Time-of-Use Electricity Tariffs in Tasmania and How Solar Fits for Tasmanian Households

Tasmania’s electricity market has its own quirks, and time-of-use pricing is one of the biggest. If you’re weighing up solar — or solar plus a battery — understanding when power costs more (and when it costs less) is just as important as what the panels themselves cost. This guide walks through how time-of-use tariffs work in Tasmania, what solar is genuinely worth on those tariffs, and how to size a system for the way households are actually heading: electric cars, heat pumps and induction cooking.

What is a time-of-use tariff, and can Tasmanian homes get one?

Yes. Aurora Energy, the main residential retailer in Tasmania, offers time-of-use pricing, where the price you pay per kilowatt-hour depends on when you use it. Power costs more during peak periods — typically weekday mornings and evenings — and less overnight and at other off-peak times.

The alternative is a flat rate, where every kilowatt-hour costs the same around the clock. Neither is automatically cheaper; it depends on when your household actually uses power. A household that’s home during the day, or that can shift big loads away from peak times, often does well on time-of-use. Check your bill or ask your retailer which tariff you’re on and what the exact peak windows are, because they can differ between plans.

This matters for solar because the value of every unit your panels produce depends on what it would have cost you to buy that power at that moment.

What is solar power actually worth on a Tasmanian tariff?

Solar is worth the most when you use it yourself. Every kilowatt-hour you self-consume avoids buying power at roughly 28–30 cents (depending on your plan), while power you export earns the regulated feed-in tariff — 9.276 cents per kilowatt-hour from 1 July 2026, up from about 8.9 cents.

That gap is the single most important number in Tasmanian solar economics:

Where a solar kilowatt-hour ends up	Roughly what it’s worth
Used in your home instead of grid power	Around 28–30 c (an avoided import, plan-dependent)
Stored in a battery and used later	An avoided import, minus some round-trip losses
Exported to the grid	9.276 c (the regulated feed-in tariff)

None of these figures are guaranteed savings — your actual benefit depends on your tariff, your usage pattern and your system. But the pattern is stable: self-consumption beats export, roughly three to one. A system well matched to your daytime usage will generally serve you better than a bigger system that mostly exports.

How do I line solar up with the expensive times?

Run your heavy loads while the sun is shining, and the peak periods largely take care of themselves. Solar generates through the middle of the day, so the cheapest power you’ll ever get is the power you use straight off the roof.

Practical ways to lift self-consumption:

Put the hot water system on a timer so it heats late morning to mid-afternoon.
Run the dishwasher, washing machine and dryer during the day, using delay-start if you’re out.
Charge an EV in daylight hours when you’re home, even a few hours at a time.
Pre-heat or pre-cool the house in the afternoon so the evening peak is quieter.

The evening peak — cooking, heating, hot water after showers — is when solar alone can’t help. That’s the gap a battery fills, which brings us to the two big sizing questions.

What size solar system suits a Tasmanian home?

For most homes that plan to electrify, around 13 kW of panels on a 10 kW inverter is a sensible, future-proof default. That pairing uses the 133% inverter oversizing rule, and TasNetworks allows a 10 kW single-phase inverter — so most Tasmanian homes do not need three-phase power to go bigger.

The old 6.6 kW default was sized for a market that rewarded small, cheap systems. These days the smarter question is what your household will look like in five years: an EV in the driveway, a heat pump for hot water or heating, induction cooking. Each of those adds meaningful daytime demand that solar can serve directly.

Honesty check: bigger isn’t automatically better. A very low-use home with no battery, no EV and no electrification plans may genuinely suit a smaller system. The right size is the one that matches your realistic daytime use — with some headroom for where you’re heading — not the biggest array that fits on the roof.

Is a home battery worth it in Tasmania?

A battery can be worth it, but be realistic: it generally pays back more slowly in Tasmania than on the mainland, because our power is comparatively cheap and our feed-in tariff is fair. The case usually rests on self-consumption, covering the evening peak, and blackout backup — not on getting rich exporting.

The federal Cheaper Home Batteries Program, running since 1 July 2025, takes around 30% off an eligible battery — roughly $250 per usable kilowatt-hour in 2026 at the full rate for the first 14 kWh, stepping down to 60% of that rate for 14–28 kWh and 15% for 28–50 kWh, capped at 50 kWh. The discount tapers each year to 2030, the battery must be paired with solar, and eligibility rules apply — so treat the numbers as indicative, not guaranteed. There is no separate Tasmanian state battery rebate.

One more Tasmanian quirk: no vendor or retailer virtual power plant (VPP) program operates here, so mainland-style “we’ll pay you for your battery” offers don’t apply. Wholesale spot-passthrough retailing does exist, and automated battery control can charge when spot prices dip negative and dodge peak imports — Solar Generation runs exactly this on its own systems — but it’s a more hands-on path. For a typical household on a standard Aurora tariff, the honest value stack is self-consumption plus keeping the lights on in an outage.

What help is there with the upfront cost?

Two federal programs do the heavy lifting, and both arrive as discounts rather than cash back. The Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme (SRES) provides an upfront discount on solar via Small-scale Technology Certificates (STCs) — Tasmania is in STC Zone 4 — and the battery program described above does the same for eligible batteries. In practice these usually appear as a line-item reduction in a quote rather than something you claim yourself. Eligibility isn’t automatic, so confirm the details for your property before relying on any figure.

So, what’s the bottom line for Tasmanian households?

On a time-of-use tariff, the winning move is boring but powerful: generate in the middle of the day, use as much of it as you can, and size the system for the home you’re becoming, not just the home you are. For many households that points to roughly a 13 kW array, load-shifting habits, and a battery only if the evening peak and blackout backup matter enough to you — ideally with the federal discount applying. Payback periods are often quoted in the broad range of a handful of years for panels and longer for batteries, but your numbers will depend on your usage, roof, tariff and timing.

This guide is written by the Tasmanian solar team at Solar Generation Tasmania as a free community resource — we’re always happy to answer questions from Tasmanians working out their own path.

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Published by Solar Generation Tasmania. General information current as at publication — rebates, tariffs and prices change, so confirm current figures before deciding.