Victoria has confirmed that it will roll out its own version of the federal government’s Solar Sharer offer, giving households in the state access to three hours of free power in the middle of each day and shaving their energy bills by up anywhere between $300 and $1,070 a year.
The Victoria Labor government said on Wednesday that a Midday Power Saver offer would become available from the first of October, with the full details of the scheme – including time periods and prices – to be released in May.
The announcement says about 2.6 million Victorian households will be eligible for the Midday Power Saver offer and will be able opt into the program through their retailer.
The move follows the announcement last November that electricity retailers will be required to offer free power for at least three hours in the middle of the day to households in markets under the jurisdiction of the Australian Energy Regulator – which is all National Electricity Market states except Victoria.
The Solar Sharer offer emerged as one of a number of “significant reforms” to the Default Mark Offer (DMO), which caps the price energy retailers can charge a small proportion of household and small businesses in New South Wales, south-east Queensland and South Australia.
A week later, the Essential Services Commission (ESC), which sets Victoria’s default electricity price – the Victorian Default Offer (VDO), said it was seeking feedback on a similar free power period for the state, at the request of Victorian energy minister Lily D’Ambrosio.
The two solar sharing offers aim to tackle energy inequity by sharing the bill-slashing benefits of rooftop solar with those who, for one reason or another, cannot install it. But it won’t work for everyone.
Mostly, it will benefit households who can shift their electricity use to the middle of the day, including people who work from home, people with EVs who can charge at those time, or for households with batteries who are able to store power from the grid when it’s cheap.
In a statement on Wednesday, Victorian premier Jacinta Allan said the new offer was “another reason why working from home can save you time and money.”
“This could save families up to $300 per year off their energy bills – more if they have solar and batteries.”
“Whether you work from home or have smart appliances, the Midday Power Saver will save Victorians money,” added D’Ambrosio.
It also addresses the problem of increasingly high amounts of rooftop solar on the grid during the middle of the day, which can cause headaches for the market operator and drive up costs through network grid augmentations.
Federal energy minister Chris Bowen has said that the hope is that Solar Sharer will also have the effect of lowering peak demand in the evenings, which will in turn lower peak electricity prices and reduce the need for costly network upgrades and interventions to ensure grid stability.
Earlier this month, the ESC advised that the cost of electricity looks was likely to fall in all five of Victoria’s electricity distribution zones, cutting household energy bills by nearly $50 in the coming financial year and by around $170 a year for small businesses.
The ESC draft decision on the 2026-27 VDO proposed that prices for domestic customers would decrease across the board by between $43 and $48 a year, compared to 2025-26, averaging out at $46, or a roughly 3 per cent drop.
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Sophie Vorrath
Sophie is editor of Renew Economy and editor of its sister site, One Step Off The Grid . She is the co-host of the Solar Insiders Podcast. Sophie has been writing about clean energy for more than a decade.
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