{"id":91300,"date":"2025-04-24T11:45:25","date_gmt":"2025-04-24T02:15:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/?p=91300"},"modified":"2025-04-28T23:29:27","modified_gmt":"2025-04-28T13:59:27","slug":"battery-cash-grid-crash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/battery-cash-grid-crash\/","title":{"rendered":"We Can’t Let Labor’s Battery Cash Cause A Grid Crash"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"An<\/p>\n

There\u2019s plenty of understandable excitement about Labor\u2019s Cheaper Home Batteries Program<\/a> election pitch. What I\u2019m not so excited about is subsidising a wave of suburban survival-of-the-fittest types to disconnect from a grid that urgently needs more storage.<\/p>\n

The plan is set to include off-grid systems and that’s excellent for punters in truly remote areas, but making it economically viable for others to pull the plug on their existing mains power will lead to poor outcomes all round.<\/p>\n

Backup Batteries With Mains Power<\/h2>\n

As I explained last week, going off-grid in the suburbs<\/a> is an expensive, risky choice that means people no longer enjoy the additional security blanket of grid backup.<\/p>\n

Hybrid systems can provide blackout protection for your whole house<\/a>. Provided the demands aren’t too crazy, there’s some pretty reasonably priced hardware available now. However, they rely on the stiffness of the grid supply to meet peak loads, even if it’s just for a split second<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But without connection to mains power, the rule of thumb is you’ll need FOUR times more solar and battery to make it work. It’s a waste of your money and everyone’s resources because that capacity will sit idle for a lot of its life.<\/p>\n

You can become independent, with minimal bills for a handful of kilowatt-hours every quarter, that’s not in question.<\/p>\n

But what we must prioritise is getting the whole system, and everyone connected to it, through overcast winter days. There will likely be gas burnt on still winter nights, but batteries will minimise it and their opportunity to gouge us… as usual<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Funding Batteries That Don’t Support The System<\/h2>\n

The electricity grid is a great and wonderful thing, like Medicare, roads, the sewer system; it’s a real first-world asset that we should be proud to be part of, and it should be publicly owned.<\/p>\n

Sadly, some people don’t want to share their energy and they’ll spend irrational sums of money to stick it up everybody else. Some like to think that they’re rugged individuals, but we really can’t afford to publicly subsidise customers who want to go “off grid” in the suburbs.<\/p>\n

We Must Not Underestimate Consumer Scorn<\/h2>\n

Sticking it to the man<\/strong> has been a driving force in causing people to spend irrational sums of money on solar power. I remember installing a 3kW system for $35,000! A 44c feed in tariff made it worth while but the main motivation was ETSA had been privatised, power prices nearly doubled, and this was “sticking it up their arse”.<\/p>\n

As the grid has been soaked with solar, feed-in tariffs have fallen basically to zero. Some screech about a sun tax<\/a>, but in reality, these charges for export are put into bundled retail deals that consumers never actually see.<\/p>\n

There’s generation distribution, regulatory burden and dozens of other costs. You can explain it the six ways from Sunday, but people have a general principle objection to seeing their solar energy go onto the grid for greedy retailers to sell elsewhere at a markup.<\/p>\n

Getting yourself an EV to kill your petrol bill and soak up more solar<\/a> is ideal, but there will be times you’ll need the grid to do some faster charging.<\/p>\n

\"graph

The design of the market is broken so it’s understandable people are irate<\/p><\/div>\n

Lower Loads = Lower Bills<\/h2>\n

The systems we build to meet peak demand are expensive – take South Australia as an example. It’s only on a handful of hours, during a handful of stinking hot summer afternoons, that the electricity network is running full steam. On average, the grid is only utilised at about 40% of its potential capacity.<\/p>\n

\"SAPN

On the left we see 0% extra capacity available to meet total demand. To the right we see that every year there are more days with more spare capacity in the grid, to the point we’ve met all local demand. ie Negative 200MW is exported to Victoria.<\/p><\/div>\n

By introducing energy at the bottom end of the system, where the rubber hits the road, we don’t need as many big generation hubs, nor do we need the spokes of heavy-duty transmission and distribution hardware to keep the wheels turning.<\/p>\n

This is where everybody saves money,1<\/a><\/sup> and the real bonus is that it’s more reliable and more efficient.<\/p>\n

We have solar to meet our daytime demands and most people are up and about when it’s sunny, but we have to concentrate our efforts on meeting demand in the early morning and late evening, with batteries a big part of doing that – but they will only be useful to the broader grid if they’re actually connected to it.<\/p>\n

Virtual Power Plants Mean Energy Everywhere<\/h2>\n

One step in the right direction is that the Cheaper Home Batteries Program is conditional on your hardware being VPP-ready<\/a>. So with an internet connection and the right retail deal, you’ll be able to trade energy in and out of your battery.<\/p>\n

Instead of paying fixed rates through an old mechanical meter, the future can see you charging your battery on a windy night when the market price is low.<\/p>\n

Then, as the national toaster fleet fires up before dawn, we won’t be stoking up coal-fired boilers, you’ll either sell energy from your battery, or use it yourself in your own kettle.<\/p>\n

As the day wears on, the sun rises, and prices go down. You can either use your own solar to run appliances, heat water, charge your car, or condition your air.<\/p>\n

Or you’re roofless, you could buy cheap energy for these tasks, including recharging your battery.<\/p>\n

Towards sundown, rates naturally rise and once again your battery comes into play, insulating you from peak prices while you cook tea.<\/p>\n

\"graph

Provided we get daytime charging right, EVs are likely to be a boon for the grid, just like home batteries.<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/div>\n

Backing Off-Grid Can Make Sense In Remote Areas<\/h2>\n

For our country cousins, it was cross subsidies from publicly owned assets that brought rural electrification schemes to life, but in a user pays network it can cost $40,000 to plant a pole and transformer to bring you mains power, so it can be economically feasible to install a remote area system, even in downtown Caloote, and there’s no reason why the scheme shouldn’t cover these sorts of cases.<\/p>\n

\"ariel

No transformer needed, but two stobie poles and just 90 metres of overhead wire made “off grid” economical for this holiday house<\/p><\/div>\n

The Cheaper Home Batteries Program is designed to get people off fossil fuels, just like the RET and SHCP before it, because without solar and batteries, people in remote areas are burning diesel.<\/p>\n

If we’re being honest, in a long overcast week of winter, they still rely on a backup generator, but it’s not impractical to run for 95% of the time on clean, quiet solar.<\/p>\n

\"smokey

This brand new 3 cylinder diesel generator needed tuning to actually make it start consistently for the off grid system I installed. I can still smell this image.<\/p><\/div>\n

Nobody Likes Generators<\/h2>\n

As a specialist remote area electrician, the main purpose of a generator is to make my phone ring. They don’t start reliably, they won’t hold frequency, the voltage is all over the place; but you still need one.<\/p>\n

The only remote area customers who didn’t have generator complaints were the ones ringing up about flat batteries, because they were too tight to buy a generator and they’d cooked their battery warranty because of it.<\/strong><\/p>\n

But if you “go off grid” in the suburbs, your neighbours won’t wear a generator wailing through the early hours of a winter’s morning, and neither should you want to shower everyone in PM2.5 particles<\/a> from the exhaust.<\/p>\n

\"PM2.5

Particles one twenty-fifth the diameter of your hair can get right into your bloodstream. Image credit: frontiers<\/a> – creative commons<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

It Wouldn’t Be The First Time<\/h2>\n

The law of unintended consequences can be a funny old thing. Government programmes with the best intentions can occasionally lead to really perverse outcomes.<\/p>\n

We can cite the old Solar Homes and Communities Programme (SHCP) as an example. Years ago, John Howard’s government wanted to double its solar subsidy.<\/p>\n

The industry called for SHCP eligibility to be increased from one kilowatt to two. This would leverage more private capital to install larger systems for better yield and less coal burning.<\/p>\n

The government instead decided to double the subsidy from $4 to $8 per watt. The upshot was that cheap solar became free and the scheme was soon infested with blowflies.<\/p>\n

It wasn’t a total disaster. There were lots more systems installed, lots more people trained, plus far greater volume was introduced to the market, which further increased competition and lowered prices.<\/p>\n

The perverse part was that high subsidies created fly-by-night installers, piling on rubbish equipment that didn’t last.<\/p>\n

Listening To Industry<\/h2>\n

It is perhaps a little bit unfair to single out the SHCP programme, simply because nobody on Earth saw what was coming.<\/p>\n

The price of solar fell like a stone.<\/p>\n

If you’re in the industry for any length of time, you’ll realise why they call it the Solar Coaster. Changes in exchange rate, network rules or clumsily enacted legislation can see business wax and wane like the natural disasters we’re trying to avert.<\/p>\n

Thankfully, government on all levels appears to be interested and actively listening to what the industry has to say now.<\/p>\n

Engagements with the federal and some state governments on how this battery scheme should operate if Labor wins the election have been quite promising.<\/p>\n

Going It Alone Isn’t Sensible, It’s Selfish<\/h2>\n

Phone ducts bring you fast internet,2<\/a><\/sup> water mains mean you can wash, sewer pipes prevent diseases spreading, but everyone has to contribute because if the neighbours are crapping in their yard, it’s a threat to your health too.<\/p>\n

Like the roads themselves, public infrastructure running down your street is expensive, but it means people can live in the density that makes modern amenities work.<\/p>\n

So if you want to disconnect from the wires on your street, I’ll suggest you’re not entitled to drive on it either.<\/p>\n

The local shops near my place don’t have enough roof space to run the takeaway shop cookers, supermarket fridges or barber’s towel warmers, but the solar in our neighbourhood can keep them going.<\/p>\n

We must work together, which means we must be connected.<\/p>\n

For more about the pros and cons of off-grid systems, take a look at our explainer<\/a>. For more detail on what Labor’s battery incentive covers, take a look at our dedicated page<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s plenty of understandable excitement about Labor\u2019s Cheaper Home Batteries Program election pitch. 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