Allan rushes to roll out more solar as daytime power prices plummet

The Allan Government is rolling out more large-scale solar farms, as it proposes slashing the feed-in tariff for households and businesses delivering rooftop solar into the grid.

The Allan Government is rushing to rollout more solar farms across Western Victoria, while cutting what households can earn feeding rooftop solar into the grid as daytime power prices crash.

The Victorian Government has proposed slashing the feed-in tariff for households and businesses delivering rooftop solar into the grid to just 0.04 cents per kilowatt hour from July 1.

Yet at the same time the government’s renewable energy developer VicGrid is charging ahead with developing an access regime to bolt even more large-scale solar onto the grid in western Victoria.

The Essential Services Commission Chair Gerard Brody last week said the amount of rooftop solar in Victoria had risen from 446,000 systems in 2019 to 787,000 today, which had led to an oversupply of daytime electricity, slashing prices.

Oversupply has regularly left the Victorian spot price sitting at minus $20 to $30 per megawatt hour (-2c to -3c per kWh) during the middle of the day, before rising to $50/MWh once the sun goes down.

Yet VicGrid released a consultation paper last week on how it would go about connecting more wind and solar developments to the grid within new renewable energy zones, most of which will be sited close to the VNI West and Western Renewables Link transmission lines.

VicGrid Chief Executive Alistair Parker said it was “putting in place a new approach to the connection of renewable generation to the shared network, to improve certainty for generators, attract investment, and improve coordination of development to minimise impacts on communities, the environment and electricity bills.”

VicGrid was asked what hosting capacity limits it had set for each REZ, given there were limits on how much additional transmission capacity WRL and VNI West could deliver.

But VicGrid responded by stating those details would be released later this year in its Victorian Transmission Plan.