From 1 September, NSW businesses are able to cut the upfront cost of a new battery by around 20–40%, with the biggest discounts available when new solar is installed alongside it.
The battery incentives aren’t new, but with today’s launch, the NSW Government has now put some numbers around the savings, and confirmed they can be combined with federal support for commercial solar. [Read more…]
Western Australia’s government-owned Synergy has an unusual position in the electricity market: it owns some of the state’s biggest batteries, as well as generators selling electricity into the same market.
New analysis has found its batteries sometimes charging at surprisingly high wholesale prices in the middle of the night, helping push those prices even higher. On the one hand, Synergy is paying more to charge its batteries. On the other hand, its generators could benefit from higher wholesale prices.
The prices discussed in this article are wholesale electricity prices. Individual price spikes don’t flow directly through to the regulated tariffs that most WA households and small businesses pay. But persistently higher wholesale costs can ultimately affect the cost of supplying electricity in WA.
Looking at a modular home battery, adding another module appears about as difficult as stacking another Lego brick. Lift the new battery into place, stack it on top of the others, plug it in and away you go.
How hard can it be? It’s probably why the question pops up every now and then in online owner forums. [Read more…]
Australia’s electricity market operator has been warned that an overly cautious approach to planning the grid could leave consumers paying more than necessary.
That’s one of the findings of an independent review of the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO), which has also raised concerns about potential conflicts between some of the organisation’s expanding responsibilities. [Read more…]
Australia has now installed more than 500,000 batteries under the federal government’s Cheaper Home Batteries Program.
It’s an impressive number for a scheme that’s a little over a year old, and one Energy Minister Chris Bowen was understandably keen to celebrate.
“Every battery installed means another household getting more value from their rooftop solar, and another job for the local installers and small businesses delivering this rollout across the country,” Bowen said.
But half a million batteries later, it’s worth looking beyond the milestone. The program hasn’t just put a lot of batteries on walls. It has changed Australia’s home energy market remarkably quickly.
The federal government has announced a major expansion of Australia’s Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme (SRES), opening the door for much larger commercial rooftop solar systems to receive the same type of upfront incentive that helped drive Australia’s household solar boom.
Under the proposal, the SRES threshold would increase tenfold from 100 kilowatts to 1 megawatt, allowing many medium-sized businesses, farms and community organisations to access an upfront discount on the cost of installing rooftop solar. [Read more…]
If you’ve ever wondered what difference a home battery actually makes to the way your home interacts with the grid, the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) has some new real-world data.
Buried in the latest Quarterly Energy Dynamics report is a comparison of 20,000 Australian homes that examines how households with rooftop solar and those with both solar and a battery imported and exported electricity during the second quarter of 2026.
The comparison reveals just how dramatically a battery can reduce a home’s reliance on the grid during the busy evening period, when electricity demand is typically highest.
Australia needs more electricians, and one organisation believes helping more women complete their apprenticeships is part of the answer.
Big Sister is working with apprentices, employers and training providers to improve the number of women entering electrical trades and, just as importantly, staying long enough to become qualified.
The work comes as demand grows for electricians capable of installing solar, home batteries, EV chargers and the other equipment needed to electrify Australian homes.
Home batteries can lower electricity bills, and those benefits can be even greater when batteries are coordinated through virtual power plants (VPPs).
But a new report from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) points out that asking people to hand over some control of a battery they’ve paid for requires confidence that it will be used in their best interests. [Read more…]
Home batteries are often promoted as a way to keep the lights on when the grid goes down.
But according to a new report from the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO), they may increasingly be helping keep the grid up in the first place. [Read more…]
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