Millions will get free electricity in 2026 thanks to Australia’s solar boom

For years, Australians have been installing solar panels very quickly. Now this investment is starting to pay off.

Electricity customers in three states will receive free electricity for up to three hours a day from July 2026, the Australian government announced this week.

Solar energy has boomed in Australia in recent years. Rooftop solar installations cost about $840 per kilowatt of capacity before cuts, about a third of what American households pay. As a result, more than one in three Australian homes have solar panels on their roof.

“We are now at the level where we can share more of this power with more Australians,” Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen said in an Instagram video announcing the policy.

The Solar Sharer plan will be available to everyone in New South Wales, South Australia and in the south-eastern part of Queensland to start; More areas will be added later. Households will not need to install solar on their roofs to qualify, although they will need to have a smart meter installed. The plan will help those who live in apartments or don’t have a suitable roof to take advantage of their neighbors’ boards, Bowen said.

Although the government has not specified which midday working hours would qualify, the hours between 11am and 2pm are the most likely. Customers will have to subscribe to the new plan, which aims to encourage people to shift their energy use to peak solar energy production hours. Smart devices can help people make the most of this by allowing them time to charge electric vehicles or run large loads of laundry.

The free electricity hours “help us run the grid at night as well because it means moving energy use from nighttime — when power is more expensive because it’s powered by coal and gas — to midday when it’s powered by renewable energy,” Bowen said.

Load shifting will also reduce the need for grid-scale batteries, which Australia has installed to accommodate excess solar power.

The Australian plan is not the first to experience periods of free electricity driven by peaks in renewable energy production. UK company Octopus Energy has offered an Agile plan that occasionally provides customers with free electricity, although it is not a regular occurrence as in Australia.

In many places, solar power has become so cheap that electricity is essentially free for at least part of the day. Peak solar energy production in the middle of the day can cause electricity prices to turn negative, sometimes resulting in energy providers paying customers for energy use.

Australia is generally a sunny country, with large swaths receiving as much sunlight as the southwestern United States. But most solar panels are installed near population centers, which receive as much sunlight as most of the United States or southern Europe, suggesting that wider adoption of solar energy could lead to lower energy prices in a number of regions around the world.