From 1 July 2026, most households in NSW, south-east Queensland and South Australia will be able to sign up to a Solar Sharer Offer: up to 24 kWh of free electricity during a three-hour window in the middle of the day, when rooftop solar is flooding the grid. Victoria follows on 1 October 2026 with its Midday Power Saver.
Any retailer with more than 1,000 customers in an eligible area will have to offer one, and you'll need a smart meter to take part. It's opt-in, not automatic.
Here's the catch the headline doesn't mention: the midday hours are free, but the rates outside that window are higher. Whether the deal helps you or quietly costs you comes down to one thing, how much of your usage you can actually move into the middle of the day.
Energy Consumers Australia ran the numbers on an Ausgrid household using 20 kWh a day, currently paying around $2,800 a year. Shift 30% of usage into the free midday window but leave 40% in the evening peak, and they'd be about $320 a year worse off. Shift the same 30% to midday and trim the peak to 20%, and they'd be roughly $210 a year better off. Same plan, opposite outcomes, decided entirely by behaviour.
Awareness is still low: in ECA's May 2026 survey fewer than 3 in 10 people had heard of the offer, though almost half said they'd be interested once it's available. ECA's own caution is worth repeating: enthusiasm may fade once households compare their current plan against the offer's higher off-peak rates.
That's exactly the question worth answering before you switch: can your household genuinely move enough load into the midday window to come out ahead? Our Free Midday Check models your actual usage against these plans and tells you, honestly, whether a free-midday offer would save you or sting you.