Apparently a recent raft of audits showed 98% of battery installations were defective. Does that mean the entire solar installation industry is incompetent? No, but the people writing the rules…?

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A Queensland homeowner got a solar-battery system under a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) through ShineHub, expecting it could be expanded later. Just a couple of years into a 10 year contract, the homeowner says he was told to throw away his battery and inverter and start again if he wanted more capacity — even though the system still worked. [Read more…]

Australia’s federal battery rebate is changing from May 1, 2026 — and if you’re considering a home battery, you’ll want to understand what’s changed and what it means for you.

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Sometimes I write blog posts that are fact checks. But today’s is more a statement of fact.  And that fact is:

If your electricity consumption is anywhere close to normal, it’s a bad idea to blow your only chance to use the battery rebate on a tiny 5 kilowatt-hour (kWh) battery, like the one promoted by Solar Battery Group’s letter mailout campaign.

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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.

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Door knockers are falsely claiming that the government is giving away free solar and battery systems because of “the oil crisis”, as a spate of online ads assert the federal rebate will end in May.  [Read more…]

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.

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The Clean Energy Regulator (CER) has issued a warning to retailers and installers over deceptive behaviour occurring in the rush to get batteries ahead of the May changes to the federal rebate.

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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.

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Across the country, installers are bending over backward to get systems in before the federal battery rebate reduces on May 1. Note I wrote “reduces”. The rebate is declining, not disappearing.

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