SA Govt wants cheaper weekend tariff from SA Power Networks to soak up excess rooftop solar
Relaxing at home on the weekend? The SA Government wants to make weekends even better with a call for power prices to be cut because our rooftop solar is doing too good a job.
SA News
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Electricity should be cheaper on the weekends, the South Australian Government has told the national body which is deciding how much consumers will pay SA Power Networks for the next five years.
The huge uptake of rooftop solar has led to a problem of too little demand from the grid during weekends, Energy Minister Dan van Holst Pellekaan says.
Distributor SAPN has already proposed a cheap rate — which it calls a “solar sponge” — to soak up excess power in the day.
But the SA Government wants it to go even further on the weekends to help stabilise the grid and flatten prices.
“The SA Government considers that sending appropriate price signals, which incentivise consumers to shift usage of electricity during periods of low demand, is an important mechanism to help manage minimum demand periods in SA,” Mr van Holst Pellekaan said.
“These periods typically occur on weekends.”
Mr van Holst Pellekaan was commenting on SAPN’s revised proposal to the Australian Energy Regulator which will determine the company’s revenue from July 2020 to June 2025.
SAPN wants to earn $3.92 billion in a proposal which would cut average residential bills by $62 a year.
Last year, SA broke its record for low demand on the grid four times — most recently on Sunday November 10 when operational demand (power dispatched by generators) was 446MW because rooftop solar was supplying 64 per cent of the state’s usage.
The electricity system — which consumers pay for — is set up to cope with much higher operational demand, reaching a peak last year of 3140MW on January 24.
Low demand can make it harder for the Australian Energy Market Operator to retain balance, affecting the stability of frequency and strength in the grid.
Rooftop solar was also identified as an issue needing attention in several other submissions to the regulator.
Business SA said the “growing penetration of solar, including amongst businesses, is providing new challenges for the management of the electricity distribution network and Business SA supports SAPN’s prudent spending to avoid reduced reliability”.
The Energy and Water Ombudsman, Sandy Canale, supported upgrading to support rooftop solar because parts of the network were struggling to handle the volume of energy being injected from households.
“Customers who have purchased solar systems are increasingly finding that their capacity to export is disrupted,” the Ombudsman said.
“(The Ombudsman) supports efficient measures to better manage voltage issues arising from increased distributed energy resources (mostly rooftop solar) on the network.”
The Clean Energy Council accused the regulator of taking a “penny-pinching approach” by squeezing SAPN’s intended spending on integrating rooftop solar.
The Australian Energy Regulator is due in April to announce its determination on how much SAPN can make.