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'Future Proofing' what does it mean?
Finn Peacock touches on what the Solar Tax could mean for you.
"The Solar Tax could cost you around $100 a year in savings. But Savvy solar owners should be able to come out ahead" - Finn Peacock.
We don't know about you but we consider our CATCH Power customers as pretty savvy.
'Future Proofing' used to just refer to putting panels on the roof and offsetting your electricity bill by offsetting our usage and exporting to the grid. As more and more talks about solar tax's and dynamic export limits. The question is not if but when.
So how do we protect ourselves from these new solar reforms?
The CATCH Power team always has it's finger on the pulse. For an extra couple of hundred dollars at the time of installation you can ask for the CATCH Power Solar Relay instead of a normal Energy Meter! On compatible inverter brands this will not only allow you to have solar, consumption data and load control but also to ' Future Proof' your system.
Our CATCH Solar Relay works as the energy meter for a range of inverter brands. This means that we can control your inverter and act on market signals to ensure that you are protected from new regulations as they are introduced.
This could be a reduction of solar exports, or turning on a load at a better time of the day.There will be other markets that will reward those that are coordinating large collections of solar generation and load to harmonise the network. If you opt to participate in these markets, then you could be handsomely rewarded, plus be playing a role in a better functioning network that can have more renewable energy installed in it!And on a less positive note, there has already been talk about a “solar tax”, where retailers charge you for exporting solar energy to the grid when it doesn’t need it.“How on earth can I stop that?!”, which is a great question, and before CATCH Solar Relay there was no way that your solar exports could be controlled to avoid being charged for it. Now you can! CATCH Solar Relay connected to the internet via The Monocle, will make all of these opportunities available to owners of systems with CATCH Solar Relay installed and connected to the internet. The solutions will be wide and varied but it will all be made easy and seamless with CATCH Power products at your fingertips.Make your system ready for the Future needs of the network and those that participate in it. It’s easy with CATCH Power.
Feed in Tariffs The rate that the energy companies pay you, for energy sent back to the grid. It currently stands between 5-12 cents pending your provider
Export Limits This is the amount that the network provider will allow you to send back to the grid. It is a common misconception that you just don't get 'paid' for the energy over this. The truth is your system actually stops producing energy beyond this point.
Static Exporting - Static Feed in tariffs are fixed, they will often be a lower rate and are the traditional ways of exporting.
Dynamic Export - will be just that, Dynamic. This will be based on the needs of the grid. This could mean that fluctuating feed in tariffs are introduced and the amount of energy you send to the grid will be instructed by a centralised system.
There is currently more than 16 gigawatts of roof top solar in Australia, that is 6 times larger than the single largest coal-fired power station. Our energy network was not designed for solar and energy only flows one direction, into your house. In order to export energy back to the grid, we have to fight the natural flow of energy. This is done by increasing the voltage, if no one is home to consume the surplus energy in the Grid, this can cause Voltage issues.
In some parts of Australia there is too much energy exported by Rooftop solar. During certain times of the day, the network struggles to cope with all this excess energy. Your inverters will shut down and you will have periods where they are not producing any solar as your inverters try to safely reboot. In these situations there is potential risk for overloading or damaging the network, which can cause blackouts. In extreme situations some households are being prevented from installing solar or having a zero export.
For every system that has been installed to date without a battery can only provide a Static export, this is adding to the problems in our network!
As a result feed in tariffs are dropping and higher export limits are being imposed by the network providers. We need a solution that will allow us to control when our systems are exporting when needed and when there is too much energy in the network we need load control to ensure this energy does not leave the property and add to the problem.
Every system that is export limited needs an energy meter installed, that energy meter should be our Catch Solar Relay. Our Relay works as the energy meter for 10 popular inverters, while also offering load control and true future proofing of your system.
The Energy Graph
Knowing what has transpired in your home through the day is also super important. This graph will instantly show you how much your home consumed and how much solar you generated. Then with one press of a button, you can see how much of your consumption was powered by the solar generation, and how much was exported to the grid.
Install multiple Relays and you will be able to get visibility on anything that you want to monitor or control, be it a specific load, another solar array, a particular phase. The flexibility is all there when the data for CATCH Solar Relay is monitored via The Monocle.
The details at your fingertips – Simply zoom into the graph to see all the details that you need at any time of the day. Then scroll across the graph with the Slider, to clearly see the values of everything measured, at all times of the day.
Skip across to any day in the past since your Relay has been installed, so see what happened on that day.
But Let’s Be Even Better with Our Solar!
And how do we do this? To increase our self-consumption!
Feed-in tariffs (FiT) are always changing and are something that we have no control over. What we do have control over is the way that we consume some of the loads in our home.
Can you imagine receiving a FiT of $0.27/kWh?! If that is the cost of your electricity, and you are able to match the load with solar production, then that is what you can expect if you power a load powered by solar. CATCH Solar Relay can do this for you and The Monocle can show it happening.
Utilisation is Where It’s At!
We are all about maximizing self-consumption of solar production. It’s good for you as the system owner (reduced power bills), it great for the environment (powering your home with a renewable energy source) and it is great for the network (too much solar in the network is a problem).
The average amount of household load that is powered from solar is approximately 30%
so we figure that anything above that is a great result, for all of the reasons mentioned above. The Monocle measures this for you! See it quickly and easily, for any timeframe, on our Utilisation page.
Once you have this insight you can make the changes to get better, and Get Good at Solar!
And What of The Future?
Putting lots and lots of solar on the roofs of Australian homes sounds like an awesome plan, and it is, but it’s more complicated than that. Trouble is brewing and we are seeing it already with export limits and inverter throttling, and sudden inverter specification changes. And voltage rise is everywhere in the grid!
The grid is being challenged by so much solar generation through the day and where to send it. At times there is more power generation than the grid needs, thanks mostly to solar, and this causes problems with the grid.
To date the way of managing this has been through system limitations and general curtailment, but that has it’s limits and in some parts of Australia we have past those limits already and drastic changes are being made with short notice.
But we have to be smarter than this if there is to be an acceleration in the energy transition away, from fossil fuels, and it has to be accelerated!
Your CATCH Solar Relay may be part of the solution!
The key is coordination of loads and generation, and guess what your Relay enables you to do! It is connected to the internet, so one day somebody may really appreciate the way that your system operates and may reward you in some way to better match the way your system interacts with the grid as a whole.
There is already the opportunity to participate in the wholesale electricity market through a retailer. Imagine if your system could respond to these market signals! With CATCH Solar Relay and The Monocle, they can!
