The Solar Sharer Offer: Why 3 Hours of "Free" Electricity Won't Fix Your QLD Power Bill
There is a new electricity plan doing the rounds in South East Queensland.
It is called the Solar Sharer Offer, and the pitch sounds almost too good to be true.
Three hours of free electricity, every single day, whether you have solar panels or not.
Retailers are emailing their customers about it. News sites are running "how to get free power" headlines.
And for once, the offer is real. It is a regulated plan, introduced by the Australian Energy Regulator as part of the 2026-27 Default Market Offer reforms, and it has been live in South East Queensland, New South Wales and South Australia since 1 July 2026.
But here is the catch nobody is explaining properly.
For most working households, three hours of free power in the middle of a weekday is close to useless. Unless you know how to actually use it.
What the Solar Sharer Offer Actually Is
The Solar Sharer Offer (SSO) is an opt-in standing offer available to residential customers on the Energex network with a smart meter.
The free period runs from 11am to 2pm, fixed year-round in local time. It does not shift with daylight saving.
During that window, the first 24 kWh of electricity you use each day is free. That is roughly what an average five-person household uses in an entire day, so for most homes the cap is generous.
Outside the free window, the SSO reverts to time-of-use rates. Peak, shoulder and off-peak charges still apply, and in some cases those rates run higher than a standard plan to help fund the free midday block.
There is no catch buried in fine print. It is a genuine, government-backed offer. You do not need solar panels to sign up, though the free window happens to line up with when rooftop solar output is highest across the grid, which is exactly why the policy exists.
The Common Misconception
Here is where most homeowners get it wrong.
They assume "free electricity" automatically means "lower bill."
It does not. It means "free electricity, if you happen to be using power between 11am and 2pm."
Think about a typical Queensland household. Both adults are at work. Kids are at school. The house is empty from around 8am to 3pm.
Your fridge runs. Maybe a pool pump. That is about it.
You are not going to magically save hundreds of dollars from a free window you are not home to use.
The people who benefit most from the SSO as it is designed are retirees, shift workers, stay-at-home parents, and anyone who can physically run appliances in the middle of the day.
Everyone else is being sold a plan that quietly shifts higher rates onto the hours they actually use power: the evening.
A Simple Worked Example
Say a household uses about 20 kWh a day.
If they are home during the free window and can shift the dishwasher, washing machine, dryer and EV charger into that 11am to 2pm block, they could genuinely use most of their daily energy for free.
But if that same household is out at work until 5pm, their real usage looks completely different. Most of their 20 kWh happens between 6am and 8am, and again from 5pm to 10pm, right in the middle of the most expensive time-of-use bands.
The free window comes and goes while nobody is home to use it. The empty house sips maybe 2 or 3 kWh from the fridge and standby devices. The rest of the day is billed at standard, or higher, rates.
Same offer. Two completely different outcomes. The difference is not the plan. It is whether you can control when your home actually uses power.
Why This Matters for QLD Homeowners
Queensland already has one of the highest rates of rooftop solar penetration in the world. Energex's own 2026 household survey found growing numbers of homeowners looking to upgrade their systems or add battery storage specifically to increase self-sufficiency.
That trend exists for a reason. Feed-in tariffs in South East Queensland have been falling for years, and exporting solar back to the grid pays only a few cents per kilowatt-hour on most plans today.
The Solar Sharer Offer is really an extension of the same underlying problem. The grid has an enormous glut of cheap solar power in the middle of the day and barely any value for households who cannot use it right then.
Retailers and regulators are trying to nudge behaviour with a free window. But nudging behaviour only works if your house is physically capable of shifting load, or storing it.
The Battery-First Answer
This is exactly the gap a properly sized home battery closes.
Instead of hoping you are home between 11am and 2pm, a battery captures the free window automatically. It charges from the grid during the SSO period, or from your own solar output if you already have panels, then discharges that stored energy in the evening when standard rates are highest.
You are no longer relying on luck, memory, or a work-from-home day to benefit from the offer. The battery does the shifting for you, every single day, without you touching a dial.
This is the difference between a "sticker-slapper" quote that bolts on a battery as an afterthought and a properly engineered system. A system sized and configured with your actual usage pattern in mind, not a generic package deal, will factor in tariff structures like the Solar Sharer Offer, your typical daily load curve, and your existing or planned solar output before recommending a battery size.
That is not a sales pitch. It is basic load modelling. Get it wrong and you end up with a battery that is too small to capture the free window and too small to cover your evening peak. Get it right and the free hours become genuinely free, banked, and spent exactly when your bill would otherwise be at its highest.
A proper assessment looks at your smart meter data, your household routine, and your existing panel output before recommending anything. That is the only way to know whether the Solar Sharer Offer, a straight time-of-use plan, or a different tariff altogether will actually save you money once a battery is in the mix.
Where This Leaves Queensland Households
The Solar Sharer Offer is not a scam and it is not marketing fluff. It is a real, regulated attempt to spread the enormous daytime solar glut across more households.
But a free window you cannot use is worth exactly nothing.
The households who will genuinely benefit are the ones who either restructure their day around the grid, or install the technology that restructures the grid around their day.
So the real question is not whether the Solar Sharer Offer is worth signing up to. It almost certainly is, the downside is minimal for most plans.
The real question is whether your home is actually set up to capture free power when it is offered, or whether you are about to watch another three hours slip past while you are at work, again.
As more tariff reform like this rolls out across the National Electricity Market, the households with storage and a properly engineered system will keep capturing value that everyone else simply watches go to waste.
Want to Know What Free Midday Power Actually Saves You?
The Solar Sharer Offer changes the maths for some homes, but not all. It depends on your daytime usage, your current system, and whether a battery shifts more value than three free hours.
We run the numbers in a free energy assessment — tailored to your property, your bills, and your Energex connection.
