Time to buy a battery or even add a second to your QLD home?
Update 24 Apr 2024: The Battery Booster Program will end at 11:59 pm on 8 May 2024.
The QLD government has just kicked off the Battery Booster program, a straightforward Queensland battery rebate aimed at reducing the upfront cost of adding a battery to your solar power system. Here’s the no-frills breakdown.
Battery Rebates Available
- Standard Rebate: A rebate of up to $3,000 off a solar battery is available for applicants with a combined household income of less than $180,000 for the most recently ended financial year. If the applicant has a spouse, the combined income must not exceed $180,000.
- Low-Income Rebate: A higher rebate of up to $4,000 is available for households where the highest income earner earned $66,667 or less for the most recently ended financial year.
Only one battery rebate is available per residential premises, and applications will be processed in the order they are received. The program will close once the allocated funding has been exhausted (‘about 2000’ rebates have been promised).
Update 15 April 2024: The QLD government have just kicked in another $6 million in rebates, so that’s at least another 1,500 rebates available.
Eligibility Criteria
To qualify for the Queensland Battery Rebate, applicants must:
- Be the owner of the Queensland residential property where the system will be installed (including houses, community lots, or granny flats).
- Have solar panels with a minimum 5kW capacity installed. New solar PV systems can be installed as part of the approved battery purchase.
- Select an approved battery from the Approved Battery System list, with a capacity of 6 kWh or larger.
- Use an approved installer registered on the Approved Installer list for the system installation.
- Obtain a quote and purchase the system on or after 12 February 2024.
- Meet the income requirement, i.e., have a combined household income below $180,000.
- Agree to a safety inspection of the solar battery installation by a government-appointed inspector.
Queensland Battery Rebate Claim Process
Be warned that a conditional approval is no guarantee of final approval:
- Get quotes from installers on the Battery Booster Approved Installer List for a battery on the Battery Booster Approved Battery List.
- Choose a quote to proceed with.
- Get Conditional Approval. Before reaching for your wallet, you need to apply for conditional approval from the program. This means submitting an application that includes the quote you decided on. Jumping the gun and installing a system before getting this letter will knock you out of the rebate race.
- Get the battery installed. You have 90 days from your conditional approval date to have your system installed. Interestingly, the onus is on you to check on the day of installation that your installer is still on the Approved Installer list and haven’t been kicked off for bad behaviour or dodgy installs…
- Pay the battery installer’s invoice
- Submit for Rebate Approval. You’ll need to include:
- The invoice
- Proof of property ownership (rates notice, contract of sale, or building contract).
- Income evidence via notice(s) of assessment from the Australian Tax Office for the last financial year.
After jumping through all those hoops, if still eligible, you’ll receive a letter confirming your approved application. Once approved, the rebate will be deposited into your bank account.
The Easy Way To Get Queensland Battery Rebate Quotes
If you would like to get up to 3 quotes for a battery in QLD that includes the battery booster rebate, just follow the normal process on SolarQuotes and add the words ‘QLD Battery Rebate’ when asked to add any other details. This will divert the request to a human so we can ensure your request is only sent to installers we trust who are on the QLD government’s approved list.
Useful Links
- Official QLD government Battery Booster Rebate Information
- Understand Solar Battery Payback
- Solar Batteries compared
About Finn Peacock
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Good article thanks Finn, Just wondering if you have any information on how the new Queensland Battery Rebate Scheme affects those still on The Queensland Government Solar Bonus Scheme (44cent fit)?
If you add batteries to a 44 FIT, you will loose the FIT.
From memory, you will not be eligible for the Queensland Government Solar Bonus Scheme (44cent fit) if you install a battery, add panels or move.
Thanks , I thought that was the case as it the T&Cs of the QGSBS. It strange it hasn’t been updated to allow batteries as charging batteries on solar to use at night actually saves the government paying 44c kwh fit for energy used to charge batteries.
My guess is that if you had a battery, you could export using your battery and collect 44c/kwh on that energy as well. I’m not sure if the MPB will setup different registers on the meter for solar export vs battery export
Hi Mark,
As others have intimated here, having any sort of unapproved battery or generation system onsite in Qld means they take your FIT away.
Well, it seems that those who want good old (but modern) lead acid batteries, can go take a hike. Ditto those who don’t necessarily want their system to be internet connected. The level of complexity just keeps on increasing.
A comment from a colleague of mine – who is a long time installer (of quite big systems), in some very difficult parts of the country.
“Got up to page 106 of Chinese batteries before I found an Australian LI product . (Power Plus ) From then on more crap ,and noticed a heap of LG batteries on the list that have been recalled anyway , great work by our public servants. And then no more until Zenaji , Great Australian battery but way too expensive , And would you want a “battery ” that has so much BMS that its switch mode electronics plays havoc with a simple PL or AERL old school hydro controller, that the dump load screams at you ?
And apart from that – I am not playing the game of certification to be a “recognised/certified” installer to
1 prove I know what I am doing
2 do all the necessary onerous paperwork for the customer .
3. be on the list for phone calls for the next couple of years , for all the fails from fly by nighters taking advantage of the “govt grant”
Call me a cynical old bastard and I will take that as a compliment”
Hi Finn, are there any ac coupled battery systems that are eligible under the program? I have an existing solar system without a hybrid inverter. Is there a battery I can purchase without having to upgrade my inverter?
It does appear from a few quotes that a number of suppliers have upped their pricing by circa $4k as well and the industry appears to be rapidly going the way of double glazing sales in the UK!
Quotes ranging at around $13.5k – $15.5k for a 10 kWh battery and hybrid inverter versus some pricing I got a couple of years ago at $10k when I looked at it originally.
Quotes a few years ago? So the raw cost of equipment and labour has not increased in that time?
Pricing looks incredibly accurate to what it should be now (and what it was a few years ago, for reference).
But hey, a few years ago my house was worth under $1m, and now it is $1.6m.
Must you the ‘approved list of batteries’, must use an installer from the ‘approved list’…..
Looks like QLD is in for the same shafting as they have in the ACT, with the battery prices magically INCREASING $3,000 – $4,000
I noted that #6 requires “Income evidence via notice(s) of assessment from the Australian Tax Office for the last financial year”. What of those who don’t have ATO assessment notices e.g. pensioners\super recipients?
I wasn’t sure where that claim came from so went looking. It looks like you’re supposed to use a MyGovID account (which is NOT a myGov account) to log into and register with the Queensland Rural and Industry Development Authority, though some ‘New/existing user’ option exists – details are fuzzy and I’m not interested enough to hunt them all down.
At the bottom of https://www.qld.gov.au/housing/home-modifications-energy-savings/battery-booster-program#apply it states:
-Evidence of income in the form of notice(s) of assessment from the Australian Tax Office for the most recently ended financial year. If applying for the
–standard rebate ($3,000), supply notice(s) for yourself and, if applicable, your spouse, showing the combined household income does not exceed $180,000
–low-income rebate ($4,000), supply notice for the highest income earner, showing the income does not exceed $66,667.
This implies that non tax paying households are thus ineligible for the rebate. IF you read the battery-booster-applicant-guideline.pdf a statutory declaration or other documentary evidence is acceptable, but further down it specifies a low-income rebate application giving a stat. dec. must state they are the income earner, that they’ve received no ATO Notice of Assessment, and that their taxable income is less than the threshold. Does a $0 taxable income count, especially if receiving a married untaxed pension?
I am not a lawyer but I do wonder if the definitions used and claims required could be problematic. Or is the QLD government simply assuming that anyone who doesn’t earn a salary or wage won’t be able to claim their rebate?
How’s SQ on the legal expertise front? : – )
Hi George,
We are retired but still do a tax return. I completed the application process in 90 minutes including all the learning curves, registrations etc.. if we get approved that is possibly my highest ever $/hour rate so I think worth the trouble.
I just answered the questions as I went and my NOA was $0 last year but they asked for it with the TFN blacked out so I was not too bothered.
To answer Ross A yes there are a number of AC coupled batteries out there, I had the same dilemma but got what I thought a fair quote for one that appears to suit.
Regards
Chris
This rebate scheme is a more for the positive headlines than anything else. Budget allocation is only for 2,000 recipients with the requirement to have a combined household income below $180,000 most likely intended to keep demand in line with low allocation.
Bit of a shame that they severely limited the take up – this sort of scheme could have been a great way to incentivise individuals to pay the lions share of costs for batteries which will help address the grid’s demand curve issue (especially if the scheme was coupled with a requirement to move to TOU tariffs).
Couldn’t agree more with Brendan. I’ve got 20+kw on the roof but income too high for the scheme. I looked into adding a battery, but the Return On Investment doesn’t stack up (particularly with interest rates where they are – better to put the cash in a mortgage offset account with near-zero risk) and ROI considerations are (or should be) income independent. The scheme might have got me across the line, but being ineligible I stay as I am and my (significant) load on the grid during peak periods (late afternoon, evening) will remain.
If they government really wanted to relieve the peak load burden on aging and inflexible state-owned coal-fired generation assets, there would be no income test. I know the political optics might look bad but do you want to solve the problem or not?