We are witnessing the unravelling of the great solar panel con.

Yet another unexpected consequence of the mindless rush to renewables.

All of a sudden, the ‘green’ roof top solar is a problem for the power companies, and they want to charge you for putting energy back into the grid.

Not kidding.

This starts in July and warning letters are just going out now to roughly a million homes.

You’ll pay them for the privilege of generating electricity from the top of your roof.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports:

Ausgrid will impose a penalty of 1.2¢ a kilowatt-hour for any electricity exported to the gird between 10am and 3pm above a free threshold that varies by month.

So, when the sun is shining and the panels are producing the most, they now don’t want your power.

Pay them to ‘take it away’.

It’ll add roughly $200 to your power bill.

There goes Albo’s Budget bonus!

The reason offered by Ausgrid is riddled with the usual energy industry double-speak.

Put simply, during the day they have too much power and now that’s your problem.

And, they say, there’s an easy fix … just buy a new battery for your home and store you own.

Ah yes – just pay more even money.

After all, who doesn’t have a spare $10-, $12-, or $15-thousand just sitting around?

We’ve come a long way since the days of ridiculous incentives to get people to ‘go solar’ and supposedly make money pumping green energy into the grid.

It’s a new way to fleece people at a time they can least afford it.

Money making scheme or a real problem that needs solving.

Actually, it’s both.

So what are the real motives?

This is the big energy industry admitting solar is a “no-hoper” when it comes to base load power.

You simply can’t count on it.

In New South Wales alone official figures say 950,000 homes have solar panels.

Yet, at midday most days outside of summer, roof top solar contributes less than 10% of power needed.

As always, coal generation does most of the work – typically 70%. Gas turbines do the rest.

Gas is switched in, ‘on demand’. It’s instant and expensive – often very expensive.

On an overcast day or in the middle of winter when the Sun’s impact is much less, gas generation picks up the slack.

The power companies hate paying top dollar to cover extra demand so they want to lock in supply deals that are consistent – read “cheaper”.

So, if you’re powering a state like NSW, power supply can’t be at the whim of cloud cover.

For all of Ausgrid’s moralising about zero-emissions – when it comes to the crunch (and the bank account) they really don’t care.

They want bullet-proof reliable power generation – and thank God the engineers still run the show.

Generation by coal and gas are the only forms we have that can relentlessly and reliably keep the lights on.

For all its upsides, solar just cannot.

Here we have just another unintended consequence of the mindless move towards green.

And yet again – you pay.