Home battery payback times: they are a’changin’ thanks to the upcoming government rebate. Discover how long simple payback can be achieved in your state/territory as part of determining if installing a solar battery is worth it for you.
Home battery simple payback (how long it takes for electricity bill savings/credits to total the installed cost) within a system’s warranty period could only be achieved under certain circumstances to this point. The federal government battery rebate — officially known as the Cheaper Home Batteries Program — will be a game-changer in many scenarios, but not all.
SolarQuotes’ Ronald Brakels has recently updated a bunch of numbers to see what’s what in this regard.
The following table shows estimated annual savings and simple payback with a 10 kilowatt-hour (kWh) battery in each Australian capital city for an installed cost of $8,500 that takes into account the federal rebate only. This is also based on having a solar power system of more than 7 kilowatts (7 kW) and overnight electricity consumption of 7 kWh, which is what approximately 60% of Australian households consume between sunset and sunrise.
Note that these figures were also based on May 2025 electricity prices, and from July 1 this year electricity prices will increase for most Australians, improving battery payback times.
| Annual Savings + Simple Payback Periods: 10kWh Battery @ $8,500 Installed After Federal Battery Rebate | ||
|---|---|---|
| Capitals | Annual Savings | Simple Payback Period |
| Adelaide | $1,350 | 6.3 years |
| Brisbane | $1,100 | 7.7 years |
| Perth | $1,120 | 7.6 years |
| Sydney | $1,030 | 8.3 years |
| Canberra | $700 | 12.1 years |
| Darwin | $620 | 13.7 years |
| Melbourne | $610 | 13.9 years |
| Hobart | $410 | 20.7 years |
Things are looking pretty good in Adelaide, Brisbane, Perth and Sydney for achieving simple payback just with the federal rebate in well under 10 years, which is usually the warranty period of a solar battery system these days.
Although home batteries won’t provide a sub-10-year payback with typical overnight consumption in the Australian Capital Territory, Victoria and Tasmania in this scenario, they can make sense in the ACT and VIC with above average overnight electricity consumption. While a battery won’t pay for itself at current electricity prices and solar feed-in tariff rates in Tasmania, it can be worthwhile if enough value is placed on backup power — and payback will improve as solar feed-in tariffs drop.
But What About …
The scenario in the table above is simple. What about payback times in situations such as:
- Where state/territory incentives are also available?
- Participating in a Virtual Power Plant (VPP)?
- A household with above average electricity consumption?
- Other factors such as capital costs, battery reserve, degradation and more?
How do these aspects impact simple payback? All this is covered in our freshly updated guide: ‘Are Solar Batteries Worth It?‘.
The Best Home Batteries — And What They Cost
A few months back, we asked the hundreds of installers in the SolarQuotes network what brand’s batteries they would use if they were installing a system on their own houses. Based on the votes received, the best home battery brands in 2025 were:
- First place: Tesla and Sungrow
- Second place: Sigenergy
- Third place: BYD
If you’re wondering about costs of popular solar batteries from these brands, here’s a rough price guide using the Tesla Powerwall 3 as a benchmark for capacity. But note these prices are before the rebate but don’t include installation, and these models all have more capacity than what the simple payback table above is based on:
- Tesla Powerwall 3 (13.5 kWh) – $13,600
- Sungrow SBR HV (12.8 kWh) – $9,500
- Sigenergy Sigenstor (13 kWh) – $11,500
- BYD HVM (13.8 kWh) – $10,600
To get an estimate how much of a discount you could receive on these and other models, try our federal battery rebate calculator. And you can see how various models’ specifications stack up side-by-side in SolarQuotes home battery guide.
If you’d like to find out exactly what it would cost to get one of these home batteries installed at your place (or another brand/model), submit for quotes via the SolarQuotes service. It’s quick and easy to do, and we’ll match your requirements with up to three pre-vetted independent installers who will compete for your business. There’s no obligation and no cost — just honest quotes from installers you can trust.
Among the other handy tools SolarQuotes offers is our Add A Battery Calculator, which uses your smart meter data to accurately calculate savings and payback, and the Solar + Battery Calculator to quickly see estimated savings and payback when you combine a battery with solar power. Both these tools factor in the federal rebate.
About Michael Bloch
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To put this in perspective, if one buys a bi-directional V2G vehicle, & goes Bi on a charger install, one could have a huge battery available at a cost of $1500 + installation (cost projected from recent Energy conf in Sydney for AC bi-EVSE.)
So, then ability to sell power to grid or yourself say 5>8PM, then recharge the vehicle 10Pm>7am ready for next day commute.
I see the need for some local battery storage, but I feel the new EVs will replace a lot of the really big batteries. Another factor is one would not need to worry about batteries ageing: Just trade the car in! Win-win all around.
Actually, one question I asked at the Energy Conf was if people might buy a damaged EV to have it parked in their garage as a fixed battery…..
Bi-directional EV chargers cost $6-10k + installation and are a dud deal. Plus they are not permitted as yet for reverse power flow by the utility networks or most of the car manufacturers.
Hi Alex,
Same could have been said for solar when it was $12/watt.
I’d we electrify transport then around 10% of vehicle battery capacity will do all the storage we need on the NEM as I understand it.
Seeing as cars are parked for over 95% of their life, what’s really needed is more daytime charging infrastructure & more home discharging… which is already here for not much more than $1000 using a HOEM device and V2L.
The new rd6 riddara supposedly coming soon with 6 kw v2l might be great with hoem how about a article around it !!
Hi Peter,
I think the F150 Lightning is 9kW V2L so if you’d like to buy me one I’ll write that up 😉
Some of the Kia’s also have more than 4.5kW I’m told but I don’t know about duty cycle.
Yes but, as you say, only if you can charge while you’re at work. But right here, right now, the federal government is giving cash for VPP batteries.
By reports the rd6 is gunna be heaps cheaper than the lightning but we’ll see !!
It might have 15 kw of v2l but 6 in 1 outlet but I’m not expert you are check it out I’m probably wrong !!
Peter Johnston – with what I have read, if and when the Riddarra RD6 ever comes to Australia (it was supposed to have been available for sale here, two or three years ago), it will be a “gas guzzling” vehicle, NOT a Battery Electric Vehicle.
They will be environmentally hostile, and, an offence to Battery Electric Vehicles – part of the “hybrid electric vehicles” scam.
The Battery Electric Vehicle Riddarra RD6 is said to be not coming to Australia.
The RD6 is simply clickbait.
I can get a high milage Tesla Model 3 in Calgary, AB for under $20,000 CAD. It’s not V2G and likely never will be, but I can afford to have it as our second car, sitting at home charging more days, rather than getting just 10 cents per KWh from solar, and buying at 25 cents overnight to charge. Or one of our kids can drive it whenever their old beater cars break down.
Maybe there’ll be a V2H kit someday, or they could just take the whole pack off the car and make it a 45 KWh 20% to 80% home battery. But so far the bidirectional charger, gateway, interlocks, etc. cost about $10,000 and don’t really exist.
And the microgenerator and subsidy rules here in Alberta have been unfriendly to home batteries. As in, if there’s a battery on the drawing, the application is rejected.
Hi Randy,
Tesla day they’ll do V2G one day but didn’t now there are external units available to plug in to the DC charge port which allow you to discharge a Tesla…
I am astounded at the ‘average’ household energy use in Australian homes. 7kWh overnight?
Granted we have solar hot water and a sunroom that does a decent job in the shoulder seasons and are now child free but we use 3kWh – 4kWh per day.
I didn’t give much thought to payback times when I installed 1kWp of solar way back in 2000. The decision was at least partly along altruistic lines but the generous FiT back then ensured payback, eventually.
Consumers should also consider the other advantages of batteries.
Helping the grid transition from fossil fuels.
Security of riding through outages.
What Tony Seba calls ‘Super Power’. Having so much spare energy that you don’t need to worry about using it. Turn that AC up (or down).
Can confirm this is realistic. Family of 4 and we buy around 8kWh per day in south east queensland. Literally just cooking dinner and then TV, lights and standby each evening. Have a CATCH relay installed so that all of our hot water is free.
Have you taken into account 12c feed in tarrif? Not sure how it all works but I only use about 4Kw hrs outside of daylight. So plenty of excess to charge a 10Kw battery.
So if I’m missing out on the feed in tariff that blows out you pay back cost.
We are still on the SA PFiT so behooves us to export as much as possible.
I can see a time when FiTs head to 4c or lower for all States.
BC Hydro, Hydro Quebec, Ontario Hydro (+nuclear), Manitoba Hydro have had very ample electricity supplies, for decades.
Doing that with solar and wind power and batteries, as Tony Seba suggests is possible, is just a lot harder. Maybe more possible in Australia where your peak electrical load isn’t six months apart from your peak solar generation.
But still, not so easy as it sounds even if sunshine in winter is reasonably likely. And not cheap, although it won’t cost the earth.
At a local level it is certainly possible for households further North than Melbourne to be self sufficient in energy needs. It does require coming at it from an energy efficiency approach as well.
We are in Adelaide and have taken less than 10kWh from the grid while exporting 1400kWh. With a mixture of off-grid and on grid arrays and 10kWh of batteries.
At a macro level the NEM *could* be 90% VRE within a decade for not a lot more $ than BAU. Much of our FF fleet is past their economic lives already.
RodM, it’s not at all difficult to be fully energy self-sufficient at 38° S, Melbourne’s latitude, and mine in Gippsland. With 27 kW of panels and 46 kWh of LiFePO₄ batteries (30 kWh is enough), I’m fully off-grid and 100% BEV rural-distance travelling. (64 km shopping trip) Only the tractor is ICE, bought 2nd hand for minimal climate impact.
The arrays yield as little as 1 kW in deep overcast, nothing in rain, so no EV charging that day. An adequate battery covers several days of that. The two together mean SoC has never been below 70%, even after 8 overcast days in succession.
Max daily generation is 51.3 kWh (BEV, HWS, SoC recovery), minimum 5.2 kWh, often limited by somewhere to put it. RCAC heating now, in solid overcast, with SoC = 100%, f = 51.9 Hz, i.e AC inverters throttled to reduce production. HWS (2.3 kW) cuts in too => f = 51.1 Hz, so surplus remains despite the overcast.
Overnight RCAC heating, till 11 p.m., only depletes 4 or 5 kWh from the battery, negligible.
I’ve got a green catch diverter for hot water and a 9 kw system so only use around 8 kw a day so the battery would dead long before payback as my friend was quoted 17000$from one of your preferred installers for the byd battery, that’s before 4736 $ installation rebates but still leaving nearly 13000 to pay !! Go figure !!
Wht a novel idea, buying a battery on the basis of how soon it will pay for itself instead of buying it because “stuff those greedy power company ar$holes, they are not getting a brass razoo out of me if i can avoid it”
And the number 1 home battery for 3 phase powered homes goes to……Sigenergy.
From my Clean Energy web page , the below is applicable to single phase grid connections –
“On every other electricty grid in Australia, including the other electricity grid in Western Australia, people will be able to get and use up to 50kW of battery storage, for use with household rooftop photovoltaic systems, assisted by the federal government subsidy. And, they will be allowed to fully charge those battery systems, using household rooftop photovoltaic systems. But, that is outlawed on on the Shonky Westralian Inadequate Stuffup electricity grid. The Western Australian state government, through the Shonky Westralian Inadequate Stuffup electricity grid, prohibits us from being able to fully charge the up to 50kW of battery storage, that is legal in every other electricity grid in Australia, but, outlawed on the Shonky Westralian Inadequate Stuffup electricity grid.”
This relates to the 5kW single phase maximum inverter capacity oppression.
State government coercive control.
Hi Bret,
You’re upset about the SWIS and WAGov, we get it, but repeating incantations three times wont make it better.
Have a look at how the grid works in South Africa and perhaps be thankful ours isn’t that bad.
5kW x 10 hours = 50kWh so i can’t see how the SWIS “prohibits” you charging a battery.
Get a Fronius GEN24 Primo and you can have a 10kW inverter in WA now.
So, you tell me, and, the rest of us, how will a 5kW single phase inverter be able to provide 50kWh of daily BESS charging?
They simply do not generate enough electricity.
You are an installer, or, ex-installer, I believe.
You tell us the calculated daily electricity generation for a 5kW hybrid single phase hybrid inverter in southwestern Western Australia, throughout the year, compared to a 10kW single phase hybrid inverter, and, then tell us the cost of drawing enough extra electricity from the electricity grid, to provide 50kWh each day of charging for a 50kWh BESS, for a 5kW single phase hybrid inverter, compared to a 10kW single phase hybrid inverter, and, then, given the title and content of the article above, tell us the difference in payback time, between a 5kW single phase inverter and a 10kW single phase inverter, with a 50kWh BESS, in southwestern Western Australia.
Then, you might better understand the content of what I wrote, to which you responded.
From the Goodwe SEMS Portal, for our Goodwe GW5000-EH inverter (5kW capacity), the average daily electricity generation, in kWh, for the following months, is
2022-10 32.50
2022-11 32.57
2022-12 40
2023-01 33.09
2023-02 45.62
2023-03 29.02
2023-04 21.06
2023-05 17.19
2023-06 09.93
2023-07 18.95
2023-08 19.80
2023-09 23.94
That is over a 12 month period.
Goodwe do not provide amounts over periods within a day, and, do not provide worthwhile consumption figures, and, do not provide the information necessary for an independent software developer to retrieve data for bespoke analysis.
The daily consumption over the daily period of electricity generation – roughly 0800-1600, is estimated to be about 10-15kWh, so, subtracting that from the above generation amounts, gives an idea of how much energy surplus to demand, over the daily periods of generation, would be available for charging a BESS.
Panels capacity is 8.36kW – maximum for inverter model.
Anthony Bennett – Just out of interest, since you compared us with South Africa, are you aware that the Goodwe EHB range of hybrid inverters were available in South Africa, at least three years before they were available in Australia, with the 5kW model having provision for 3 MPPT’s, compared to the EH series having two (as do most other 5kW single phase hybrid inverters in Australia), and, that whole range of the EHB inverters, incorporates an inbuilt A/C bypass switch?
In the inverters and BEV’s available, South Africa is years ahead of Australia.
And, in terms of the grid quality in South Africa, compared to the grid quality here, , what personal experience do you have, of the SWIS grid in Western Australia, where the lights frequently go off, when the wind blows, and when rain falls? In this remote community of Armadale, Western Australia, it is a bit like the cellphone network access, that is euphemistically described as intermittent – sometimes it works, and, sometimes, not.
And, in South Africa, the Goodwe EHB series of single phase inverters, with its inbuilt A/C bypass switch, included, as of three years ago, the 6.5kW, 8.6kW, and 10kW single phase inverters, with those three having four MPPT’s – each of the three, prohibited on single phase household connections to the Shonky Westralian Inadequate Stuffup electricity grid.
South Africa’s electricity grid? Decades ahead of the Shonky Westralian Inadequate Stuffup electricity grid, and, without the tyrannical dictatorship of the Western Australian state government.
And, I expect that, when new power poles are installed on the South African electricity grid, they are not installed with integral structural cracks, as is done on the Shonky Westralian Inadequate Stuffup electricity grid.
But a simple payback (number of years to return the initial investment) is an inadequate and misleading metric. The opportunity value of that investment will vary, but if it’s put into super for example, expect it to earn at least 5% after tax and fees. That’s the value down the track that the sum of all those power bill savings needs to beat. And I think it’s fair to say, even in the most attractive locations, the battery will struggle to get there before it has reached its end of life. Please do a Net Present Value comparison.
Hi Michael,
You’re welcome to expand on the concept and post here or send it to us via email. We sometimes find people assume they’ll make better money on a crypto scheme with 20:20 foresight. Others place great store in keeping their freezer frozen and the comfort brought by having backup power.
Personally I wonder if the beancounters do a cost-benefit analysis on their dog or their new lounge chair.
We’re always keen to hear how people are going with their systems, so please let us know.
I used to feel the same way you do, that the value equation just didn’t add up, especially when it looked like it would take 15 years to pay off a battery. But with electricity prices in New South Wales continuing to rise (and set to jump another 10%), combined with falling battery prices, the federal rebate, the ability to join a VPP, and access to better energy plans because I now have a battery, the equation has changed. Based on my current calculations, I should be able to pay off the battery in just five years.
So you should also take into account energy price inflation, your tax position – energy cost savings in post-tax dollars and the future risks (like Trump) your inaccessible super money is going to face. Oh and inflation-adjust your super returns. Then you should do a Monte-Carlo to adjust for the risks of varying inflation and interest rates (they’re not static).
Hop to it mate!
Just after Trumps tariff shenanigans my super lost $13k. I could have gotten a battery for that! lol
Like many I’m tempted by the cheaper battery scheme but for the life of me I can’t get a scenario where a decent return can be made on such an investment especially given an upfront cost of between $15-$20k for a wasting asset with a life of 10-15 years!😲 But I appreciate that for some it’s not about the money… It’s a combination of many things including the opportunity to stick it to the power companies, having a wonderful new toy with the potential for high tech fun using Home Assistant, Node Red etc, the feeling of being in control of your electricity needs, the status of owning a battery, feeling like you’re making a contribution to reducing global warming plus other illogical yet compelling personal reasons😥
Hi Pedro,
People seem happy to burn half the money they spend on a new car as soon at they drive it out of the dealer, which is a lot more than $15k in most instances.
The most “logical” solar customer I ever encountered was a German accountant who did a cost benefit analysis comparing the value of
a) delaying a trip home for a few weeks so we could come and do his solar installation (there was a premium feed in tariff to be earnt)
b) spending time with his terminally ill father (the reason for the trip home)
To each his own but I can’t understand that sort of bean counting myself.
A good summary of intangible battery purchase motives, Pedro. More substantial, though, is lifestyle security. Suffering 5 weeks without power, in the cold Dandenongs, a few years ago, was unpleasant enough for me to move out after a fortnight. Cooking on a camping stove wears thin, as do cold showers and no washing machine. Insurance might pay for lost freezer contents, but not eating in restaurants or even take-away costs. Generators were imported from NSW, but not enough for all buyers.
Ample solar, battery, & islanding capability are physical insurance. Like putting farmhouses in the MDB on artificial 5m high islands, they enhance survivability in the decades to come.
OK, many care little for Bangla Deshis, islanders, or Floridians, but there will be several hundred million climate refugees later this century. Resilience will be required.
It will take time for the 30% rebate to be made up by price falls. ToU charges may expedite adoption, as coal gradually goes off line.
Hi Anthony, I notice no-one from Solar Quotes has taken up my request in the previous comments section of “Official Home Battery Rebate Rules Revealed” to have a decent go at explaining the huge differential in battery prices between house and car batteries and also between the wholesale cost of house batteries and the apparent rip-off retail cost.
Example 1: BYD Dolphin Premium version with a 60.5kWh battery which in Canberra is $38K driveaway. That’s $628/kWh of battery, plus you are getting a car on top of that! Your article today has a Powerwall 3 at $13,600 plus installation. To equal the Dolphin you’d have to have almost 4 ½ powerwalls installed which would be $61,200. Lets conservatively add just $2k for installation of the whole lot and we’re at $63,200, or $1,040/KWh. WHAT GIVES? How can it possibly cost almost 70% more to buy a standalone battery system rather than a car?
Brenton – does the BYD Dolphin have V2H?
I think you need to compare the cost of a BEV with V2H, and the supply and install cost of a V2H “bidirectional charger”, and the consequential changes to household wiring, with the cost of supply and install of a BESS and appropriate inverter system and any consequential changes to the household wiring.
I note that one of the costs involved with the installation of our current household rooftop PV system, about two and a half years ago, was the changes to the switchboard, involving replacing the circuit breakers and single RCD or ELCB or whatever it was named, with a single separate ELCB equivalent for each circuit, in addition to the mains one. And, it is possible that, with extra circuitry for a V2H connection, that a switchboard may need to be replaced, with extra available circuits.
I am only a layperson, not a tradesperson, but, I suggest that these points are points worth considering.
Hey Brett, what do you think about the additional costs involved in building a whole car? The engine, the electric motors, the frame and chassis for the car, all the electrical equipment to make an entire car run, the screens and audio system for the car, all the safety gear to enable to get a 5 star safety review, the glass in the windows/roof, the paint job…. there is no way these things cost any less than some wiring changes to your house and a switchboard upgrade. And in any case, that wasn’t entirely my point! My point is that even if you ignored all the paraphernalia with each, why should house batteries cost so much more than those in cars?
Electric cars are at least partially subsidized by the trade in emission credits / penalties that fossil car companies otherwise pay.
If you want to know the true selling price of the battery, try to go buy a new one. Hyundai quoted a Canadian EV owner $60,000 for an out of warranty replacement.
Tesla uses ‘refurbished’ packs for warranty replacement.
I wanted to buy 4 KWh of battery for an EGO mower, $4,494 plus sales tax.
Hi Randy, I’m not sure your purpose is in mentioning 1 seriously overinflated value like $60K and trying to make out it’s what people can expect to pay for battery replacements in their cars. A quick google search for Tesla Model 3 battery replacement in Australia shows $10k to $20k costs, with the average looking around the $17k mark. Which again reinforces my point – these are 60 or 80kWh batteries costing less than $20K to swap over. I would be quite happy with an 80kWh battery installed in my garage for $20K, but at present it doesn’t seem possible.
I think you’ll find those $20,000 Tesla replacement batteries are ‘refurbished / repaired / used / Not Dead Yet. They are NOT new.
Example 2: I gave the example of a 10kWh battery that you could buy on Aliexpress with a BMS included and 10 year warranty for around $1,000. Given there would be zero chance of the warranty being honoured, and there’s also freight costs and import duties, it would obviously cost double that before it arrived. To this end, in the comments were someone saying they could get a good quality 10kWh system delivered to their door for $2,300, so perhaps these figures are about right. So at the Powerwall price of $1000/kWh versus say $250/kWh for other batteries, why are the powerwalls 400% more expensive? I can understand a mark-up and premium, even say 100%, but not this.
I am hopeful that an Australia company will start importing and installing these cheaper batteries and be able to do so at a substantial discount. I would like 50kWh of batteries in the garage to account for all contingencies, and if the rate comes down, closer to the $400-500kWh, then most of the cost is covered!
Looking at Net Present Value (NPV) — where the value of future benefits is reduced by a given rate each year:
Assuming a discount rate of 5% and a life of 10 years an $8,500 dollar battery has a positive net present value when the annual saving is about $1,100 per year. If you are more optimistic about the battery life, for 15 years it’s under $800.
In addition to load shifting, blackout protection and VPP add value, and if you are not already on a time-of-use plan, a battery makes switching low risk and will give further savings.
Hey Robert, I agree that batteries are a great addition to your house and will no doubt provide addtional savings. But you might have missed my point. I’m asking about the differential in costs between the batteries we are being offered compared to those from overseas, and also when comparing the prices of larger batteries that are already being installed in cars, where you get a car and a battery for much cheaper than retail versions here of comparable size.
BYD sells millions of cars, rolling off production lines at a great rate, for reduced unit cost. BYD and other major Chinese EV manufacturers are also receiving generous subsidies from their government during this ramp-up phase, so we’re not paying full price for EVs.
None of that applies to the yet insignificant domestic battery market.
Further, it is reported that an iPad will cost US$3,500 (A$5,400) if made in USA.
If the domestic batteries you want to randomly compare to EVs are not made and system-assembled in China, then you’re comparing cheese and goats, I suggest. To repeat an old message: You can buy a 10 kwh battery for $2300 from China now. Go ahead, if you like.
The Aussie $2.3B rebate scheme might have stimulated a price reduction, if it had been implemented via a national bulk buy, to pull in the benefit of volume sales, but that would be unacceptable market intervention. But if sales volume remains elevated in coming years, prices will slowly decline.
Hey Erik, a recent headline on the Renew Economy website was “Tesla battery storage revenue trumps electric vehicle sales in Australia as revenue tops $5 billion for first time” – do you think they’re fairly priced, or perhaps they’re making a little bit of profit from their batteries? Perhaps making them for $3K? $5K even? Even $6.5K then turning around and selling for $13K? That’s would still be a 100% markup. Sure, nice while it lasts until they get some reasonable competition.
Ah, Brenton, your incredulity at a markup to $13k installed for a $5k manufactured cost battery reveals the failure of understanding underlying your interminable flogging of disappointment at the normal price ladder: manufacture – wholesale – retail. Retail is expensive in Australia. Supermarket prices for food are sky-high, and farmers are going under due to the little they are paid, but the supermarket giants report under 10% profit. Running a small business to install technically non-trivial equipment in a different situation each time, one at a time, with travel, overtime, worker’s comp, etc. is expensive. The wholesaler & importer also need a cut, to stay in business.
When you pick up a single-box standard solar+battery system, take it home yourself, and there is no installation or certification, then the price can fall – *after* these boxes sell a million p.a.
100% markup is standard for one off. It covers costs – often barely.
Import your own. That is cheap. All fixed. 😉
Again Eric, you seem to like throwing a whole heap of irrevelvancies into the mix and then claiming that I’m being incredulous. Tesla is not a small company. They are not making one-off’s. Their batteries are producing higher profits than their cars. You don’t think there’s scope for another company to produce a battery and sell it here in Australia for much closer to production cost price and still make a reasonable profit? I’m not talking about installation costs, just the retail cost of a battery. Alpha ESS is one of the more cheaper common batteries sold here at around the $700kWh mark. I don’t think it’s too much to ask to find in the next year or so, especially with the battery scheme here for up to 50kWh, that we get more choice and so significantly cheaper batteries, at least to the $375kWh mark. If so, it will be a WIN WIN for everyone. Free batteries courtesy of the rebate, free energy storage for households, and better grid stability and less reliance on the grid…
Hi Brenton,
I think Eric makes some good points. Wether it’s Fronius or Fox, the time a petrol used to deliver it is the same.
While I love to support local industry and I think there’s good reason for it, our market is tiny, compliance is onerous and labour rates high.
The other thing is that it’s hard to argue why everyone should have cheap batteries when, as the old maxim goes, poor people always pay twice.
https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/alphaess-battery-warranty/
I just signed up for 50 kWh battery and 15 Kw inverter plus 6.6 extra panels to my 13.2 system for $17400 so looks like I’m $45K in front from the getgo.
Care to share some details Chris? Australian battery installer? Sounds like a pretty extraordinary price.
Brenton,
I do not contend that LFP battery prices will not become more reasonable when sales volume is sufficient. A 12v 1.2 kWh unit is just $295 at 1 off now.
But a Powerwall is battery + BMS + inverter/charger + controller & firmware.
It is a non-trivial system, and the market will bear a higher price for what it does, not what it’s made of. Try Sigenergy instead – they’ll doubtless nudge the price down sooner.
Importing is done for profit, not our benefit, so take that risk if price is so important. I paid around $350/kWh for LiFePO₄ cells 18 months ago here. They’re cheaper off Alibaba, but add freight, 10% GST, customs fee, & local freight. It adds up fast.
Home energy storage is still a low volume pioneer market, but at least the products are more developed now. Early adopters pay back the R&D costs (spent *and* ongoing). Only the patient can free-ride on that, finding cheaper batteries after the market has matured.
You can have more for less – just not yet. Haste costs.
Now that the WA state government rebate per household has been reduced to 1.3K max, the payback period is trending towards the higher end of the 10-year battery warranty; so my 2024 smart meter data is telling me it’s not yet the right time to add a battery. If my use case is not uncommon, the WA Govt’s goal to get more batteries installed (from 20,000 to 100,000) is questionable. And then the new requirement to join VPPs when it is virtually non-existent in WA – lets see how that works out. I am going to sit this one out.
Anthony, the headline of this post is about “bean counting”. I am responding in a sincere attempt to count the beans. Granted there are a bunch of reasons which aren’t economic to buy a battery, but that’s not the topic here. Please stay in topic … rule number 5.