{"id":90449,"date":"2025-03-20T13:56:20","date_gmt":"2025-03-20T04:26:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/?p=90449"},"modified":"2025-06-30T12:12:11","modified_gmt":"2025-06-30T02:42:11","slug":"power-price-hikes-make-batteries-pay-in-nsw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/power-price-hikes-make-batteries-pay-in-nsw\/","title":{"rendered":"Power Price Hikes Make Batteries Pay In NSW"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-90633\" src=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/sydney-opera-house-with-city-view-at-night-austra-2025-01-08-02-34-54-utc1.jpg\" alt=\"Sydney at night\" width=\"1200\" height=\"626\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/sydney-opera-house-with-city-view-at-night-austra-2025-01-08-02-34-54-utc1.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/sydney-opera-house-with-city-view-at-night-austra-2025-01-08-02-34-54-utc1-300x157.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/sydney-opera-house-with-city-view-at-night-austra-2025-01-08-02-34-54-utc1-1024x534.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/sydney-opera-house-with-city-view-at-night-austra-2025-01-08-02-34-54-utc1-768x401.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/>The bad news is out.\u00a0 Grid electricity <a href=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/electricity-standing-offers-mb3137\/\">price hikes are coming<\/a> and likely to hit hardest in NSW, where bills are set to spike by up to 8.9%. With more financial pressure looming, many NSW homeowners are asking: &#8220;Is now the time to get solar and a battery?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The answer to this question for solar is &#8212; hell yeah!<\/p>\n<p>And the answer for a battery is &#8212; hell probably!<\/p>\n<p>Solar makes sense for everyone with a mostly unshaded roof, or even a moderately shaded one.\u00a0 A battery is more of an &#8220;it depends&#8221; kind of thing, but thanks to the following factors:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The coming electricity price hikes;<\/li>\n<li>Lower solar feed-in tariffs;<\/li>\n<li>Increasing solar system sizes;<\/li>\n<li>Falling battery costs;<\/li>\n<li>Falling solar feed-in tariffs, and &#8230;<\/li>\n<li>NSW battery and VPP incentives.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Then provided your home consumes as much electricity during the evening peak period as the average Sydney 2-person home does, a home battery can pay for itself in NSW.\u00a0 By pay for itself, I mean the savings on electricity bills will equal the installed cost of the battery before its warranty runs out.<\/p>\n<p>But be careful!\u00a0 This will only work if the battery is combined with a solar system large enough to regularly fully charge it.\u00a0 Also, if you&#8217;re part of a 2 person household, half these homes have below-average evening peak consumption.\u00a0 But the majority of NSW homes with suitable solar can now come out ahead financially by installing a battery that&#8217;s reliable but not too expensive.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, saving money is not the only reason to get a battery.\u00a0 Some place a high value on the backup power they can provide, while others take pride in their environmental benefits.\u00a0 But if you can have these things while also coming out ahead financially, then in the words of George Orwell&#8230;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;That&#8217;s totes amazeballs!&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Note, it&#8217;s possible the George Orwell I know is different from the one you&#8217;re thinking of.)<\/p>\n<p>Using Sydney as the example location, I&#8217;m going to explain why solar and batteries can now make money for the majority of NSW households.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_90631\" style=\"width: 1032px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-90631\" class=\"wp-image-90631 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/George_Orwell-e1742443282960.jpg\" alt=\"A man in a brown suit\" width=\"1022\" height=\"1067\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/George_Orwell-e1742443282960.jpg 1022w, https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/George_Orwell-e1742443282960-287x300.jpg 287w, https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/George_Orwell-e1742443282960-981x1024.jpg 981w, https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/George_Orwell-e1742443282960-768x802.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1022px) 100vw, 1022px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-90631\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">As George Orwell also once said, all battery systems are created equal, but some batteries are more equal than others. Again, probably a different George to the one you know.\u00a0 (He still has a stupid moustache, though.)<\/p><\/div>\n<h2>Solar Is A No Brainer<\/h2>\n<p>For the average 2 person Sydney home annual electricity consumption is around 5,100kWh and for 3 people it&#8217;s 6,100kWh.\u00a0 If grid electricity is 33c per kWh and they have a 5c solar feed-in tariff and typical electricity consumption patterns, then their annual savings from installing a 10kWh solar system would be:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>2 people $1,450<\/li>\n<li>3 people $2010<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It&#8217;s possible to get a 10kW solar system that uses lower cost but reliable hardware from an installer who does quality work for $10,000.\u00a0 If the electricity price and feed-in tariff assumptions hold steady, the solar system will pay for itself in under 7 years for the 2 person household and under 5 years for 3 people.\u00a0 So if you don&#8217;t have solar, or your system is a puny little one installed ages ago, go get yourself a large new solar system immediately.\u00a0 The less solar you have, the harder the coming <a href=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/electricity-standing-offers-mb3137\/\">electricity price hikes<\/a> will hit.<\/p>\n<h2>How High Will Electricity Prices Go?<\/h2>\n<p>Initial reports are NSW electricity prices could increase by from 7.8-8.9%.\u00a0 I&#8217;ll assume they&#8217;ll increase 8%, which would push a 33c per kWh price up to 35.6c.<\/p>\n<p>That 35.6c price is for a flat tariff that stays the same no matter the time of day.\u00a0 To keep things simple, I&#8217;ll assume prices will rise and then remain constant in real terms, with all the dollar figures below listed in today&#8217;s money.<\/p>\n<h2>Solar Feed-in Tariffs<\/h2>\n<p>At the moment it&#8217;s not clear what will happen with solar feed-in tariffs.\u00a0 But their trend is to head downwards and the lower they go, the better the return from a battery.\u00a0 This is because when you charge your battery with solar power you <a href=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/feed-in-tariffs-batteries\/\">forego the feed-in tariff<\/a> you would have received from sending it into the grid.\u00a0 Because batteries are not 100% efficient, you will lose more than 1kW of feed-in tariff for every 1kwh of stored energy used.\u00a0 If a battery has 90% roundtrip efficiency, with a feed-in tariff of 5c, you&#8217;ll need to charge it with 5.6c of solar electricity to get 1kWh out in the evening.<\/p>\n<p>At the moment there are a quite few electricity plans offering feed-in tariffs over 5c in NSW.\u00a0 I&#8217;m going to assume that next financial year 5c will be the highest feed-in tariff on a plan that makes sense for you.<\/p>\n<h2>Typical Electricity Consumption<\/h2>\n<p>The average Sydney household size in Sydney is 2.6 people.\u00a0 But no home actually has 0.6 of a person in it.\u00a0 (Or at least, I hope none do.)\u00a0 That 0.6 of a person is simply a nightmare that results from using arithmetic.\u00a0 The most common household size is 2 people, which is the typical household size.\u00a0 On average, in NSW, the typical 2-person household consumes an average of around 5,100kWh per year.\u00a0 During a time-of-use tariff&#8217;s 6 hour peak period during the late afternoon and evening, they consume roughly six kilowatt-hours.<\/p>\n<p>The higher your electricity consumption during this peak period, the greater the return from installing a battery, but this doesn&#8217;t mean you should shift consumption from the daytime to the evening!\u00a0 Daytime solar will always be the cheapest way to power appliances.<\/p>\n<p>The best way to find out your evening electricity consumption is to get your DNSP to send you a file and use our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/battery-storage\/calculator\/\">battery calculator<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_90632\" style=\"width: 1210px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-90632\" class=\"wp-image-90632 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/aerial-view-of-the-beautiful-sydney-opera-house-il-2025-02-07-22-56-39-utc-scaled-e1742443650229.jpg\" alt=\"The Sydney Opera House\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-90632\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A typical swanky Sydney household. Hopefully they&#8217;ve got batteries already with all those lights left on at night.<\/p><\/div>\n<h2>Battery Prices<\/h2>\n<p>Some good news is home battery prices are trending down.\u00a0 There are a few holdouts that haven&#8217;t lowered their prices for a long time, but I guess some batteries just aren&#8217;t trendy.<\/p>\n<p>Installed cost is one of the most important factors in whether or not a battery will pay for itself.\u00a0 But don&#8217;t go buying the cheapest one you can find.\u00a0 That runs a real risk of expensive problems.\u00a0 Check out our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/101-guides\/buying-batteries\/#best-batteries\">chart of all the batteries we recommend<\/a> for guidance.<\/p>\n<p>You&#8217;ll also want a quality installer.\u00a0 If your battery has problems, which is a real possibility, you want someone who&#8217;ll come back as many times to get it working right and won&#8217;t fob you off with excuses and disappear for months at a time.\u00a0 But note that installers who take care of their customers won&#8217;t be the lowest-cost ones around.<\/p>\n<p>You&#8217;ll want a battery that&#8217;s reliable but not expensive, with a warranty that won&#8217;t end too early if it&#8217;s worked hard.\u00a0 Two examples that come to mind are Sigenergy and Sungrow, but there are a range of batteries that can do the job and I&#8217;m not going to try to push you into choosing any ones in particular.\u00a0 I&#8217;m just going to talk about a generic 7.8kWh battery that&#8217;s suspiciously like a SigenStor and a\u00a0 9.6kWh battery that&#8217;s kind of like a Sungrow.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ll also factor in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/battery-storage\/nsw-rebate\/\">NSW Battery Incentive<\/a> paid to installers who pass it on in the form of lower prices. Using a figure of $1.90 per Peak Reduction Certificate, which is at the upper end of the range people have been receiving lately, the installed cost of the example batteries will be:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>7.8kWh battery &#8212; Favorable circumstances $8,319.\u00a0 Less favourable circumstances $9,819.<\/li>\n<li>9.6kWh battery &#8212; Favorable circumstances $9,617.\u00a0 Less favourable circumstances $11,117.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There are also 2 NSW government incentive payments for joining a VPP.\u00a0 You can get the 1st payment when a VPP joined and the 2nd one 3 years later.\u00a0 Using the same $1.90 value for PRCs, subtracting the 1st VPP payment gives the following installed prices:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>7.8kWh battery &#8212; Favorable circumstances $8,140.\u00a0 Less favourable circumstances $9,640.<\/li>\n<li>9.6kWh battery &#8212; Favorable circumstances $9,408.\u00a0 Less favourable circumstances $10,908.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If you join a VPP, you won&#8217;t just receive the government incentives, you&#8217;ll also get payments from the VPP itself. While some VPPs are better than others, at the moment, you can generally only expect to come out around $100 ahead per year.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_90630\" style=\"width: 1156px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-90630\" class=\"size-full wp-image-90630\" src=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/sigenergy-install-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1146\" height=\"745\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/sigenergy-install-1.jpg 1146w, https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/sigenergy-install-1-300x195.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/sigenergy-install-1-1024x666.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/sigenergy-install-1-768x499.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1146px) 100vw, 1146px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-90630\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A photo of a Sigenergy battery that you may think looks suspiciously like my generic 7.8kWh battery, but is actually much too big.<\/p><\/div>\n<h2>A Flat Tariff &amp; No VPP<\/h2>\n<p>I&#8217;ll start by calculating how much how much money a battery will save on a flat tariff, with the following assumptions:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>35.6c per kWh grid electricity price<\/li>\n<li>5c solar feed-in tariff<\/li>\n<li>A 90% battery roundtrip efficiency that requires it to be charged with 5.6c worth of solar electricity for it to discharge 1kWh<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This will result in every kWh discharged from the battery in place of using grid electricity saving 30c\u00a0 (35.6c &#8211; 5.6c = 30c).<\/p>\n<p>If a household installed a 7.8kWh battery and discharged 7.8kWh every night, they would save $854 per year.\u00a0 Over 10 years that would come to $8,540 &#8212; which is more than the $8,319 cost of installation under favorable conditions.<\/p>\n<p>If they instead installed the 9.6kWh battery and fully discharged it every night, it would save $1,051 per year or $10,510 over 10 years, which is more than the $9,617 installed cost under favourable conditions.<\/p>\n<h2>100% Capacity Isn&#8217;t Realistic<\/h2>\n<p>However, its just not possible to fully charge a battery with solar energy up to its stated usable capacity every day and then and then fully discharge it every night.\u00a0 The main reasons why are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Usable battery capacity deteriorates over time: <\/strong>Home batteries are holding up better than they used to, so I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s unreasonable to expect them to maintain 80%+ of their original usable capacity while under warranty.\u00a0 But their warranties typically let them fall to 60% or 70%, so it&#8217;s possible you won&#8217;t be this fortunate.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Batteries won&#8217;t be 100% drained:<\/strong>\u00a0 If your home uses an average of 10kWh overnight, it won&#8217;t use that amount every single night.\u00a0 It&#8217;s more likely to be somewhere from 5-15kWh.\u00a0 But sometimes it could be next to nothing because you were out all night or on holiday.\u00a0 Combined with 10% capacity deterioration, this may result in a household only using a 7.8kWh battery at around 81% capacity and a 9.6kWh battery at around 77%.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Batteries won&#8217;t be fully charged with solar every day:<\/strong> The larger your solar system, the easier it will be to fully charge your battery with solar energy every day.\u00a0 If your solar system is 6.6kW or smaller and there are people at home during the day, you&#8217;re likely to have trouble fully charging your battery in winter and during periods of cloudy weather.\u00a0 On the other hand, if there&#8217;s usually no one at home during the day, a 6.6kW system may work well.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Partial daytime discharges don&#8217;t do much:<\/strong>\u00a0 If a household&#8217;s power consumption during the day exceeds what the solar system can provide &#8212; possibly because the sun&#8217;s behind a cloud &#8212; then the battery can make up the difference and still be fully charged before sunset.\u00a0 While this will raise a battery&#8217;s capacity factor, if you have a large solar system, then most of the time there will be enough solar generation to meet demand.\u00a0 If you have a small solar system, then you&#8217;ll have trouble keeping the battery fully charged.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Taking into account the above factors, I&#8217;m going to assume the following capacity factors for the example batteries for a typical Sydney household that consumes 9-10kWh overnight:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>82% for a 7.8kW battery<\/li>\n<li>74% for a 9.6kWh battery<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Not being able to use a battery at close to 100% capacity may seem like a major disadvantage, but a silver lining is many battery&#8217;s warranties will end early if their full usable capacity is discharged every day, so it&#8217;s often not as serious a problem as it may seem.<\/p>\n<p>Using a smaller battery can increase the capacity factor, but smaller ones cost more per kWh of storage, so using a battery smaller than 7.8kWh is likely to decrease the financial return.<\/p>\n<h2>Flat Tariff, No VPP, Realistic Capacity Use<\/h2>\n<p>With an 82% capacity factor for the 7.8kWh battery and 74% for the 9.6kWh one, the savings over 10 years &#8212; using the previous assumptions &#8212; will be:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>7.8kWh battery:\u00a0<\/strong> Annual savings $700.\u00a0 10 year savings $7,000<\/li>\n<li><strong>9.6kWh battery:\u00a0<\/strong> Annual savings $778.\u00a0 10 year savings 7,780<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>As the installed costs under favourable conditions are $8,319, and $9,617 respectively, they&#8217;re not going to pay for themselves within their 10 year warranty under these conditions.\u00a0 But the figures improve if they&#8217;re part of a VPP.<\/p>\n<h2>Flat Tariff With VPP &amp; Realistic Capacity Use<\/h2>\n<p>Joining a VPP can immediately provide a NSW government incentive and another one after 3 years.\u00a0 There are also VPP payments of perhaps $100 per year.\u00a0 For simplicity, I&#8217;ll assume the 2nd government VPP payment is exactly equal to the 1st.\u00a0 With a flat tariff, the savings will be:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>7.8kWh battery:\u00a0<\/strong> Average annual savings $836.\u00a0 10 year savings $8,360<\/li>\n<li><strong>9.6kWh battery:\u00a0<\/strong> Average annual savings $920.\u00a0 10 year savings $9,200<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So in this situation, a 7.8kWh battery installed under favorable circumstances will have a simple payback period shorter than its warranty at just under 10 years.\u00a0 The 9.6kWh battery, installed under favourable circumstances, doesn&#8217;t make the cut with a simple payback period of 10 years and 6 months.<\/p>\n<h2>Time-Of-Use Tariffs<\/h2>\n<p>Time-of-use tariffs significantly increase battery savings, but make the calculations more complex.\u00a0 While they help, these tariffs have issues that make them less useful than you may expect.<\/p>\n<p>Sydney time-of-use tariffs usually have a high peak rate in the late afternoon and evening, a low off-peak rate late at night and early in the morning, and an in-between shoulder rate at all other times.\u00a0 But some plans only have peak and shoulder rates.<\/p>\n<p>My rules of thumb for selecting a Sydney time-of-use tariff are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A 7 day a week peak rate, which is generally better than those that just apply on weekdays<\/li>\n<li>A peak period from 3-9pm, which is almost always better than plans with a peak period of 2-8pm<\/li>\n<li>Min-max by having a plan with an expensive peak rate and low rates at other times<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>A 6 Hour Peak Is More Like 4 Hours<\/h2>\n<p>In the Sydney summer the sun can set as late as 8:09pm.\u00a0 So if your peak period is from 2-8pm, then in summer, your solar system can still be producing electricity by the time it&#8217;s over.\u00a0 Depending on the size of your solar system and your electricity use, there may be summer days where you won&#8217;t even need to use battery power during the peak.\u00a0 This is why having a plan with a later peak from 3-9pm is a definite advantage.<\/p>\n<p>A 6-hour peak period from 3-9pm will average out over a year to around 4 hours of peak without significant solar generation. This will make it difficult for a normal household to use all its stored energy during summer peak periods, while in winter it will be much easier, with sunset around 5pm in July.\u00a0 The drawback is, this is also the season when a battery is least likely to be fully charged with solar energy.<\/p>\n<p>A typical 2 person home that uses an average of 9-10kWh overnight will only average around 6kWh of consumption during a 6 hour peak period from 3-9pm.\u00a0 But homes with decent-sized solar systems are only likely to average around 4kWh of non-solar electricity consumption.\u00a0 Another issue is that homes generally have to draw around 100W or more of grid electricity before batteries start to supply power, so the amount of battery energy that can be supplied in this period is more likely to be around 3.6kWh.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1857\" style=\"width: 338px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1857\" class=\"wp-image-1857 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/solar_panels-e1742444539307.jpg\" alt=\"Solar Panels and Sky\" width=\"328\" height=\"380\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/solar_panels-e1742444539307.jpg 328w, https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/solar_panels-e1742444539307-259x300.jpg 259w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 328px) 100vw, 328px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-1857\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Solar panels will be productive well into the peak period during a Sydney summer.<\/p><\/div>\n<h2>Time-Of-Use Prices<\/h2>\n<p>Looking at current time-of-use retail plans that meet my three rules of thumb, I see there&#8217;s one with a 7-day-a-week peak period from 3-9pm with a high peak rate of 58 cents.\u00a0 The shoulder rate is 30c and there&#8217;s no off-peak rate.\u00a0 At the moment, it offers a solar feed-in tariff that&#8217;s over 5 cents, but I&#8217;ll assume it drops to 5c next financial year.\u00a0 If electricity prices rise by 8% the plan will have the following characteristics:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Peak rate 62.6c<\/li>\n<li>Shoulder rate 32.4<\/li>\n<li>Solar feed-in tariff 5c<\/li>\n<li>Savings from using 1kWh of battery storage rather than grid electricity during peak period 57c<\/li>\n<li>Savings from using 1kWh of battery storage rather than grid electricity during shoulder period 26.8c<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Payback With Time-Of-Use Tariff &amp; No VPP<\/h2>\n<p>To calculate the savings with a time-of-use tariff and no VPP, I&#8217;ll assume an 82% capacity factor for the 7.8kWh battery and 74% for the 9.6kWh one.\u00a0 I&#8217;ll assume the smaller battery will be able to supply an average of 3.4kWh during the peak periods and the larger battery 3.5kWh.\u00a0 Their remaining available capacity is discharged during the shoulder period.\u00a0 For the two batteries the savings would be:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>7.8kWh battery:\u00a0<\/strong> Average annual savings $1,000.\u00a0 10 year savings $10,000<\/li>\n<li><strong>9.6kWh battery:\u00a0<\/strong> Average annual savings $1,080.\u00a0 10 year savings $10,800<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So the 7.8kWh battery easily pays for itself within its 10 year warranty period if installed under favourable conditions and also just manages it under less favourable conditions.\u00a0 It&#8217;s payback periods are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>7.8kWh payback period under favourable conditions (installed cost $8,319):\u00a0<\/strong> 8 years 4 months<\/li>\n<li><strong>7.8kWh payback period under less favourable conditions (installed cost $9,819):\u00a0<\/strong> 9 years 10 months<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The 9.6kWh battery makes the cut when installed under favourable conditions but doesn&#8217;t quite make it under less favourable conditions.\u00a0 Its payback periods are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>9.6kWh payback period under favourable conditions (installed cost $9,617):\u00a0<\/strong> 8 years 11 months<\/li>\n<li><strong>9.6kWh payback period under less favourable conditions (installed cost $11,117):\u00a0<\/strong> 10 years 4 months<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The battery&#8217;s payback can be further improved under this situation by charging the battery during the cheap period when there isn&#8217;t enough solar output to give it an adequate charge and then discharge it during the peak.\u00a0 But as there&#8217;s no morning peak to take advantage of in Sydney, the benefit won&#8217;t be large.<\/p>\n<h2>Payback With Time-Of-Use Tariff &amp; VPP<\/h2>\n<p>If the batteries are part of a VPP then the money this brings in lets them pay for themselves under both favourable and less favourable conditions:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>7.8kWh battery:<\/strong>\u00a0 Average annual savings $1,136.\u00a0 10 year savings $11,360<\/li>\n<li><strong>9.6kWh battery:<\/strong>\u00a0 Average annual savings $1,216.\u00a0 10 year savings $12,160<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Under both favourable and less unfavourable conditions, the 7.8kWh battery pays for itself in well under 10 years:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>7.8kWh payback period under favourable conditions (installed cost $8,319):\u00a0<\/strong> 7 years 3 months<\/li>\n<li><strong>7.8kWh payback period under less favourable conditions (installed cost $9,819):\u00a0<\/strong> 8 years<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The 9.6kWh battery also pays for itself within its 10 year warranty period:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>9.6kWh payback period under favourable conditions (installed cost $9,617):\u00a0<\/strong> 7 years 10 months<\/li>\n<li><strong>9.6kWh payback period under less favourable conditions (installed cost $11,117):\u00a0<\/strong> 9 years 6 months<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Batteries Worthwhile For Typical Electricity Consumption<\/h2>\n<p>Thanks to government incentives, falling prices, and VPP payments, it now makes financial sense for the majority of NSW homes to install batteries &#8212; with a few caveats:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>You get a time-of-use electricity plan.<\/li>\n<li>Your peak period electricity consumption is at least equal to the average for a 2 person home.<\/li>\n<li>You use a reliable but lower-cost battery.<\/li>\n<li>You have a solar system large enough to regularly fully charge the battery.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>As long as you meet these conditions, and electricity prices remain reasonably high, you can expect to make money by installing a battery.\u00a0 As there are already plenty of homes with suitable solar systems, or enough empty roof space to install a suitable system, plenty of people in NSW should now give serious consideration to buying a battery to help beat the high cost of electricity.<\/p>\n<p>You can wait and hope battery prices fall further, but that&#8217;s a gamble because you run the risk of future price falls not being enough to make up for savings you receive from installing sooner.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re thinking about going ahead with a battery, check out our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/battery-storage\/comparison-table\/\">comprehensive guide for more detail<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The bad news is out.\u00a0 Grid electricity price hikes are coming and likely to hit hardest in NSW, where bills are set to spike by up to 8.9%. With more financial pressure looming, many NSW homeowners are asking: &#8220;Is now the time to get solar and a battery?&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":90633,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[551],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-battery-storage","entry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.2 (Yoast SEO v27.2) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Power Price Hikes Make Batteries Pay In NSW<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The bad news is out.\u00a0 Grid electricity price hikes are coming and likely to hit hardest in NSW, where bills are set to spik. With more financial pressure looming, many NSW homeowners are asking: &quot;Is now the time to get solar and a battery?&quot;\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/power-price-hikes-make-batteries-pay-in-nsw\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Power Price Hikes Make Batteries Pay In NSW\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The bad news is out.\u00a0 Grid electricity price hikes are coming and likely to hit hardest in NSW, where bills are set to spik. With more financial pressure looming, many NSW homeowners are asking: &quot;Is now the time to get solar and a battery?&quot;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/power-price-hikes-make-batteries-pay-in-nsw\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"SolarQuotes Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/SolarQuotes\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-03-20T04:26:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-06-30T02:42:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/sydney-opera-house-with-city-view-at-night-austra-2025-01-08-02-34-54-utc1.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"626\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Ronald Brakels\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@BrakelsRonald\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@solar_quotes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/power-price-hikes-make-batteries-pay-in-nsw\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/power-price-hikes-make-batteries-pay-in-nsw\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Ronald Brakels\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/d0ce1779b3f5cb67cb4f146732af2fc7\"},\"headline\":\"Power Price Hikes Make Batteries Pay In NSW\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-03-20T04:26:20+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-06-30T02:42:11+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/power-price-hikes-make-batteries-pay-in-nsw\/\"},\"wordCount\":3316,\"commentCount\":28,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/power-price-hikes-make-batteries-pay-in-nsw\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/sydney-opera-house-with-city-view-at-night-austra-2025-01-08-02-34-54-utc1.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Battery Storage\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/power-price-hikes-make-batteries-pay-in-nsw\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/power-price-hikes-make-batteries-pay-in-nsw\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/power-price-hikes-make-batteries-pay-in-nsw\/\",\"name\":\"Power Price Hikes Make Batteries Pay In NSW\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/power-price-hikes-make-batteries-pay-in-nsw\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/power-price-hikes-make-batteries-pay-in-nsw\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/sydney-opera-house-with-city-view-at-night-austra-2025-01-08-02-34-54-utc1.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-03-20T04:26:20+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-06-30T02:42:11+00:00\",\"description\":\"The bad news is out.\u00a0 Grid electricity price hikes are coming and likely to hit hardest in NSW, where bills are set to spik. 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