The Energy Networks Association and CSIRO proposed to do just that in their Electricity Network Transformation Roadmap, which aims to shift $1.4 billion of network costs from non-solar customers (households and firms) onto solar and battery customers by 2027, and at the same time pay solar and battery households $1.1 billion to export energy to the grid at times of high demand. The figures out to 2050 are much larger.

By doing this the networks hope to save themselves billions of dollars in network investments and persuade the 10 per cent of customers that CSIRO reckons might leave the grid altogether by 2050 - the "death spiral" - to stay.

But if these tariff changes are not very finely tuned - they might just have the opposite effect and accelerate the death spiral. Leaving the grid isn't practical for most customers yet, but it may be so sooner than anyone expects.

Solar battery households have unexpected bargaining power and might start to feel the boot is on the other foot, says Bruce Mountain, director of Carbon + Energy Markets.

Chief Scientist Alan Finkel is grappling with the rapid evolution of the energy system in a review of how electricity system stability and security of supply can be maintained with more intermittent renewable energy and less "synchronous" coal generation in the supply mix.

Fairer tariffs can save customers money and provide incentives for solar + battery households to export energy to the grid at times of high demand Energy Networks Australia / CSIRO Network Transformation Roadmap

The review was ordered by federal and state energy ministers after South Australia's earlier, statewide blackout on September 28, and Professor Finkel will present an interim report to federal, state and territory leaders on Friday.

The federal government is also releasing terms of reference for a review of climate policies to be completed next year, and the imminent flood of new information seems to be moderating its tone when it comes to renewable energy – despite former Prime Minister Tony Abbott's plea to his successor, Malcolm Turnbull, to harden up on the issue.


The results can be a little confusing. Mr Turnbull and Mr Frydenberg relentlessly attacked South Australia's wind power plunge after the September blackout – when the Australian Energy Market Operator says it wasn't an issue.

But last week in the lead-up to Thursday's outage they were more even-handed – even though wind generation failed to step up after South Australia's energy lifeline to Victoria (the Heywood interconnector) shut down because the wind wasn't blowing.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Energy Prime Minister Josh Frydenberg want rules changed to encourage the building of high tech power stations which have lower carbon dioxide emissions Andrew Meares

The caution is sensible.

Raising fixed charges to rebalance the burden of network costs as between solar and non-solar households has long been debated.

Network charges already account for about two-fifths of electricity bills for solar households, about twice the proportion for non-solar households, says Mr Mountain says. This is a higher proportion than in other countries.

Retailers also charge fixed fees that are about three times higher than network fixed charges, and in competitive markets are unlikely to want to push this further for fear of losing the customer altogether.

Wind turbines failed to step up when South Australia's energy lifeline to Victoria went down last Thursday morning Supplied


"Increasing the proportion of the bill that is fixed might backfire by stimulating entrepreneurs to find ways to help customers completely abandon the grid," Mr Mountain says in a commentary to be published in Britain by Cornwall Energy Associates.

Batteries a 'godsend'

"Is this really what distributors and retailers would want? A diminished role as provider of back-up supply might not be a role that retailers and distributors covet, but they might think it preferable to losing the customer altogether."

Batteries can already guide a single household or company through a blackout and the price-per-kilowatt hour has already fallen to the point where they make economic sense at the household level. Grid scale storage would be half the cost or less, Mr Mountain says.

Still, penetration is very low and it will take time to reach significant levels, he writes.

"But if they do, and if they stimulate further distributed production, the impact on distributors, retailers and large-scale producers will be severe.

"For Australia's governments concerned to keep the lights on at affordable prices, the rise of batteries might be seen as a godsend, at least for those customers able to take advantage of them."