Three Free Hours a Day: The Solar Sharer Offer Pays Once You Can Shift About 1.5 kWh of Evening Power

Since 1 July 2026, households in NSW, south-east Queensland and South Australia with a smart meter can opt into a plan that charges nothing for electricity used in a three-hour window in the middle of the day, up to 24 kWh. It sounds like free money. The retailer rate cards say otherwise: outside the window you pay roughly double the flat rate on summer and winter evenings, and the daily supply charge is higher too.

We priced the actual plans and ran a typical NSW home through them. The short version: against the cheapest flat market plan, the free hours are worth about $330 a year to a home that can put its hot water in the window, and the plan costs about $270 a year more everywhere else. You need to move about 1.5 kWh a day of evening use into the window, roughly a seventh of a typical home's total, before it comes out ahead. Hot water on its own just clears that bar. Hot water plus an EV or a battery clears it comfortably. And if the plan you are leaving is priced near the NSW average rather than the cheapest market offer, the plan is close to break-even before you shift anything.

How it works

The offer sits inside the AER's Default Market Offer for 2026-27 and is opt-in. The AER priced it to cost the same as the standard time-of-use plan for an average household, which means the free window is paid for by the rates around it.

What the retailers actually charge

Live rates on the Ausgrid network (Sydney, Central Coast, Hunter), September 2026. We have priced one network here; the structure is the same in SE Queensland and SA but the numbers differ, so check your own distributor's card.

Peak on AGL's plan is 3pm to 9pm, and only in summer (November to March) and winter (June to August). In April, May, September and October everything outside the free window is charged at the off-peak rate. We have priced the plan on that basis. Not every retailer publishes its windows as clearly, so check the card: if your retailer applies the peak rate all year, add about $180 a year to every Solar Sharer figure below.

Two things stand out. The peak rate is more than double a flat market rate. And AGL pays nothing at all for solar exports on this plan.

A typical NSW home, three ways

Our NSW example home uses about 10.4 kWh a day (3,808 kWh a year) and has gas hot water. We assumed 40% of usage falls in the 3pm to 9pm window, 45% in off-peak and shoulder, and 15% lands in the free window without any effort (fridge, standby, a lunchtime kettle). These splits are an assumption about a home with no interval data, not a measurement. The comparison plan throughout is the cheapest flat market plan at 30c, because that is what a household weighing up the switch would otherwise be on. Where the NSW average tariff of 33c and the DMO supply charge of $1.66 change the answer, we say so.

On a flat market plan at 30c: about $1,140 in usage plus $490 in supply, roughly $1,630 a year.

On a Solar Sharer plan, changing nothing: evening usage in the eight peak months at 63.7c costs about $650, everything else outside the window at 27.6c about $610, the free share is zero, supply is $640. Roughly $1,900 a year, about $270 worse than the cheapest flat plan. Against the NSW average of 33c and $1.66 a day, the same home pays about $1,860 on the flat plan, so Solar Sharer is only about $40 behind without any effort. That is the AER's design working as intended: the plan breaks even for an average home on an average tariff, and loses to the sharpest market offer.

On a Solar Sharer plan, shifting load: every kWh a day you move out of the evening saves about $190 a year (63.7c on peak days, 27.6c in the four off-peak months). Every kWh a day out of off-peak saves about $100 a year. To cover the $270 penalty against the cheapest flat plan you need to shift about 1.5 kWh a day out of the evening, or about 2.5 kWh a day out of off-peak. That is the hurdle the free hours have to clear. New loads count too: a heat pump or an EV that would otherwise run at 30c on the flat plan saves 30c for every kWh it draws inside the window instead.

Hot water: the obvious load, and it just gets you there

A heat pump water heater on a timer is the cleanest fit for the window. It draws about 3 kWh a day, and inside the window that costs nothing. On a 30c flat plan the same heating costs about $330 a year. So the free window is worth about $330 a year to a heat pump home against the cheapest flat plan, and about $360 against the 33c NSW average.

Set that against the plan penalty. Against the cheapest flat plan, a home whose only shiftable load is the hot water ends up about $60 a year ahead on Solar Sharer. Against the NSW average it is about $320 ahead. Either way the heat pump is still the upgrade doing the work: our NSW example page has heat pump hot water replacing gas at $3,195 net cost, about $420 a year in savings, and a 6.7 year payback on a flat plan. We covered that comparison in detail in Heat Pump vs Gas Hot Water. The Solar Sharer Offer adds a modest amount on top of that, and only if the timer is set to the window.

If your hot water is an old resistive tank on a controlled-load circuit, moving it onto the main circuit with a timer to use the free window is tempting (8 kWh a day at about 15c is roughly $440 a year). Be careful. Controlled loads were excluded precisely because millions of tanks switching on at 11am is a network problem, and the networks can change the rules. Treat it as a short-term win if you do it, not a 15-year plan.

Where the offer does pay

A battery, with or without solar. This is the case most coverage has missed. A battery can charge from the grid for free at midday and discharge through the 63.7c peak and the 27.6c evening. Our example home uses about 8.8 kWh a day outside the free window. A 13.5 kWh battery charged in the window covers all of it, and on our assumptions the bill falls to the supply charge alone, about $640 a year against $1,630 on the flat plan. That is roughly $1,000 a year of gross savings before the cost of the battery, with no panels on the roof. Our calculator reaches a similar figure by a different route: for this home it shows a 10 kWh battery with no solar saving about $980 a year on a Solar Sharer plan, with a 7.1 year payback on a net cost of about $6,900 after the Cheaper Home Batteries rebate. It is the first time a regulated standing offer has made grid charging a household battery worthwhile in Australia; wholesale-price plans and a few retailer free-hours deals got there earlier for some homes, but this one is available from every large retailer in three states. For the wider battery case, see our state-by-state battery breakdown.

Two cautions on sizing. The cap is 24 kWh for everything in the window, not just the battery, so a 13.5 kWh battery leaves room for hot water and other loads while a 20 kWh battery plus an EV charging at the same time does not. And many home batteries charge at around 5 kW, so a three-hour window delivers about 15 kWh regardless of how big the battery is; newer units that charge at 10 kW or more can fill a larger battery in the window but run into the cap sooner. If you already have solar and a battery, the free window is a cloudy-day top-up rather than the main event, worth a few hundred dollars a year on our assumptions.

A car that is home in the day. The 24 kWh cap buys roughly 120 to 140 km of range a day. An EV charging 8 kWh a day in the window saves about $880 a year against a 30c flat plan. Add the heat pump and the home is now about $940 a year ahead on Solar Sharer against the cheapest flat plan, and about $1,300 ahead against the NSW average. If the car is at work from 8 to 6, the window is useless and the evening rates make it worse.

Pool pumps, dishwashers, washing machines on timers. Each is small, but a pool pump alone can be 5 to 8 kWh a day in summer. Stack two or three of these with the hot water and you are well past the hurdle.

Where it does not pay

You already have solar and no battery. The free window overlaps the hours your panels produce, so most of the free power is power you already had. AGL pays nothing for exports on its Solar Sharer plan and the others pay little. For a solar home without a battery, a flat plan with a feed-in tariff almost always wins, for the reasons we set out in Solar in 2026: You Don't Make Money Selling It. If you are thinking about adding a battery, see above: the offer changes that decision.

Nobody is home in the day and nothing is on a timer. You pay the peak rate on summer and winter evenings and the higher supply charge on top. Stay on the cheapest flat market plan.

The checklist before you switch

1. Add up what you can realistically move into the window: hot water, EV, battery, pool pump, dishwasher, washing. Against the cheapest flat market plan you need about 1.5 kWh a day from the evening or 2.5 kWh from off-peak. If you are on a plan near the NSW average you are close to level already, and every kWh shifted is a gain.
2. If your hot water is on a controlled load, it stays on the controlled load rate unless you pay to move it. Count the electrical work.
3. Check whether your retailer's peak applies all year or only in summer and winter. The difference is about $180 a year for our example home.
4. Compare the whole annual bill on Energy Made Easy using your smart meter data, not the free hours. The plan is designed to break even for an average home.
5. If you have solar, check the feed-in tariff on the plan. Zero means zero.

What this means for the calculator

The calculator already knows about Solar Sharer in one place. For homes in NSW, south-east Queensland and SA that do not have solar, the battery card shows a Solar Sharer estimate: what the battery could save by charging free at midday and discharging into the evening, and the payback that implies. For our NSW example home that is about $980 a year and 7.1 years. It is a note on the card, not an input to the roadmap, so it does not change which upgrades the model ranks first or in what order.

A full Solar Sharer tariff is next on the list. Tick it and the model will move eligible hot water, EV charging and battery charging into the free window, apply the 24 kWh cap, use the seasonal peak and the higher supply charge everywhere else, and show the whole-bill effect rather than the free hours in isolation. Until then, run your upgrades on the flat tariff and apply the 1.5 kWh rule above.

Where these numbers come from

Scheme design from the AER's Default Market Offer 2026-27 determination and the AGL and Red Energy plan pages. Ausgrid rates from SolarQuotes, Wattever and RenewEconomy comparisons of the Solar Sharer plans, September 2026. Peak window from AGL's plan page. Example home figures from the calculator's NSW example with the state's default electricity rates. Full details on the methodology page and the data sources page.