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…When the 60c gross feed in tariff expires at the end of 2016 will everyone who has that arrangement have to reconfigure their two meters back to one “net” meter or do the power companies intend to achieve this with software?…
As I am in the ACT I am not 100% sure of the NSW situation. However, I would not expect meters to be swapped back to the old spinning disk sort that would run backwards or forwards and would automatically do net metering. With those meters you could consume 3KWh of an evening and the next day you might wind the meter back to where it was with 3KWh production in the day. Now, or in 2016, I would expect net metering to be done in software. However, I don’t think any guarantees have been given through legislation that this will always be how it is done. On the other hand, with solar panels on a million roofs around the country, there might be enough critical mass to make it a politically ‘courageous’ decision not to ensure net metering as people expect it to be.
Now in the ACT I think people still get a single electronic, not mechanical, meter that has multiple registers. ACTEWAGL, our electricity retailer, will pay gross for the separately metered production at either the day time rate if the customer is on the time of use metering plan or at the flat rate if they are on that plan. Here it is optional to sign up for flat rate or TOU metering. The day time ‘shoulder’ rate is almost the same as the flat rate in any case. So, here someone installing today would get 18-19c/kWh regardless of their consumption amount or pattern.
If I were installing a PV system now and still had a spinning disk meter I would try to have the PV system installed ‘behind the meter’ to automatically get net IE the flat retail rate. IE My [consumption minus production] would be indistinguishable from just less consumption.
…Otherwise, if somebody is supplying 3 KWh in the daytime (at 6c) and consuming 3KWh at night (at 25c) , they would still face a fairly hefty bill.
Yes, there could be some interesting interactions between PV production and people’s consumption habits and ‘smart’ metering that allows for different consumption tariffs at different fixed times of the day or even dynamically as demand varies on the grid.
There are interesting products that combine a PV inverter with a modest amount of battery storage and a power router. These can be programmed to avoid sending any excess power to the grid during the day so that energy instead goes to batteries that are then used during the evening to minimise import from the grid during the expensive peak period. With such a set up you avoid export for which a low rate is paid and avoid import when you would have to pay a high rate. Consequently the PV system savings to you can approach the evening peak retail price. This sort of product can be much cheaper than the sort of system that allows for complete off-grid independence such as one might have on a farm because it does not have to have enough storage to cope with your highest power requirements or to reliably supply 100% of your usage.
One possibility is that by 2016 such systems, which can be bought now, are more readily available and a very attractive option.