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Industry lobby group Australia Energy Network wants to prohibit consumers from connecting solar systems that output 10 kilowatts of power to the grid.

This has broad implications. Today, as many as 10 million Australians can install a system of 10 kilowatts or more on their roofs and output 10 kilowatts to the grid. ENA said that if it is only used for domestic consumption, it is possible to have a larger system, but it does not want to export this capacity to the grid.

Some personal networks already want to go further. In eastern Victoria, Ausnet wants to prohibit anyone from owning systems that output more than 2kW (at the edge of the grid area) and 5kW elsewhere.

The only attempt to defend these new restrictions-reducing the feed-in limit to 5 kW, while the power available to residents of Sydney (Ausgrid) and Melbourne (Jemena and United Energy) is 10 kW-can be found in comments from ENA CEO Andrew Dillon inferred.

Dillon talked about "excessive solar energy" on the grid and is launching a panic campaign about excess energy returning to the system, complaining about isolated "frequency and voltage interference."

But these can be easily alleviated. The reality is that the voltage of the substation can be controlled by untying the bus between the transformers and distributing the feeders according to the load customer profile between them. In addition, across the country, the rooftop solar penetration rate is relatively low, only 5-15% of the capacity.

We are still a long way from utilizing all the existing infrastructure, and even if we do meet the capacity of some existing infrastructure, there is no reason not to upgrade the system to accept more solar energy.

The current system should be able to handle multiple increases in solar input—up to 10 times (assuming future system exports are limited to 10kW and an average of 20kW)—and smarter controls can allow even more.

The intimidation activities carried out by ENA may be traced back to their interest in natural gas pipeline infrastructure, and the increased threats to these assets by “pro-consumer” (solar and energy storage) activities, as well as the electrification and cooking of other services such as heating, as in Shell As emphasized this week.

According to ENA's proposal, the 10kW export limit will be reduced to 5kW, while the average power of the new solar system installed at this time is close to 10kW and is still rising.

The big system has arrived, and the big system has brought huge returns to consumers. Consumers are beginning to see this and take the opportunity to install solar panels on their roofs in the northeast, west, and now even south.

Most houses today have a roof of more than 100 square meters, of which 200 square meters are common. A 100-square-meter house can install up to 55 solar panels, using new Sunpower 400W panels, which is equivalent to a 22kW solar system.

It is also worth noting that the rest of the solar industry will eventually catch up with SunPower, which means that solar systems above 20 kW will become common scale.

If customers with 20 kW panels are restricted to 10 kW in places such as Melbourne or Canberra, this will result in a reduction in annual output by as much as 12%. If there is a large load at home, such as electric cars or household battery charging, in order to absorb excess solar energy production, the annual production loss will be more like 5%.

In addition, when installing panels in multiple ways, the annual reduction in solar production due to export restrictions will decrease, which is almost always the case in domestic situations, because our roof is only this large. To install 55 panels on most houses, they need to face north, east, west or even south.

If the export of the same customer (with a 20 kW panel) is restricted to 5 kW, which is ENA’s proposal, the lost production potential will be about 50%. Even with battery storage, it is unlikely to be absorbed on site. Two electric vehicles Car and high energy consumption.

ENA is interested in restricting rooftop solar (most of its members are natural gas companies).

The biggest loser in the switch to renewable energy is the domestic natural gas pipeline and supply industry it represents. With families disconnecting from the natural gas network in droves and using all electricity, backed by solar and batteries, ENA’s membership faces a write-down of billions of dollars in assets. Their goal of unfairly restricting solar write-downs will be limited.

We must stand up to such efforts to limit and limit the solar energy revolution. We must call on our political leaders to support an export quota of at least 10 kilowatts. Export restrictions allow inverters of any size to pass through NEM.

If we fail to do this, we may become one of the most effective areas of action to tackle climate and energy stagnation. With little help from the government in climate leadership, rooftop solar has always been a bright spark to reduce emissions in the energy revolution. For the benefit of members of fossil fuel companies that own national natural gas pipelines, ENA hopes to stop this practice.

Australian families must fight back. The ENA natural gas industry only provides an export limit of 5 kilowatts, which is the only social permit, because today there is no regulation telling them to do anything.

As a lobbyist for ENA, Stuart Johnston admitted in a conversation with One Step Off the Grid and Reneweconomy, "The whole idea...to update these export restrictions in the future...in fact, these export restrictions should be reduced."

We learned from previous public and public comments that ENA’s natural gas pipeline owners hope to reduce solar exports to zero, thereby completely eliminating solar energy as a threat.

It is now up to the public to force politicians to choose the right export restrictions for the Australian public and move to a 100% renewable energy future.

The correct export limit is 10 kW. Millions of Australians living in Sydney to Newcastle and suburbs in the north, northwest, east and southeast of Melbourne can already use this limit (previously Canberrans and ACT can be used) and only reduced To the export limit of only 5kW).

The 10kW export limit is the minimum acceptable export limit for the transition from modern power grids to renewable energy.

Matthew Wright is the head of Pure Electric Solutions, a former young industry leader in the clean energy industry and Australia's young environmentalist of the year.

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