About Finn PeacockI'm a Chartered Electrical Engineer, Solar and Energy Efficiency nut, dad, and the founder of SolarQuotes.com.au. I started SolarQuotes in 2009 and the SolarQuotes blog in 2013 with the belief that it’s more important to be truthful and objective than popular. My last "real job" was working for the CSIRO in their renewable energy division. Since 2009, I’ve helped over 800,000 Aussies get quotes for solar from installers I trust. Read my full bio.
If you’ve got a high-voltage stackable battery system and the DC cables between the battery and inverter don’t have mechanical protection, you’re not compliant with Australian standards and your systems could be classed as unsafe – and shut down.
This column explains why, and what the standard requires.
Margaux Parker, breakfast host on Triple M Brisbane, announced last week that she would rather pay ten dollars a litre for petrol than drive an electric car. She’d also had enough of smug EV drivers.
I get why people are excited about Vehicle-to-Grid. EVs are giant, relatively cheap-per-kWh batteries, and it feels like a waste to let them sit on the driveway doing nothing.
The government’s decision to taper the battery rebate every six months feels like it’s been borrowed straight from a hard-sell playbook. There’s nothing like a rolling “price goes up soon!” to push people toward a decision before they’ve properly thought it through.
About twelve years ago, there was a quiet wave of solar company bankruptcies in Australia. They were not caused by dodgy panels, bad installs, or disappearing warranties. They were caused by tax.
This week I found myself involved in two commercial solar projects. One will almost certainly print money for decades. The other looked promising at first glance but fell apart the moment we climbed onto the roof.
If you open the switchboard in a modern, all-electric home, you are increasingly likely to find little black clamp-on rings everywhere.
Norrie is a long-time reader who just spent $8,300 on a home battery. The install looked tidy. The installers were pleasant. Then the surprises landed after they were gone. He was told only one circuit could be backed up. Not the fridge and lights together. Not the air conditioner and lights. One. He was also told that in a blackout he must go outside to the switchboard and pull a lever to get power. None of this had been mentioned beforehand. He now feels stitched up and is wondering whether he has any recourse.
Ten per cent of new cars sold in Australia are now plug-in EVs. Home battery sales are going through the roof. That means a growing number of homes now have both. Or soon will.
And yet, hardly anyone thinks about how the two will work together.
Michael Bloch, SolarQuotes’ most prolific writer, died last week after a long illness.
Michael joined SolarQuotes in April 2017 and went on to write an extraordinary 3,363 posts over almost nine years. His final article was published on 22 January 2026. That volume alone is remarkable, but it only hints at the impact he had.
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