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Australians to get at least three hours a day of free solar power - even if they don’t have solar panels (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 5 days ago by budget_biochemist@slrpnk.net to c/energy@slrpnk.net

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Australian households in three states will be promised access to at least three hours a day of free solar power, regardless of whether they have rooftop panels, the federal government has announced.

The “solar sharer” offer will be available to homes with smart meters – which is the majority of homes – in New South Wales, south-east Queensland and South Australia from July next year, with other areas to potentially follow in 2027.

The government said Australians could schedule appliances such as washing machines, dishwashers and air conditioners and charge electric vehicles and household batteries during this time.

More coverage on the ABC: Energy retailers to be directed to offer free power three hours a day

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[–] SaneMartigan@aussie.zone 10 points 4 days ago (1 children)

It's great to run the AC in the middle of hot days.

[–] evasive_chimpanzee@lemmy.world 4 points 4 days ago

I've only really seen commercially available thermal batteries for heating, but i think it's absolutely a solvable problem for cooling.

The idea is that you heat (or cool) a large thermal mass when energy is cheap, and then you distribute that heat (or coolness?) later. Water is the obviously easy thermal mass. The math (and usage) is pretty easy for heating since the amount of energy stored is just massspecific heatdelta_T.

For cooling, you can take advantage of the huge amount of energy it takes to freeze water. For example, it takes about the same amount of energy to go from ice-liquid water at 0°C as it does to then heat that water to 80°C. The trouble is that you can't just pump ice around like you can hot water, so the system has tools be more complicated.