If you have existing solar panels at home (and don’t have a battery or an EV), your experience with Flow Home will likely be different from your experience with other energy retailers, especially if you’re switching from a flat rate.
Flow Home is designed to incentivise customers’ use of electricity at cheaper times of day, when renewable generation reduces wholesale prices. This is typically during the middle of the day, when solar generation is at its peak.
If you have rooftop solar installed, you likely won’t need to use energy from the grid during these periods. With Flow Home, we look at your average usage for the month and adjust your electricity rate based on how closely you’ve matched your usage to cheaper, more renewable times in the grid.
This means it may be harder to reduce your rate each month, as the majority of your grid usage will be during peak periods, at higher prices (which is often generated by fossil fuels).
There are some steps you can take to reduce the impact of your solar panels on your monthly rate. Your rates are variable, dependent on the size of your solar system, your usage and market prices and conditions.
However, Flow Home typically best suits homes with solar that can:
To ensure you benefit from Flow Home as a solar customer, we recommend adding a battery to your system – we explain more about how that works below.
With Flow Home, you’ll receive a baseline tariff of 3.30c/kWh as a starting point.
The final rate you receive for your exports will change each month, depending on when you exported energy to the grid, how much, and what the price per kW was at the time – according to the wholesale electricity market and your network tariff.
It’s important to note that no matter who your electricity provider is, solar feed-in tariffs are dwindling across the board. Since the mass adoption of rooftop solar, Australia now produces so much energy during the day that solar feed-in tariffs have dropped dramatically to discourage exporting at these times.
While the drop in feed-in tariffs has been a shock to many solar panel owners, a variable feed-in tariff offers an opportunity to improve your costs, by rewarding energy export at peak times with a higher rate.
No. At Flow Power, we’re on a mission to promote smarter energy habits. This is why we no longer want to encourage exporting solar during the day when there is already an abundance of solar in the grid.
Instead, our variable tariff incentivises exporting clean energy at peak times, to reduce the demand for fossil fuels and support Australia’s transition to renewables.
Flow Power customers with a battery are at a unique advantage, with additional potential to improve their electricity rate each month.
Whether you use your stored energy to power your household to avoid high prices, or export to the grid during peak periods, Flow Home is designed to reward these smart energy habits.
No solar? No problem.
Australia’s boom in rooftop solar capacity means our sunny nation now generates an excess of energy during the day. You can use this abundant cheap, clean energy to charge up your home battery, even if you don’t have solar panels yourself.
Log into the Flow Power app and we’ll give you guidance on the best times to charge up.
Absolutely! We’ll equip you with free energy monitoring technology which links to our Flow Power app. Simply head over to the app to see how you’re tracking.
In the app, you’ll find guidance on the best times to charge and discharge your battery. Plus, we’ll provide guides to optimising your battery manually or using our set-and-forget method.
Optimising when you charge and discharge your battery can significantly reduce your energy costs.
With Flow Home, your battery can reduce your usage costs, and, by ensuring you only export to the grid during peak times, you can earn a much higher feed-in tariff.
Flow Home has a base feed-in tariff of 3.3c/kWh which is adjusted monthly based on your export habits and how closely they align with wholesale market price signals for the month. This has been designed to best suit battery owners.
Based on wholesale prices, our FiT gives you access to a wider range of pricing. This allows for greater earning potential when you export your stored energy during peak times or grid events. Using the Flow Power app, you can monitor the market to find the most lucrative times to export and avoid the times when you could be charged.
To get the best feed-in tariff, you’ll need to export more of your energy at peak times and avoid exporting during the day.
We’ve put together this handy resource for customers interested in getting a battery. Or if you have any other questions, be sure to get in touch.
We’re here to help.
EV owners can significantly reduce their electricity rate, simply by adjusting when they charge their cars.
By shifting your charging to off-peak times of day, when energy is cheaper and greener, you can lower your electricity rate for the month.
That means you’re saving on your EV charging and reducing your overall electricity costs – it’s a win win.
Typically, during daytime hours, especially if the sun is shining.
The Flow Home app takes the guesswork out of finding the best time to charge, with energy forecasts for the week ahead that help you identify the best times to power up.
Charge your EV within the green zones indicated by the app, and avoid any red zones when possible.
Your average rate for the month may increase if you frequently charge during peak hours.
Occasional peak‐time charging, however, won’t have much impact if you do most of your charging during lower-cost periods, balancing out any temporary increases.
The Flow Power app monitors your live energy use, so when you plug in your EV, you’ll see your usage increase in real time for easy monitoring.
No special equipment is required. You can use your existing EV charger. However, a smart charger can help you automate charging during off-peak times for added convenience, and additional potential to save.
If you have any questions, please contact our friendly team.