AGL's 'Three for Free' Plan: Is it Better Than Sharing Your Solar?

AGL's 'Three for Free' Plan: Is it Better Than Sharing Your Solar?

AGL's "Three for Free" plan gives South Australian households free electricity between 10 am and 1 pm, every day. Three hours, no usage charge. The obvious question is whether that beats what a solar owner already gets, and whether the free window is worth what AGL charges for the other twenty-one hours. Our Complete Guide covers the wider free-electricity schemes running in New South Wales and south-east Queensland as well.

How "Three for Free" Works

The plan hands non-solar households the thing solar owners have had for years: cheap power in the middle of the day. Shift your washing, your dishwasher and your pool pump into that window and you are running them for nothing, with no system on the roof.

AGL can afford it because of everyone else's solar panels. So much rooftop solar now floods the grid at midday that wholesale prices collapse, and on good days go negative. The plan sits inside AGL's Community Power program.

The Potential Benefits (and Drawbacks)

• Households without Solar: The obvious fit. Daytime power at no cost, without the upfront spend on a system.
• Solar Owners (Sometimes): Still useful on overcast days, or if your system is small enough that it does not cover the house. The free window will also charge a home battery or an EV.
• Battery Owners: Battery rebates increasingly require VPP capability, and a free three-hour charging window pairs well with that.

The catch is in the rest of the tariff.

Comparing the Costs: "Three for Free" vs. Solar and Standard Plans

• Higher Usage Rates: Power outside the free window may cost more than it would on a flat-rate or time-of-use plan. Three free hours are no bargain if the other twenty-one carry a premium.
• Lower Feed-in Tariffs: If you have panels, check the feed-in rate. It may be well short of what you can get elsewhere, and for an export-heavy system that difference swamps the free window.
• Increased Supply Charge: The daily supply charge is fixed and you pay it whether you use anything or not. Compare it line by line against your current plan.

The "Solar Sharer" Alternative: A Community-Focused Approach

"Solar Sharer" works differently. Rather than a tariff on your own account, it pools the solar generated across many homes and businesses through virtual power plants and community batteries, then spreads it across the grid. Three for Free is a plan you sign up to on your own; solar sharing is infrastructure.

Community Batteries: A key component of Solar Sharing

AGL is building community batteries under the same Community Power program. They soak up surplus solar through the middle of the day and push it back out when demand peaks in the evening.

The interesting part is who benefits. AGL's South Australian rollout is aimed at more than 10,000 low-income households, at a price 25% below the Default Market Offer (DMO).

Which is Right for You?

Three for Free is the simpler proposition, and for a household with no panels and a flexible daily routine it can cut a real amount off the bill. Whether it actually does comes down to arithmetic you have to do yourself: usage rates, feed-in tariff and supply charge, compared against what you are on now.

Solar sharing pays you nothing directly. What it does is push down the cost of running the grid for everyone connected to it, and it reaches the households least able to put panels on their own roof.