Rising power bills and reduced solar feed-in tariffs are helping to fuel a boom in home battery sales. However, battery installations are still way behind rooftop solar prompting calls for a national subsidy scheme.
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Rooftop solar is a common sight in Australia's suburbs.
00:06Now rising power bills and cuts to solar feed-in tariffs are fueling a batteries boom.
00:13So in some instances houses are getting one or two cents, even in some scenarios they're
00:17paying for power to export that to the grid.
00:19Kevin Nguyen used to get 15 cents for every kilowatt hour he exported to the grid.
00:25Now he gets three cents.
00:27That's the main reason I decided to install the battery.
00:32Four million households and businesses have rooftop solar, but only about 1 in 12 or 320,000
00:39have a battery.
00:4075,000 units were installed in 2024, that's a 47% increase on the previous year.
00:49The purchase price is still a big barrier, with a battery system costing on average about
00:54$10,000.
00:56While there are no interest loans available, only the New South Wales and Northern Territory
01:01Governments offer subsidies.
01:04That's prompted calls for the Federal Government to fund a national scheme to dramatically
01:10reduce the cost of batteries for consumers.
01:13There's a saving not just for the householder, but for the whole community.
01:17That's because we're taking pressure off when electricity prices are high.
01:22This former Deputy RBA Governor is calling for an end to Band-Aid solutions like energy
01:28bill relief payments.
01:30You could repurpose that money to provide them with the opportunity to get rooftop solar,
01:36batteries to provide much more long-lasting insulation from energy prices.
01:42Disconnecting homes from a volatile energy market.