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Helping to maximise your solar savings

With the Solar Grid Saver you can earn more from your solar, while ensuring the grid can accommodate increasing demand.
6 min read
Last updated 15 Jul, 2022

Australia is a leader in rooftop solar. According to the Clean Energy Council, nearly three million households and businesses around the country have a rooftop solar system, and over a quarter of Australian homes are now solar-powered. South Australia is at the forefront, where more than 320,000 households and businesses (more than one in three) have solar systems.

These households and businesses already enjoy some of the great benefits of solar. Since they can consume the energy produced by their solar panels, they don’t have to use – and pay for as much energy from the electricity grid. That means lower electricity bills and more control over what type of power they use.

Another benefit of having solar is that you can export excess energy from your system back into the electricity grid – helping you contribute to the community with renewable energy. In October 2020, solar panels supplied 100% of South Australia’s energy for an hour. It made SA the first major state in the world to be powered entirely by solar.

Suburban brick home with solar panels on roof

Lightening the load on the grid

As more solar comes online, it’s time to make sure we all can continue to enjoy these benefits to the fullest.

Our electricity grid was designed for a one-way flow of electricity - from large-scale coal and gas power plants outside of major cities to our homes and businesses. But energy generation is now decentralised onto rooftops, and there can be hundreds of thousands of homes feeding solar back into the network at the same time. This excess supply of solar can sometimes cause energy “traffic jams”.

For example, households might not need to run their air conditioning on a sunny spring or autumn day, so household consumption could be low in the middle of the day. That unused solar energy is fed back into the grid at the same time, putting stress on the system to deliver reliable power.

“Australia’s invested in a huge amount of solar, which is great. We’ve got to a level where we have to figure out the best way for that solar to be used efficiently and for consumers to maximise their solar investment”, says Travis Hughes, AGL General Manager of Energy Hubs.

A smarter solar solution 

If the network gets too crowded, sometimes those who own solar panels can be stopped from producing or exporting to the grid, so they lose financially. But there’s a better way to manage this so people can earn more from their solar system and contribute to a sustainable future. It’s called Solar Grid Saver.

“AGL has been at the forefront of bringing new technologies to create a renewable, more reliable grid,” Travis says.

“As more and more people install solar systems, we need to manage the impacts of exporting it and bring that power to the grid in a smarter way.”

How Solar Grid Saver works

Our Solar Grid Saver plan rewards users for participating in an innovative solution that ensures households can continue to get the most value from their solar panels while ensuring the grid can accommodate increasing solar.

Solar Grid Saver works by pausing your solar exports for up to 140 hours per year – less than three hours per week on average. When there is more rooftop solar than the system demand requires, we’ll access your solar inverter remotely and reduce your solar exports, so that the electricity grid can operate safely. You can continue to generate and use your own solar power for your home even during times when solar exports are paused.

For playing your part in a smarter solar solution, you’ll receive up to $150 in bill credits every 12 months. These credits vary based on the size of your system but will ensure you’ll be better off than the potential loss in feed-in-tariff credits.

With Solar Grid Saver, you can still use your solar energy to power your home like you always have. You’ll still get all the great savings from using your own generated solar power however you like, and you’ll have the peace of mind that you’re contributing to a safer, more sustainable and efficient power grid.

“When you sign up for Solar Grid Saver, you help make the country’s grid more dynamic,' Travis says. 'By letting some of those larger sources of renewable energy play nicely in the grid, we increase the network’s capacity to host more renewables. And you’re getting paid for it.”

Ready to started?

Get started with Solar Grid Saver if you’re an existing AGL solar customer in South Australia, or if you own an eligible solar system (Sungrow or SolarEdge solar inverter) and want to make the switch.

Request a call back

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