Solar Citizens warmly welcomes the Prime Minister’s groundbreaking announcement of the “Cheaper Home Battery”policy. If re-elected, the Albanese government has promised to deliver a federal home battery rebate from July 2025 to discount batteries by around 30% for homes, small businesses, and community facilities.
Solar Citizens CEO Heidi Lee Douglas said:
“This is a smart move to slash energy bills both now and long term. This policy would enable much needed cost of living and energy bill relief for all Australians for decades to come.
This policy builds on Australia’s rooftop solar success story. Ten million Australians now live in homes with rooftop solar, and share that solar energy with their neighbours during the day, slashing everyone’s daytime power bills. Through this policy, millions of Aussie householders would be financially supported to add a home battery so they and their neighbours can use that cheap, clean solar day or night.
Click on the image to watch Solar Citizens CEO Heidi Lee Douglas comments at the Renew Australia For All press conference,
(with Alice Salomon, Advocacy Director Uniting NSW/ACT, Rev Faiimata Havea Hiliau Uniting Church in Australia Synod NSW & ACT; Chantelle Ogilvie-Ellis, Organiser Sydney Alliance, and Parents for Climate CEO Nic Seton.)
Modelling by AEMO shows Australia needs 1 million home batteries by 2030 to keep energy bills low.* Solar Citizens believes the “Cheaper Home Battery” policy is the right policy to deliver those batteries. Until now, household batteries have remained the only technology in AEMO’s energy roadmap without a federal government policy to drive delivery.
Since 2022, as both a short and long term solution to the cost of living crisis, Solar Citizens has been calling for an extension to the successful Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme (SRES), with incentives on offer for both free-standing homes and apartments, whether they have rooftop solar or not; and for major parties to adopt a target of one million batteries by 2030. The Smart Energy Council has calculated that 1 million home batteries would generate $1.3 billion in wholesale price savings.
Politicians now have listened to the community, and the 14,000 Solar Citizens who signed our petitions calling for a federal battery rebate.
It's important to note that whether you have home solar or not, this policy would benefit you. It would bring down bills for all Australians. That’s because your neighbour with a home battery can continue to export their stored energy through the power lines to you after the sun goes down, which is the peak time that energy costs are the highest. So you’d no longer be forced to pay for more expensive coal or gas power at night. Every home and every neighbourhood could share the benefits of locally produced renewable energy.
We now need the Liberal party to match or better this policy. Australia’s home solar uptake is world-leading because it’s been a bipartisan government policy for many years.
Solar batteries typically cost upwards of $10,000 with payback periods ranging between 5 and 10 years depending on the tariff and other variables. With the current cost of living crisis, batteries are often not an affordable option and that’s why government financial support for batteries is welcomed.
Australians are ready and willing to install home batteries - over 250,000 household batteries have been installed across the country so far, with 57,000 installed last year.”
Some state governments have led the way, with the NSW government releasing new financial incentives for home batteries under their Peak Demand Reduction Scheme from 1 November. The Queensland government offered a generous subsidy for home batteries but this closed after only 3,500 submissions.
*The Australian Energy Market Operator’s modelling in the Integrated Systems Plan to achieve the lowest cost energy transition requires 8GW of household batteries by 2030. This is equivalent to one million behind-the-meter batteries.