Victoria's three free hours of power a day: who comes out ahead, and the line that decides it

What it is

The Midday Power Saver is a new regulated standing offer, set up by an Order in Council gazetted on 8 September 2026. Every retailer with 1,000 or more Victorian household customers must offer it, under that name, to any household customer with a smart meter. Electricity used between 11am and 2pm costs nothing, up to a fair use cap of 24 kWh a day. Use above the cap in the window is charged at no more than the 2pm to 4pm rate. The window is the same in every distribution zone and does not move with daylight saving. The government estimated in March that about 2.6 million households would be eligible.

It is opt-in. Nobody is moved onto it by default: the Essential Services Commission's technical paper says a customer cannot be placed on it under a deemed contract. Before you sign up, the Order requires your retailer to explain the tariff, the risk that you may pay more, the availability of the Victorian Default Offer, and where you can compare plans, with an estimate of the dollar impact on you where practicable. You then have 10 business days to withdraw without any fee.

The official page does not list participating retailers. It does not need to: the obligation falls on every retailer above the 1,000-customer threshold, counted on 15 September 2026, so the practical step is to ask your current retailer for the Midday Power Saver by name.

The prices, zone by zone

These are maximums. A retailer may charge less, but not more. Your zone is your distributor, which is printed on your bill.

How it was priced, and why that sets the break-even

The free three hours are not paid for by anyone outside the scheme. The commission took the 2026–27 time-of-use Victorian Default Offer, set the 11am to 2pm rate to zero, and spread the cost of that midday electricity across the other 21 hours. It did this using three years of historical household metering, in which the average household used 11 per cent of its electricity in the free window, and it says it made no assumptions of uptake, customer behaviour change or responsiveness to this product.

Put the two published price lists side by side and the result is plain. In every zone the daily supply charge is identical to the default time-of-use offer, and every rate outside the window is the default rate plus the same small amount within each zone: between 2.05c and 2.18c a kWh. The trade is about 2c more on every kWh you use outside the window, in exchange for paying nothing (instead of the 16.59c to 17.65c default solar-soak rate) for every kWh inside it.

That trade breaks even at the same point in every zone: when about 11 per cent of your electricity is used between 11am and 2pm, which is where the average household already is. A household at the average pays the same on either offer. Every extra kWh you move into the window from the 4pm to 9pm peak is worth its full peak rate, 39.75c to 49.82c depending on zone. A household that uses less of its power at midday than average pays about 2c more per kWh on everything else, for little in return.

5% shift$149 10% shift$235 20% shift$332 30% shift$428 40% shift$571

Annual saving against the flat-rate Victorian Default Offer for a household using 4,000 kWh a year, from the ESC's letter to the Minister, Table 1. The first three bars are the range the commission said could be possible; the lighter bars are beyond it. The government's page quotes $149 to $428, which reaches the 30 per cent bar.

The savings figures, and whose they are

The government's page says households could save between $149 and $428, depending on their living situation and if they shift 5% to 30% of their electricity use into the window, and that a household charging an EV in the window could save an additional $674, and $1,102 in total.

Those figures sit on top of the commission's own modelling, and the commission was more cautious. Its letter to the Minister of 22 May 2026 says savings of $149 to $332 could be possible for customers who consistently shift 5 to 20 per cent of their daily use into the window, and adds: The ability for most customers to shift this amount of electricity consumption by changing their use of typical household appliances may be challenging. The government's range extends to the 30 per cent row. The $1,102 EV figure does not appear in the commission's letter or technical paper, and the page we read does not publish the assumptions behind it.

Two things about the commission's table matter when you read your own situation into it. First, the shifts are additional: the 5 per cent row means 16 per cent of your use in the window, not 5. Second, the comparison is against the flat-rate default offer. Moving 5 per cent of 4,000 kWh (200 kWh) out of the peak is worth about $86 at the Victorian average peak rate of 43.24c; the 10 per cent row works out the same way at about $173. By our arithmetic, in both rows roughly $60 of the commission's figure comes from comparing a time-of-use tariff with a flat one, not from the shift. For a household already on the time-of-use default offer, the gain from a 5 per cent shift is closer to $86 than $149.

Who comes out ahead

• EV owners who can charge at home in the middle of the day. This is where the big kWh numbers are, and moving charging out of the 4pm to 9pm peak saves the full peak rate on every kWh. The cap is 24 kWh across the whole three hours, and the government's safety page lists EV chargers and home batteries as very high-energy use and asks households to stagger big loads across the window rather than run them together.
• Households with an electric hot water system on general power that can be timed to heat in the window.
• People who work from home, or whose dishwasher, washing machine, dryer or pool pump runs on a timer.
• Anyone already on a time-of-use plan who is at or above the 11 per cent line now: you lose nothing at the average and gain from any extra shift.

Who should think twice

• Households empty from 9 to 5 with nothing on a timer. The government's own page is direct: If you cannot shift your electricity use to between 11 am and 2 pm every day, you may end up paying more for electricity on the Midday Power Saver and a different electricity deal may be cheaper for you.
• Hot water on a controlled-load circuit. The Order excludes controlled-load electricity from the free window and leaves controlled-load tariffs and timing unchanged. A water heater on a separate off-peak circuit gets no free power from this offer unless its arrangement is changed, which is a question for your retailer and an electrician.
• Battery owners. The commission's letter says households with a battery, especially with solar, are likely to be drawing from the grid at the cheapest times already, so their incremental bill saving in moving onto the Midday Power Saver may not be significant.
• Anyone on a well-priced market offer. The Midday Power Saver prices are regulated maximums built from the default offer, not the cheapest prices in the market. Compare on Victorian Energy Compare, the government's free comparison service, before moving.

The government pages we read say nothing about concessions. The commission's letter notes that payment difficulty support, life support protections and family violence protections apply as for every Victorian customer. Households in embedded networks such as apartment blocks and retirement villages may be eligible if they have a smart meter and are billed by a licensed retailer.

How it compares with the Solar Sharer Offer

NSW, south east Queensland and South Australia have had the federal Solar Sharer Offer since 1 July. The two schemes share a design: the same 24 kWh cap, the free-window cost recovered from all other periods, and pricing on historical load with no assumed change in behaviour; the commission says it sought consistency with the federal design. The window is 11am to 2pm in NSW and south east Queensland, as in Victoria, and 12pm to 3pm in South Australia. On both, the saving exists only if you move use into the window.

The prices are not like for like. In the AER's DMO final determination, Solar Sharer supply charges run from $1.76 to $2.72 a day and peak rates from 45.57c to 63.72c, against $1.19 to $1.38 and 39.75c to 49.82c in Victoria. The peak periods and network costs differ, though, and no household can choose another state's network. The useful comparison for a Victorian is with their own current plan.

Our read

This is opinion, built on the documents above. The Midday Power Saver is a carefully built product with honest pricing. Because the commission refused to assume anyone would change behaviour, a household that does nothing differently pays at most about 2c a kWh more than on the default time-of-use offer, and the average household pays the same. That is a modest, predictable risk, and the consent, clear-advice and fee-free withdrawal rules make it cheap to try and leave.

The promotion is a different matter. The government's top household figure sits beyond the range its own regulator called possible and warned would be challenging for most people, and its EV figure arrives without published workings. Neither is false. Both are the optimistic end of someone else's table. The real number for your house is the one your retailer must now estimate for you before you sign, and that is the number to ask for.

If you already have an EV charger or a timed hot water system on general power, ask your retailer for that estimate this week. If nobody is home in the middle of the day and nothing in the house runs on a timer, stay where you are.