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This is the totally renewable energy company selling power off-grid and on the cheap
Watch the video....
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2015/s4339390.htm
Australia's first 100 per cent renewable energy utility company will use solar, battery storage and off-grid living to deliver what they say will be lower prices, and it shapes as the latest curve ball for existing energy retailers.
ranscript
LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: Tomorrow, an Adelaide company will launch the country's first 100 per cent renewable energy utility company. It'll use a combination of solar, battery storage and off-grid living to deliver what it claims will be lower prices. It has some high-profile backing, but the traditional energy sector is sceptical and believes many Australians will end up paying more than they do now. Alex Mann reports.

ALISTAIR RAY: Looking good. Nice and tidy. And the grass and the hay's looking good from there as well.

ALEX MANN, REPORTER: Near the picturesque McLaren Vale, just an hour from Adelaide, Alistair and Andrea Ray's home is nearing completion.

No expense has been spared to realise their dream.

ALISTAIR RAY: Yeah, it's a modern family home with all the toys. We have an American bar-style fridge going in here, a cook top in here and then an oven. Over here will be a cocktail bar with the wine fridge, a big widescreen TV on the fireplace and an audiovisual sound system going in the corner.

ALEX MANN: But there's one problem: right now, they've got no power. And while their house is close to paradise, they're too far away from the main power grid.

ALISTAIR RAY: The mains electricity is about 300 metres away. That's a significant cost to get the house connected.

ALEX MANN: Just how much was it gonna cost you to get it connected?

ALISTAIR RAY: It was very hard to actually get anybody to commit to a figure, but you're looking at $200,000.

ALEX MANN: Their solution is to ditch the grid altogether.

ALISTAIR RAY: We'll go through to where the solar system is. Yeah, it's tucked neatly out the way in the back of the garage there. It's pretty low maintenance. The batteries are in these cabinets at the bottom here. They just get checked every year.

ALEX MANN: Alistair and Andrea's house will be powered entirely by solar and these new batteries will hold enough of that power to run all of his toys.

So what happens on those days when the sun's not shining for a week?

ALISTAIR RAY: We have three days' worth of battery supply and the added contingency of a generator, a diesel-powered generator, so on the rare occasions there, we can still have enough power to run the core appliances.

ALEX MANN: The Ray family's set-up is at the luxury end of an energy revolution that's sweeping across Australia and which could spell the end of the power grid as we know it.

The uptake of rooftop solar in Australia or rooftop PV has increased at lightning speed.

MATTHEW WARREN, ENERGY SUPPLIERS ASSOC. OF AUST.: Australia has the highest levels of rooftop PV in the world. There's no country remotely close to the number of houses per capita that we have in Australia with panels on our rooves. Change is the new normal in this sector and really no-one knows where that change ends.

ALEX MANN: The challenge for energy providers and battery manufacturers is how to store that solar power cost effectively and how to do it on a large scale.

MATTHEW WARREN: If we can get cost-effective storage, it changes the game. The really big challenge with electricity is that we haven't been able to store it at scale cost effectively for 100 years. So if we can do that, it changes everything and that changes everything for the better.

ALEX MANN: Now one Adelaide company says it's got the answer. Tomorrow Richard Turner will launch the country's first 100 per cent renewable energy company.

RICHARD TURNER, CEO, ZEN ENERGY: It's the full end-to-end service that we're able to provide everything from the generation of power to building power networks and working with the incumbent utilities to build and operate those power networks through to retailing power into those communities.

ALEX MANN: For years, Zen Energy has been putting these battery units in people's homes. Now Richard Turner plans to take entire communities off the grid, from social housing stock to apartment buildings in regional communities. He says he'll generate the power and sell it back to users at a fraction of the current costs.

RICHARD TURNER: We're looking at a spot in the market very soon where we're gonna be almost half the cost of the grid.

ROSS GARNAUT, ECONOMIST & ZEN ENERGY CHAIRMAN: The message of our new Prime Minister is that Australia has to be agile and innovative and embrace disruption.

ALEX MANN: Zen Energy's plan has attracted some big names. Economist Ross Garnaut wrote the Climate Change Review for the Rudd Government in 2008 and is in planning mode for tomorrow's big launch. He's the company's new chairman.

ROSS GARNAUT: The big thing that's changed is a faster reduction of costs than had been anticipated. And I've been disappointed that the established energy companies have not taken on the opportunity that's there.

ALEX MANN: In councils across Australia from Byron Bay to Western Australia, local governments are looking to ditch their dependence on the expensive old grid and generate, store and use their own renewable energy. But there's a catch. When the wind stops blowing or cloud cover lasts for weeks, all of these communities will need a back-up option, and for most of them, that means at least one connection back to the grid.

MATTHEW WARREN: It's no good saying, "I only use the network a lot some of the time. I should pay less," because everyone's gonna make that claim eventually.

ALEX MANN: Matthew Warren represents existing energy suppliers and retailers. Their challenge is how to pay for a grid that's increasingly being used as a back-up.

MATTHEW WARREN: And there's no guarantee that just because you're an incumbent player, that you're gonna survive that transformation to a consumer good market. Everyone's gonna be working out ways to make money and survive in this brave new world.

ALEX MANN: And that could mean electricity consumers end up paying higher tariffs.

MATTHEW WARREN: Disruption's gonna keep occurring. We don't want to stop especially those disruptions that improve the efficiency of the system and decarbonise the system. We've just gotta make sure when we do have this disruption, it doesn't occur at the benefit of some and at the cost of others unfairly.

ALEX MANN: Either way, Alistair and Andrea Ray will avoid the tariffs. They say it's just a matter of time before more people follow them in leaving the grid behind.

ALISTAIR RAY: Everybody's fed up with paying sky-high electricity prices and with a bit of upfront investment, I think in the long term, it makes sense.

LEIGH SALES: Alex Mann reporting.