Solar Sharer Offer: Free Electricity Explained
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The Solar Sharer Offer is a new government-regulated electricity plan giving eligible households three hours of free electricity every day in the middle of the day. It’s opt-in, requires a smart meter, and is currently available in New South Wales, South Australia and South East Queensland. You don’t need solar panels to use it, though a home battery is where it tends to pay off the most.
The Solar Sharer Offer, often shortened to SSO, is a regulated standing offer that started on 1 July 2026. It’s part of a wider set of reforms to the Default Market Offer, the safety-net pricing system that protects households who don’t or can’t shop around for electricity deals.
The Australian Energy Regulator sets the main terms of the SSO, including the free-power window for each area, the daily supply charge and usage rates that apply outside it, and the rate charged if a household goes over the daily free-usage cap (energy.gov.au). Retailers with more than 1,000 customers across the eligible areas are required to offer it, though smaller retailers can be exempt.
It’s worth being clear about what the offer isn’t. It doesn’t make your whole electricity bill free. You’ll still pay a daily supply charge, and anything used outside the three-hour window is billed at standard time-of-use rates, which are sometimes higher on an SSO plan than on a household’s existing plan.
You can access the Solar Sharer Offer if all of the following apply:
The offer is opt-in only. No retailer can move you onto it automatically, and you’ll need to contact your provider directly to switch.
The free period lasts three hours and falls at the same time every day, including through daylight saving. The exact window depends on where you live.
|
State/Region |
Free Electricity Window |
|
New South Wales |
11am to 2pm |
|
South East Queensland |
11am to 2pm |
|
South Australia |
12pm to 3pm |
Households can use up to 24kWh of free electricity during that window each day, which the government estimates covers a full day’s usage for an average five-person household (Energy Made Easy). Anything above that cap is charged at the retailer’s lowest available rate for that time of day.
It’s easy to mix these two up, but they sit on opposite sides of your electricity meter. A feed-in tariff is what a retailer pays you for solar electricity you export back to the grid. The Solar Sharer Offer is about what you’re charged when you import power from the grid, and has nothing to do with whether you have solar panels at all.
With feed-in tariffs falling in most states and self-consumption becoming more important for solar households, the Solar Sharer Offer adds a separate lever: rather than being paid for exported power, it’s about timing your usage to avoid paying for power at all during a set window.
Not as much as you might expect. If your solar system already covers most of your daytime usage, you’re likely generating your own free power in the middle of the day regardless of whether you’re on an SSO plan. For a lot of existing solar households, switching to the SSO on its own won’t add much.
Where it can still help is on the days your system underperforms, such as heavy cloud cover, or if your household regularly draws more power than your panels produce, for example running a pool pump, ducted air conditioning or an EV charger at the same time. In those cases, the free window gives you a backup source of cheap power instead of drawing from the grid at standard rates.
This is where the Solar Sharer Offer becomes genuinely useful for solar households, not just non-solar ones. If you have a solar battery, you can use the free window to top it up, either after your solar has already covered the home’s daytime load, or on lower-generation days when your panels alone wouldn’t fill it. That stored energy can then be drawn down in the evening peak, when grid electricity costs the most.
For households considering adding a battery to an existing solar system or looking at a combined solar and battery package, the Solar Sharer Offer is a genuine reason to run the numbers again. It’s also worth understanding how this interacts with Virtual Power Plant participation, since some VPP arrangements have their own rules about when and how a battery can charge and discharge.
The Solar Sharer Offer itself only applies in NSW, South Australia and South East Queensland, because it’s tied to the federal Default Market Offer system, which doesn’t cover every state.
Victoria is introducing its own separate scheme, the Midday Power Saver, from 1 October 2026, offering a similar three-hour free window between 11am and 2pm (energy.vic.gov.au). It’s a state-based initiative run by the Victorian Government rather than the federal Solar Sharer Offer, so the rules and eligibility criteria differ slightly. The Solar Sharer Offer currently isn’t available in the ACT, Tasmania or Western Australia.
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Thinking about pairing a battery with the Solar Sharer Offer? If you’re already on solar and wondering whether a battery would make switching worthwhile, our team can talk through your household’s usage pattern and what a battery could realistically add. Call Solar Junction on 1300 345 365 for a no-obligation chat.
No. The offer is available to any eligible household with a smart meter, whether or not you have rooftop solar.
Not under this name. Victoria has its own Midday Power Saver scheme starting 1 October 2026, with similar features but separate rules.
No. Only usage during the three-hour window, up to 24kWh, is free. Your daily supply charge and any usage outside that window are still billed as normal.
Yes. The Solar Sharer Offer is opt-in, so you need to contact your retailer directly and ask to move to their SSO plan.
No, but it helps. A battery lets you store free midday power and use it during the evening peak, which is when many households use the most electricity and pay the highest rates.
