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Whitsundays, on Ergon time-of-use

One day of power, hour by hour

The same unit of electricity costs about 7c at lunchtime and about 47c at dinner. Scroll through a day and watch where the money actually goes.

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Before sunrise

Every unit you use right now is bought from the grid.

On Ergon’s time-of-use tariff the overnight and morning block runs about 26c a unit. Kettle, hot water, aircon: all of it metered in, all of it billed at the same rate, and none of it under your control.

Mid morning

The roof starts making its own.

A 6.6 kW array in the Whitsundays gets going well before the day is hot. Everything the house draws is met on the roof first, the meter only sees what is left over.

11am to 4pm

Power drops to about 7c. For three of those hours it can be free.

This is the Solar Soaker window: the network is awash with midday sun and prices it accordingly. Since 1 July 2026 there is also Solar Sharer (Tariff 12F), three genuinely free hours, 11am to 2pm, up to 24 kWh a day. Both land in the hours most people are not home to use them.

4pm to 9pm

The sun goes down. The price goes up to about 47c.

Peak is the window where the house actually lives: dinner, showers, aircon, TV. Solar alone has nothing left to give by then, so the expensive hours are the ones you buy the most in. That gap is the whole problem.

After dark

A battery moves the cheap power into the expensive hours.

Charge at midday off your own roof, or off the cheap window when the weather is poor, then run the house off it through the evening. Same appliances, same habits, bought at a fraction of the price.

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The three bits of gear that do it

Panels

Turn sunlight into DC. Output follows the sun, so a north-facing roof peaks near midday and a west-facing roof holds on later into the afternoon. Which one suits you depends on when you actually use power.

Inverter

Converts that DC to the 240V AC the house runs on, and decides where each unit goes: into the house first, then the battery, then the grid. It is the part that makes the whole thing behave.

Battery

Holds the middle of the day so you can spend it at night. This is the piece that closes the gap between the cheap window and the expensive one, and it is why battery sizing follows your evening usage, not your roof size.

There is more than one plan now

Time of Use Energy

The default. Peak runs 4pm to 9pm, with a cheap daytime block and a shoulder rate either side. This is the day the story above walks through.

Solar Sharer (Tariff 12F)

Three free hours every day, 11am to 2pm, up to 24 kWh. In market since 1 July 2026. You have to opt in, you need a smart meter, and controlled-load circuits such as hot water are excluded from the free window.

Demand and Energy

Optional, and it charges partly on your single biggest half-hour of demand. It can beat the default for a household that spreads its load, and punish one that does not.

The old flat tariff is on the way out: once a smart meter goes in, customers on a basic meter are moved to the time-of-use tariff. Which plan actually suits you depends on your roof, your usage and when your household is home, so treat every figure on this page as indicative only until we have done a site assessment. Working out the right plan and doing the switch is part of the install.

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