It seems many do not and reach a point where the provider has to cut their losses.
That 11,651, is a yearly amount and is increasing each year, so the accrued number of disconnects is growing rapidly, this year will see the numbers increase appreciably, with NSW seeing a 10% increase.
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I was recently contacted (by mail) by my energy company advising that smart meters were scheduled to be installed at no charge in my meter box. I immediately responded and insisted to OPT-OUT of such an arrangement. The thing is, if I had done nothing it would have happened. I’m sure a lot of customers just went along with it through apathy or lack of understanding of what it means.
Smart meters gives the company control of the supply and availability as well as varying rates and the ability to control certain appliances remotely.
There is no way I would agree to let others control my energy supply like that.
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I changed to Red Energy and they informed me that they were going to install a smart metre. I said no and then they said fine, but we are going to charge you about $400+ per (or some exhorbitant figure)read to read the meter. The person on the phone made a big effort to get me to say yes. I said that it wont do them any good because there is no mobile phone coverage so they will still have to send someone out to read it even if there is a smart metre. They stopped annoying me after it was clear there is no mobile coverage here. I would think about going off grid if they insisted on one. Would be costly and annoying but its costing me $8000+ per year in electricty, not sure why.
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I’m thinking that only people who vote for the left side of politics would be victims of this obvious scam. No sympathy from me !!!
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Yep, definitely the left of the IQ distribution curve- and of course some of us who like surfing the asymptote!
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Up or down though? 😉
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err…. Horizontal I guess JC
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Is the 80/20 rule just another urban myth though, like low fat food or safe & effective?
Debunking the 80/20 limits on EV battery charging: More FUD from fossil fuel industry
The ‘new’ one I am referring to is what I will call here the 80/20 ‘rule’. This myth says that batteries should never be charged beyond 80% or discharged below 20% lest ‘irreversible damage’ occur.
So where has this nonsense come from? Like all good urban myths: it is based loosely on a couple of pieces of information that have been taken out of context, and are borne out of “rules” that might equally apply for an internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle.
https://thedriven.io/2023/04/04/debunking-the-80-20-limits-on-ev-battery-charging-more-fud-from-fossil-fuel-industry/
Or Will Prowse:
https://diysolarforum.com/threads/how-many-of-you-set-your-battery-max-discharge-under-20.64358/
Your battery will die of old age before it dies from cycling abuse.
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“It is also worth pointing out that the early EVs with smaller batteries were almost always charged to 100%, and their batteries did not ‘die’ early as a result.”
What happened to the Mercedes that died after 8years? Didn’t Merc think that was the normal life for them? He’s a bit of a clown with his petrol engine ideas of don’t go below 1/4 and don’t fill it up if you’re not driving daily. I always run down to the last 7litres and then fill to the brim, so unlike his 13-yr-old iMiEV that has only 65% of it original range, my 40year-old Corolla still goes as far as it ever did.
Still, he’s trying to sell something..
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In the days before Li-ion, nicads ruled and it was de rigueur to fully discharge and fully charge for best performance and life.
Then, in accordance with the lightbulb conspiracy theory (watch the doco if you haven’t) battery lifespans began dropping for no reason, 10 years became 3.
/sell more!
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I’m not surprised by this activity from AGL as i’ve had bad experiences with them previously.
I moved into a rental property years ago and had organised connection of the utilities. The power was on first day of the lease. After a couple of months the power went out. AGL had not accepted the requests of my new energy provider to transfer the account and had acquired me as a customer without my consent. They didn’t have my name or contact details yet l was a customer. They had sent mail addressed to “the resident” but I didn’t open the envelopes assuming it was promotional material. So when l didn’t pay the bill, they cut the power.
It took weeks to resolve the situation. I’ll never deal with them again.
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Oohhh, just got my quarterly power bill today.
$180. Maybe I should get a pool/dishwasher/dryer/sauna etc
LOL…
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HI John, I pay about the same but I only have a small flat/unit in Sydney. I get state and federal government subsidies but everyone else has to pay for this.
I will accept the subsidies but to be truthful I don’t understand why other people should subsidies my electricity bills through their taxes.
I would prefer to carry my own weight but like everyone else I will accept the money and that’s the problem.
The government is buying favor this way but eventually the money will drie up and your kids and grand kids will have to pay for this.
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Queensland has the Advancing Clean Energy Schools (ACES) program which resulted in 120 state schools getting solar panels installed on their (massive – school hall) roofs and they can sell their excess power to the grid.
The program was expanded in February 2022 and has delivered over 200,000 solar panels across 912 schools saving them approx. $26m annually which has been used to pay off the Treasury $97m loan and fund other education priorities.
There is no indication/comment on whether the project included battery installation and if it didn’t then what an opportunity still waiting to be taken. Fire danger could be minimised by isolating the battery “shed” at a distance from other school buildings.
The network managers might also establish a hub to feed into the network at a $$$ pittance compared to running cables from out whoop whoop wind generators. Think of all those school holidays where 100% would feed the network. How fast could a temporary field of panels be set up and pump even more through to cope with Christmas holiday air conditioning??
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EV Fire Sale
Including seawater damage
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Funny how we never saw car carrier ships burning at sea on the news before EV’s became popular, or is it just a news beat up.
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Another car carrying ship . With battery cars on board . On fire , drifting .
I don’t think those batteries have improved much .
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/06/05/when-lithium-ion-batteries-set-sail-yet-another-warning-to-be-ignored-by-the-climate-technocrats/
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My caravan has an Absorbent Glass Mat (AGM) battery that is now approaching ten years, charging when travelling is via vehicle alternator or campsite power point, and at home in the shed power point. The electrical system has trickle charge maintenance mode. The battery is sealed.
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Batteries have a very limited life in terms of charge recharge cycles. So, every time the battery is drained the lifetime is shortened, which means that that there is a very high cost to be added to the cost of charging a battery which is the replacement cost of the battery.
When I looked at using much cheaper Lead acid batteries for a Electric car, I found that the biggest price was not electricity but the depreciation of the battery every time it was charged. When you factor that in, the guy was being conned.
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FWIW – elsewhere
“US Power Grid “Getting Critically Tight” — Time To Consider Backup Power At Home”
https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/us-power-grid-getting-critically-tight-time-consider-backup-power-home
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“The analysis indicates that the U.S. will dip below the industry-recommended 20% reserve margin this year, with national effective spare capacity projected to decline to an alarming 14% by 2027. Once this margin drops below 15%, the risk of grid reliability issues soars. ”
How’s Oz going?
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