How Social Energy Australia puts power directly in your hands?

How Social Energy Australia puts power directly in your hands? | RateCity

We consider usable energy very differently from what is best for our environment. With the modern-day power grid still reliant on coal and gas for steady power generation, it’s imperative to identify alternatives to help do what’s best for the planet. One of these alternatives could be a greener energy consortium that minimises the carbon footprint and builds sustainability.

This is where Social Energy comes in - an energy supplier that claims to reward users for switching to solar by purchasing their excess power and helping them save money through low cost energy.

Social Energy doesn’t operate like most other energy retailers. Instead, it focuses on storing clean solar energy and distributing it when needed.

The Social Energy premise

Today, many people have solar panels in their homes which help them use the sunlight during the day to help power their homes. If you have a battery with your solar panels, it allows you to store energy to use when the solar panels aren’t producing power.

Even if you become energy-autonomous, there are still ways to use the energy you produce better, but how? Social Energy allows consumers to send the surplus energy produced by their solar panels back into the shared grid.

The Social Energy power grid comprises photovoltaic batteries fed and replenished with unused solar energy. This creates a green power grid, which is nothing like the primary power grid that emits carbon.

How does Social Energy work?

Social Energy customers can exchange and trade the solar power they produce in their homes with other customers connected across a grid. 

A Social Energy plan can also be structured as an energy retainer for homes with battery storage and solar panels. This allows energy swapping using a decentralised platform that connects customers across the Australian national grid.

As a customer of Social Energy Australia, you can buy, sell, and trade electricity over the wholesale energy market. This approach reduces reliance on standalone energy suppliers, helping you to potentially save money on your energy and minimises your use of fossil-fuel energy.

The grid sharing concept

Social Energy Australia is built on the idea of grid sharing. Customers either have or install solar panels and a battery for their home depending on the size, power requirements and energy production capabilities. Social Energy then connects multiple consumers, each with individual storage hubs. This creates a decentralised platform for the storage, trading, selling, and usage of solar energy.

The unique feature of this platform is the automated trading system based on artificial intelligence, which allows batteries to trade power automatically. With only the residual energy traded, you earn money based on how much you produce and export to the grid. Consumers can also monitor their energy on the platform by seeing their trading, usage, and related data. 

Social Energy offers its customers a feed-in tariff that it claims is much higher than the average in New South Wales, Social Energy says users can save a lot of money on their electricity bills by earning more than they are spending with the high feed-in tariff they offer. This may act as an incentive for some people to switch to greener energy with the company. 

How can I sign up for Social Energy?

If you want to explore the wide range of facilities offered by Social Energy Australia, you must have solar panels in your home. If you don’t already have solar panels installed, the company can assist you with getting them. The company will then conduct a home survey and assess the panels and technology compatibility with their network. Then they help install batteries to store excess energy, and your household becomes a part of the grid. 

Through a partnership with Duracell, every household gets the energy bank of their choice. You need to select one suitable for your home based on the production, home usage, and residual energy you’re likely to produce. This way, energy wastage can be mitigated entirely. The autonomous grid also ensures that you don’t suffer power outages as electricity isn’t used instantly but stored for future use.

Households with solar panels and batteries can sign up as Social Energy customers. But if you don’t have solar panels and a battery, Social Energy can assist you in getting them installed to then become a customer. 

Eligible households can also get a FiT or Feed-in Tariff as a part of the Better Together Plan. FiTs are fixed electricity prices paid to renewable energy providers for each unit of energy produced and injected into the grid. The rates are based on power purchasing agreements. This helps you quickly recover the investment you made into solar power generation. 

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Product database updated 28 Mar, 2024
Fact Checked

This article was reviewed by Personal Finance Editor Alex Ritchie before it was published as part of RateCity's Fact Check process.

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