A significant increase in home solar installations across Australia is reshaping the electricity market and affecting large renewable energy projects. Approximately 4 million homes now have solar panels, which are flooding energy grids and reducing the value of electricity during daylight hours. Earlier this month, Doug Scouller, the owner of a solar farm in outback Queensland, shut down his 16,000 panels. He cited the low cost of energy as the reason for the closure, stating it was no longer viable to supply power to an area nearly twice the size of Tasmania. Scouller had been operating his solar farm for eight years, providing energy to homes around the Gulf of Carpentaria. However, he faced challenges during contract negotiations with Ergon Energy, the local power supplier. He claimed the new power purchasing agreement would pay him significantly less for his energy, forcing him to incur costs of $10,000 a month just to keep the farm running. "Most of the day, [Ergon Energy] are offering me a minus figure for the power, so in effect, that means I have to pay them to produce power for them," Scouller explained. In response to Scouller's situation, an Ergon Energy spokesperson stated that they could not comment on the negotiations due to their confidential nature. Vince Garrone, an electrical engineer and former manager at Energex, noted that Scouller's experience is not unique. "Some solar farms are going out of business, and I guess it really is forcing [them] to look at changing their model to include storage in their system," Garrone said. He emphasized the importance of long-term agreements, warning that without them, solar farms would be vulnerable to market fluctuations. Garrone also pointed out that if Scouller's farm had storage capabilities, it could have captured excess energy and supplied it back to the grid during peak evening hours. However, he acknowledged that implementing such storage solutions could be economically challenging. Experts believe that the rapid expansion of solar and renewable energy in Australia has not adequately addressed how to manage and store excess energy. As battery storage becomes more common for both new solar farms and residential systems, the energy landscape is expected to evolve quickly. Joel Gilmore, an associate professor at Griffith University's Centre for Applied Energy Economics, highlighted that combined solar farms and household solar systems are now the largest sources of renewable electricity in Australia. He noted that the average household solar system has increased from 1.5 kilowatts a decade ago to about 10 kilowatts today. Gilmore predicts that household solar will dominate the future power industry, potentially relegating solar farms to a smaller market share. According to the Clean Energy Regulator, solar power has grown from zero to nearly 20 percent of the national grid in just 11 years. Currently, there are about 4.2 million rooftop solar systems installed across Australia, with around 300,000 new applications submitted each year. Reflecting on the initial rollout of solar energy, Gilmore stated that the volume of household power entering the grid was not anticipated. He warned that the amount of power generated by homes could exceed demand during the day, necessitating a reevaluation of grid management strategies. "We are going to have to spend a lot of time thinking about how to operate that grid really efficiently and securely," he said.