5.2 Knowledge and experiences of curtailment

comments such as “we had a couple of hundred dollars knocked off it pretty much and that was thanks to the solar”. One user (with a BESS) also cited reliability as a key factor in determining their level of satisfaction as their town had recently experienced power outages.

There were temporal aspects of satisfaction centered on the changing feed-in tariff over the years. Several participants mentioned family members who had purchased systems earlier (at higher upfront cost) and thus enjoy significantly higher feed-in tariffs: “My parents got solar many years ago and I think they get, I don’t know, some – I think their feed-in tariff is 50 or 60 cents or something. And so, they haven’t had a bill in years and usually they get credit. Whereas, I think, now is it six or eight cents or something?” Yet despite the significant reduction in feed-in tariffs, there was a sense that even recent adopters were satisfied with the value (in terms of costs weighed against benefits) that their systems were offering.

An interesting dimension of this is how the date of adoption and feed-in tariff might shape perspectives on the relative significance of curtailment: “I think the amount you see on your quarterly bill or whatever that you’re not getting compared to your neighbour that might’ve signed on five years ago or something is probably more of an issue than what curtailment is gonna do.” These differences in the period of ownership and feed-in tariffs may account for different perspectives on the part of users about whether they are getting as much economic value from their systems as they originally envisaged. Thus, these differences may have a bearing on perceptions of the fairness of curtailment.

5.1.4 Monitoring D-PV

Most participants with D-PV systems tended to monitor their systems via an inverter or retailer's mobile app on a daily or weekly basis.

5.1.5 Role and responsibilities as a prosumer

Most participants did not indicate that they perceived a notable shift in their role and responsibilities when becoming prosumers: “I certainly would still consider myself a consumer, especially considering we had a loan for the product.” Most of the responses centered on how becoming a prosumer had made them more conscious of their energy consumption and shaped household practices, e.g., using more appliances during peak generation periods. Some participants remarked on how they felt good about being able to contribute to the wider community but did not necessarily associate this with a change in responsibility: “It wasn’t a change in the responsibility, it was more like I just brought this kit which makes me feel a bit greener.”

5.2.1. Prior knowledge of curtailment

A clear finding was that most participants had no prior knowledge of curtailment. This was reflected in comments such as “I'm not sure that people know about curtailment. Until this session, I wasn’t really aware of it. So, I'm not sure that it's a public issue yet. The few that did claimed that they had experienced it themselves and/or had heard of it through active engagement with community organisations that support the transition to renewable energy in SA.

5.2.2. Prior experiences of curtailment

Only two participants stated that they had experienced any curtailment of their electricity exports. One of these participants described that it was “Last summer, maybe it was twice where they just shut off our exports to the grid, I think, for six or seven hours a couple of times. It’s as far as I know”. In this case, the participant was alerted to this occurrence via media reports and subsequently confirmed that it had happened by reviewing their D-PV inverter app.