Britain Could Get Free Energy This Summer

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]Hi, my name's Phil. I like to talk about politics. So, I have to give the Telegraph their due today. Weirdly, as amazing as it may seem, despite their shilling for fossil fuel companies, they're also reporting that solar power might actually give us free energy this summer. And don't worry though, they also tried to write the article in such way as to persuade their readers that having free energy is somehow a bad thing. They report that energy chiefs are drawing up plans to actually pay households and businesses to use extra power for the first time in Britain.

[00:00:36]Why? Because renewables are producing more and more energy. And with solar being a significant proportion of that power, summer means we might actually produce more electricity than we use.

[00:00:49]This opens up the possibility of starting to do what Australia are doing.

[00:00:54]literally giving people free energy. In Australia, they have the solar sharer scheme. They've been passing legislation and I think the scheme is due to begin this summer. I was told about this a few months ago in a stream. Been fascinated by the idea ever since, especially as Australia are really just ahead of the curve here. It's likely to become the norm across any countries really pushing internet zero. Energy retailers will be legally obliged to provide three hours of free electricity to households in Australia every single day. This is because they are now producing so much solar energy that the price actually becomes negative during the middle of the day when for reasons obvious even to the average reform supporter solar generation is at its peak. The scheme has numerous benefits. The first is that it incentivizes people to use how high power machines like washing machines, dishwashers and so on at that times when the electricity generation is naturally at its highest without any extra cost to the supplier. Now not everyone would be able to do their washing in the middle of the day of course but even getting a significant number two will make a difference. Not a bad time to have your EV charging as well. Then electric car owners get to chuckle extra loudly, get to be extra smug to their petrol driving friends. Not only are they not paying through the nose to run their car thanks to the orange murder clown wouldn't be paying anything at all completely free if you're able to set the charging to happen during that window. It's obviously good for the general public in terms of cost of living as it applies to all households who have a smart meter.

[00:02:34]It's the only way it can work. You can't do it with a traditional meter. A traditional meter will tell you how much you've used but not when you used it.

[00:02:40]Doesn't matter whether these households have solar panels themselves or not.

[00:02:44]Everyone gets it. All you need is a smart meter. It's also a really good way of shutting up the fossil fuel brigade because everyone will know that the free energy is because solar is so good that at peak daylight it's making too much for everyone's needs. So much so that the cost of electricity, which remember the price of it is determined like everything else by an auction of consumers, ends up being negative.

[00:03:08]Energy companies actually have to pay people to use their product. So why not just make it free? Now, we're probably not ready for that just yet because the UK government that we had until 2024 did its best to hamper the development of renewables. If it weren't for the fact it just made so much economic sense for years, we wouldn't have moved on at all from the naughties when labor were last in power. But such is the cost effectiveness of renewables and has been for years. The private sector pushed it anyway, as far as they could under the tourists. It's now been unleashed with Labour under the stewardship of Ed Milliband who can reasonably be described as that rare beast, a genuine expert in charge of government policy.

[00:03:51]But the fact that we might see a smaller scale version of this concept paying people to use more electricity in the middle of the day should not come as a surprise. The beauty of renewable energy like solar and wind is that peak production is basically free to the producer. If you want to increase the output of a fossil fuel power station or even nuclear, there are extra costs in doing so in terms of materials consumed and waste managed. For solar and wind, no extra cost. The downside of course is you can't choose when that peak generation is. But with solar, you can predict when that peak will be very accurately. It will be summer and it will be the initial hours of the afternoon. Not the most convenient time as people will be at work, but for the increasing proportion of retired people, cha-ching. Not that workers miss out either. I mean, apart from the fact you do tend to get a couple of days off in the week, you could do your washing during those three hours on one or both of those days. But it also opens up other possibilities. Charging cordless power tools would be easy. You just hook them up to an extension and smart socket to come on during that free period, even if you're out of the house at the time.

[00:05:03]But some power hungry domestic machines like washing machines already can be programmed to come on at a certain time or for you to set a delay. These would likely become more common and more flexible if more and more countries got into the habit of giving out free energy in the middle of the day. You could even make the telly come on at the same time with that Netflix show you're watching so you don't actually have to bother with it when you get home. Make the pet suffer so you don't have to.

[00:05:30]Possibilities are endless. No surprise to me that this is being talked about now because it's coming. As long as we stay the course on net zero, periods of literally free electricity are coming.

[00:05:42]Some households already have it, but those are people living in new bills with solar heat pumps and battery storage. That'll be out of reach for most for the foreseeable future, especially if people are careless to vote for the alcoholic frog into power in a few years. But in time, it's coming. What is surprising to me is I reading it in the Telegraph. Um, but I'm guessing they're probably not promoting it heavily. And as I I you know, as I said, they did try to every now and then in the article try and make out that this is a bad thing. Free energy. Oh, yeah. Disasters. Oh, we're making too much energy. Really bad. Yeah, we'll just use more at that time. We'll get it for free. We We're fine with that. It did also discuss how Miller Band is driving a real push on more solar for the UK. He wants to triple our capacity by 2030. I mean, imagine where we could be. And as the article repeatedly explains, it creates problems because demand then easily drops below supply.

[00:06:41]Which means the best way, as Australia have already worked out, is just give it away for free in an attempt to get people to use their power hunger machines at these times where possible.

[00:06:53]I can think of worse problems to have to deal with than getting to do your washing without needing to pay for the electricity. The government really should be pushing this hard. Could we even get to the point where like Australia there is a window of free energy every day not just a period in summer when you know a lot of people because the reason why this may need to happen now you may ask why this needs to happen now during these summer first of all more sun so solar's going to produce more secondly there's certain times where people are out the country they go on holiday they're off so the country is sort of emptied a bit so the demand is much lower because of that as well But, you know, is there a possibility by the next election that we could start to be talking about having these energy windows all the year round? That would surely be a powerful move on the cost of living. What are your thoughts? Let me know in the comments below. Please subscribe to the channel for more content. Click the bell notification icon so you know when new videos are out. Thanks for watching and until next time, I'll see you later.