Solar Sharers meets reality – why leaky homes could undermine the promise of lower energy bills

Last winter, Declan Kelly set out to test whether a retail plan offering three hours of free electricity could heat his Central NSW Coast rental for nothing. The experiment, which previews what millions of households may soon try under the Federal Government’s Solar Sharers scheme, revealed just how far tariff-shifting can get you in a leaky Australian home. Kelly managed to lift the indoor temperature from 15 degrees to a tropical 32, only to watch the heat disappear almost as fast as it arrived. That experience led to a larger realisation: if these offers are meant for renters and people who can’t put solar on their roofs, they will only go so far unless we confront the poor thermal performance of Australia’s housing stock. Kelly — who writes the newsletter Currently Speaking and is the regulatory policy and corporate affairs manager at Flow Power — argues that no energy-market reform can compensate for walls, roofs and windows that can’t hold heat. His experiment prompts a sharper question about what Solar Sharer can and can’t fix, and what governments and regulators must tackle if these new tariffs are to deliver genuine savings for the people they’re designed to help.