u/billscout

Was looking into the NSW energy mix recently and it got me wondering how much rooftop solar has genuinely shifted the state’s electricity supply over the past few years.

Obviously during the middle of the day solar now seems to play a pretty massive role, especially with how many houses have panels installed, but I’m curious how much it has actually changed the overall balance across a full 24 hour period.

Like:
• what percentage of NSW demand is realistically being covered by rooftop solar now?
• has coal generation meaningfully dropped because of it or mostly just shifted to covering evenings/nights?
• are batteries starting to smooth that out at all yet?
• during a normal weekday, what’s actually carrying NSW once the sun goes down?

Feels like most energy news talks about prices or politics, but not many people seem to discuss how the grid is physically operating now compared to 5 or 10 years ago.

Rentvesting has become one of the main tools younger Australians use to get a foot in the door and start building equity.

The concern I have is that some of these proposed changes may blunt that tool and make it even harder for younger people to keep up with rising prices.

After this new budget I’ve been thinking about my own situation a bit more.

If I’m earning around $160k/year, doesn’t it now make more sense to aggressively max out concessional super contributions rather than invest outside super?

Very rough numbers:

Normal super:
• Total tax ≈ ~$47k

Max concessional super contributions:
• Total tax ≈ ~$39k

That’s roughly ~$8k/year difference.

But if lots of middle/high income Australians start doing that, doesn’t that also mean:
• less taxable income today
• less money circulating in the economy
• more money locked away inside super funds until retirement?

Feels like there could be some pretty big second order effects from this stuff.