Four million Australian homes have rooftop solar, but just a fraction of them have batteries. Labor is claiming that its latest pledge if it is re-elected could drive up the number of homes with batteries to 1 million by 2030. But experts say governments could be doing more to make battery systems more financially viable.
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00:00Doug Perez has an inverter ready to connect his solar panels to a battery, but the cost
00:09of installing storage hasn't added up financially.
00:13We anticipate battery prices coming down, but they just haven't come down enough yet
00:17to make them economically viable for the life of the battery and the return on the cost
00:22based on our power use.
00:25Labor's promise of a 30% discount on solar batteries is being pitched as a way of reducing
00:31household energy costs, allowing families to use the power they've collected during
00:36the day when they need it most in the evening.
00:40We can have cheaper energy prices day and night, avoiding the high energy costs of expensive
00:46coal and gas.
00:48We want to make sure that everybody's included, regardless of their postcode or their income
00:52bracket, whether they rent or if they're in an apartment, so we've got more work to
00:55do.
00:56The typical battery being installed for an Australian home is between 5 and 10 kilowatts,
01:01at a cost of $5,000 to $10,000 before the subsidy.
01:06Labor's modelling says coupled with solar, this could save a household around $1,100
01:12a year off their power bill.
01:15With this 30% discount, it will totally stack up to buy a battery and it will lower your
01:19energy bills.
01:21But there are calls to go one step further, allowing households as a group to bid in energy
01:26markets, giving them access to higher prices for the electricity they feed into the grid.
01:33Potentially giving consumers access to the same market that utility batteries have access
01:38to could give them a five-fold increase to their revenues from those batteries.
01:43With Australia's energy market in transition, the Coalition has hinted they'll have more
01:48to announce in this area.