Wemen Solar Farm, Victoria, Australia. Photo: Mark Stebnicki on Pexels
The Australian government is floating a scheme that would share the benefits of solar power with everyone on the grid, offering totally free electricity to ratepayers in the middle of the day, when the sun is shining the strongest.
Australia is a sunny place. It’s kind of known for it. It’s the sunniest continent, and the sunniest country outside of the Middle East/Africa, with extensive photovoltaic power potential across its entire territory.
In recognition of that, Australia has been installing lots of solar power. Formerly a coal-heavy nation (for which coal is still its 2nd-largest export), solar and wind have rapidly taken over Australia’s electricity grid, pushing coal and methane gas out of the equation.
This has taken a big chunk out of Australia’s electricity-related climate emissions, and of course resulted in clean air benefits as dirty coal is pushed out of the grid. And climate emissions matter a lot for Australia, a country that is becoming more unbearably hot and suffering more fires due to climate change. (Though Australia is also a great example of how global cooperation on environmental issues can fix a huge problem, as they are the primary beneficiary of global action on closing the hole in the Ozone layer)
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So solar power has been a great thing for Australia, especially with rooftop solar on Australian homes.
But it can lead to swingy electricity supply, given that solar only generates electricity when the sun is out.
How swings in solar supply and electricity pricing work
Most areas have certain times of day where more electricity is used than others. These are referred to as “peak hours” and generally they happen in the early evening, when people get home from work, turn on the HVAC, cook dinner, do laundry and the like.
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