Solar trading just got easier

Electricity consumers in Victoria will now be able to trade solar power with their neighbours in a first for the Australian renewables market, according to Powershop Australia.

The company has been trialling a scheme under the ‘Your Neighbourhood Solar’ banner, which enabled customers to buy a product linked directly to promoting the production of solar energy from the Powershop in their community. They sold 100,000 trial Powerpacks in 48 hours and are now making the product more widely available.

Powershop CEO Ed McManus said that for the first time in Australia, Victorians now have the ability to effectively trade solar energy with local solar panel owners.

“We know people want to be able to use renewable energy if they can. We surveyed all customers who purchased a Your Neighbourhood Solar Powerpack and found 89% of people purchased the packs because they wanted to support those with solar and 71% of people said they would buy the product regularly,” said McManus.

Customers within the CitiPower distribution area who generated solar power during this period effectively earned a feed-in tariff that was 48% higher than Powershop’s current feed-in tariff (7.2c/kWh); while the neighbours buying the solar Powerpack spent on average an extra $9.40 on their bill over the month.

“This is a genuine community project and our first step in demonstrating the value of peer-to-peer energy trading.

“The new product means customers without solar can support those with solar in their local neighbourhood. Customers purchase a Powerpack online, which has a premium of 4 cents per kWh attached to it. These premiums are then pooled together and redistributed to Powershop solar customers within that energy distribution area,” said McManus.

When Powershop customers with solar panels produce more energy than they need, it goes back into their energy distribution area and Powershop buys it. This is then onsold to other customers in the same area who have a Your Neighbourhood Solar Powerpack installed. The original customer receives a credit for the additional solar energy created, in addition to Powershop’s feed-in-tariff.

Powershop’s parent company, Meridian Energy Australia, is the owner-operator of two wind farms.