One of the country’s big three energy retailers, EnergyAustralia, has been slapped on the wrist by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) after taking more than a month to roll out its Solar Share Offer of three hours of free power.
The Solar Sharer Offer, in which retailers are required by law to offer a tariff that includes three hours of zero cost power in the middle of the day, was supposed to have been rolled out on July 1.
However, the ACCC announced on Monday that EnergyAustralia had admitted a breached the Electricity Retail Code” by failing to meet the deadline. It did not roll out its offer until August 3.
The Solar Sharer Offer was introduced by the federal government this year for eligible households in New South Wales, South Australia, and South East Queensland. A similar system runs under a separate regulator in Victoria.
It is designed to provide three hours of free electricity during the day as part of an effort to help lower household electricity bills by shifting energy use to when solar is more abundant on the grid, and to extend the benefits of Australia’s world leading rooftop solar capacity to all customers.
Eligible households can use up to 24 kilowatt-hours of free electricity usage during the three-hour period each day, which runs from 11am to 2pm in New South Wales and South East Queensland and 12pm to 3pm in South Australia.
The tariff is likely to be offset by higher tariffs in the evening and in other periods, and may not be beneficial to households who cannot push a lot of their electricity consumption into those periods. It is likely to favour owners of home batteries and EVs.
However, it could have a significant impact on the electricity market, with NSW energy minister Penny Sharpe saying last week that the benefits could be substantial.
“I think we’re only beginning to understand the innovation that will be driven through the three-hours of free solar in the middle of the day,” Sharpe said at the Australian Clean Energy Summit last week.
“I don’t think we really know where it’s going, but I think it will fundamentally change the way in which the grid operates and accelerate (the transition), in a way.
“We’ve been challenged with some of the really big infrastructure issues …. but I think the whole consumer world is getting pretty exciting, pretty quickly.”
Anna Brakey, ACCC commissioner, said the Solar Sharer Offer can benefit households that can shift their electricity use to the free usage period.
“EnergyAustralia’s delay in offering the plan initially denied current and prospective consumers the opportunity to access this plan and take advantage of the benefits available,” she said in a statement.
“As one of the country’s largest energy retailers, we expect EnergyAustralia to have better systems and processes in place to meet its legal obligations.”
Despite ‘expecting better’ of EnergyAustralia, the ACCC has only accepted a court-enforceable undertaking from EnergyAustralia in which the retailer admits it breached the Electricity Retail Code by failing to meet the deadline to offer this plan.
According to the undertaking, EnergyAustralia informed the ACCC on 23 June 2026 that it would not be in a position to make the Solar Sharer Offer available to customers by the required date due to issues with its billing and metering system.
The company has also undertaken to continue offering the Solar Sharer Offer to consumers, report to the ACCC and the Australian Energy Regulator on its compliance, train staff to assist customers enquiring about the offer, and publish and maintain a notice about the undertaking on its website.
EnergyAustralia is required to publish on its website a “clear and prominent notice about this Undertaking” within 5 business days and for a period of 3 months, detailing its failure to make the Solar Sharer Offer available, that the offer is now available, and that the company contravened the Electricity Retail Code.
It is unclear as of writing whether EnergyAustralia has yet followed through on these terms, as no notice is immediately apparent on the company’s website, or found when searching.
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