Sydney Householders to Be Penalised for Producing Power

Energy policy provides yet another script, free of charge, for the producers of TV program Utopia

Householders with solar panels might want to start using a tarp to cover them up during the day.

That’s what I’d be doing after Ausgrid announced plans to charge homes with solar panels if they export electricity back into the grid during daylight hours.

In some Sydney suburbs, 70 per cent of homes now have solar panels.

But the energy company, which owns the poles and wires for 2 million residential customers across Sydney and beyond, says they are producing too much energy.

If excess energy is continually pumped back into the grid the company will need a costly network upgrade.

So, Ausgrid will impose a penalty of 1.2¢ a kilowatt-hour for electricity exported to the grid between 10am and 3pm above a free threshold that varies by the month.

The company helpfully advised that householders could avoid the penalties by storing energy in a battery.

Batteries cost around $9000.

You can get a tarp from Bunnings for around $20.

If you take the tarp off your roof between the hours of 4pm and 9pm, Ausgrid will pay 2.3¢ an hour as a reward to customers exporting solar power to the grid.

Anyway, we now have a situation in NSW and soon across the nation, where citizens generate electricity that we pay power companies to take from us in order to sell back to us.

Next thing you know, Sydney Water will be charging us if we don't use enough water during periods of heavy rain to avoid dam overflows.

This is yet another script that the producers of the ABC’s brilliant program Utopia don’t have to pay for.