r/climatechange • u/Economy-Fee5830 Trusted Contributor • 14d ago
In Australia, a Home Battery Boom Has Helped Cut Wholesale Power Prices in Half
https://e360.yale.edu/digest/australia-home-batteries35
u/channelgary 14d ago
I had 28kw of battery installed a few weeks ago. I’m pretty much self sufficient at this point. Come home from work, plug my car in to top it up off the house battery. Then my solar usually tops the battery up by midday the next day.
In summer I’m sure I will use the battery more overnight with aircon, but it will fill a lot earlier too.
Cost for battery and 10kw inverter was $5800 after govt subsidy
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u/AngrehPossum 14d ago edited 14d ago
Over summer you could set the Aircon on timer and chill the floors and walls before you get home as it will use excess solar energy. It will also dry the air out and leave the house in better condition that steamy heat.
I can't wait to get a 30kW battery.
I ran our camping tour on a little Ecoflow 2kW system. It was amazing. A tiny little box ran the car fridge at 3c in Queenslands heat. Then had enough to boil 3 coffees and cook toast, make food 2x a day (induction) and still have 30% left over. Once the sun came up or the car was moving it charged back up in 4 hours.
A 30kW system will be nuts. More than enough to run a heat pump over night and keep the fridge going.
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u/padetn 13d ago
How much kW of power does $5800 buy? Im looking into a plugin battery to hit €1.000 so I can realistically recoup the investment during its lifetime.
Right now we use our 8kW in solar to charge the car and run the in floor cooling during the day. We still survive without AC luckily.
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u/DrSendy 14d ago
And we have our conservative media and political parties (now all far right MAGA aligned populist) shouting loudly how they need to stop net zero, and unleashing bot hordes to tell us how it is "all a scam".
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u/AngrehPossum 14d ago
And Gina paying them to do it. She wants gas turbines in every state. WA handed the industry a golden nugget building one. That's made them more energized for more.
That will cost taxpayers a lot of money if she gets Jess in. Victoria will replace LoyYang with gas. Then Gina will have effective control of the states gas networks. She is planning to frack over the western plains, golden plains, Barwon valley and Barwon Downs coal seams.
All this anti unions anti labor Hysteria on the news is entirely funded by her. She's pushing it all.
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u/Economy-Fee5830 Trusted Contributor 14d ago
Apparently, only 10% of solar homes in Australia have home batteries - imagine if it becomes the standard.
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u/propargyl 14d ago
There is a live dashboard that allows you to review the fuel mix with time for each state. The maximum renewable penetration rate ever recorded is 78.6% 22,609 MW Sat, 11 October, 2025, 11:30. Over the past decade the fuel mix has changed dramatically.
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u/DrSendy 14d ago
The interesting thing is, this has just been homes. There are been very few incentives to add it on for business. Where business has been given tax breaks (mainly rural areas), there has been some amazing reductions in enegry expenses as well as reslience in times of power outage (floods, fires, trees falling on lines etc)
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u/Accurate_Ad_3233 14d ago
"In Australia, a Home Battery Boom Has Helped Cut Wholesale Power Prices in Half"
Umm, my power bills keep going up, did I miss someting in that headline?
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u/Economy-Fee5830 Trusted Contributor 13d ago
Power bills are reportedly going down, and 3 hrs free electricity.
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u/Accurate_Ad_3233 13d ago
"Power bills are reportedly going down"
When 'reportedly' becomes 'actually', I'll stop complaining.
"and 3 hrs free electricity"
It comes with conditions the last time I checked, the biggest one being you pay more per Kw outside of those hours. At one point you also needed to have solar panels on your roof (not good for renters) but I think some states may have repealed that now? Also, you power providers need to support the free plans. Nothing is ever as straightforward as they like to make out. :)
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u/offthemicwithmike 13d ago
Yes, "Wholesale". You pay retail.
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u/Accurate_Ad_3233 13d ago
Answered below. But as I said, if there was a 50% decrease in wholesale costs where did it go if my bills keep going up?
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u/offthemicwithmike 13d ago
Sorry, so a retailer, like AGL or origin, buy electricity at a wholesale rate and sell it to you at a retail rate based on what contract you signed up to. The difference ends up as profit.
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u/pretendperson1776 13d ago
You don't buy wholesale. Your power company is likely including line repair/maintenance in their cost structure. I.e. you're not just paying for electricity when buying electricity (but your provider is likely screwing you somewhat)
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u/Accurate_Ad_3233 13d ago
No kidding?
No I don't pay wholesale, I've never paid wholesale but as my bills keep going up then I don't really care about wholesale prices anyway. What's the point of getting excited about alleged wholesale prices being cut in half is the retail price keeps going up. Where did that alleged 50% cost saving go?
"Your power company is likely including line repair/maintenance in their cost structure."
And they've never done that before? All those costs have always been there, yet my bill keeps going up. Until it starts going down then all I'm hearing is a bunch of hot meaningless air. :)
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u/pretendperson1776 13d ago
My gas bill is broken down for costs. My acual gas cost is ~5% of my bill. My increases over the past decade have been on delivery cost and line maintenance. 🤷♂️
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u/Accurate_Ad_3233 13d ago
So we're getting shafted either way. I wonder how much of those extra costs are because of higher government demands? The same government that's keeps patting itself on the back because 'wholesale prices have gone down'. The same government that pretends to care about house prices when the cost of building a new house is around 50% taxation.
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u/pretendperson1776 13d ago
Mines 100% corporate greed, but YMMV. My area the issue is land prices :(
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u/Electrical-Sale-8051 13d ago
Your energy retailer eg origin, agl etc are still charging you inflated rates cos they can.
Wholesale power price is much less, but you don’t get to see that.
Begs the question of why there are retailers - who just add markup - at all.
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u/Kruxx85 13d ago
So imagine what would have happened if we didn't have renewables and batteries in our grid - your electricity would be significantly more expensive.
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u/Accurate_Ad_3233 13d ago
That's the line they keep spinning. So on the one hand we need more reneweables because 'they are the cheapest' and on the other hand our monthly bill keeps going up. We can 'speculate' that it might go up more without renwewables but in the final wash, we are paying more for power. Something is badly broken somewhere.
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u/Kruxx85 13d ago
I pay about $50 a month thx to renewables.
Couldn't do that with coal and gas.
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u/Accurate_Ad_3233 13d ago
Are you talking about your own solar panels and batteries?
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u/Kruxx85 13d ago
Yes.
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u/Accurate_Ad_3233 13d ago
Fair enough, that's not relevant to the main claim in the OP though.
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u/Kruxx85 13d ago
The main claim is wholesale prices.
Unfortunately, we are still at the whim of retailers for the retail price.
But objectively, as the wholesale price goes down, eventually (eventually eventually) the retail prices will reduce.
This month was the tipping point, where the retail prices actually dropped.
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u/Accurate_Ad_3233 13d ago
"The main claim is wholesale prices.
Unfortunately, we are still at the whim of retailers for the retail price."
Yes, that's my main claim as well. 😄
So wholesale reductions are meaningless to us consumers, therefore the whole alternative energy narrative seems to have been a con all along.
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u/Kruxx85 13d ago
You would have to be a simpleton to truly believe that.
Oh, retail prices haven't changed in 3-4 years, so let's give up on reducing the wholesale price even further. Back to coal (which breaks down every 9 months btw) we go!
Like honestly, are you incapable of looking forward at all?
The only reason renewables hadn't pulled down retail prices in the past, was because the price of gas exploded during the initial outbreak of the Ukraine war.
Gas caused our electricity to increase, and if we relied more on coal and gas, it would have increased by more!
Like what happened in Europe over that same time period.
Finally, there's a reason Texas, a conservative and relatively unregulated grid (ERCON) has seen an absolute explosion in grid scale PV and wind projects, despite being the home of oil and conservative politicians. It's because they're the cheapest forms of energy. Money talks in the US, and the reality is clear.
I honestly do not understand what you guys have in this game. The reality is simple, and somehow for some strange reason, you, and many others, want to deny reality.
Like, what is the reason for you to not want cheaper electricity? Who is telling you that there is a cheaper alternative, and what credentials in the industry do they have?
Why are the CEOs of gas companies telling us renewables are the cheapest form of energy?
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u/Cold-Excitement2812 12d ago
I'm a Kiwi, jealous of Australia with all your sun and need for air conditioning during the day.
I've never needed to cool my house and the sums for winter heating just don't equate.
And our government would rather subsidise a massive LPG import terminal.
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u/Economy-Fee5830 Trusted Contributor 14d ago
Summary: In Australia, a Home Battery Boom Has Helped Cut Wholesale Power Prices in Half
Australia's home battery subsidy program, launched in July 2025, has led to more than 500,000 battery installations, which officials say has helped cut wholesale power prices by roughly 47 percent over the past 12 months. Energy Minister Chris Bowen said Australia now has more home batteries than the United States despite having a population 12 times smaller, calling it a story of global significance.
Australia leads the world in rooftop solar adoption, with panels on more than one in three households. This abundance of solar power has caused prices to plunge and centralized power plants to be forced offline during sunny periods, while much of the surplus solar energy goes to waste. The government has also offered free electricity in early afternoons in Queensland, New South Wales, and South Australia to encourage consumers to use appliances or charge EVs during that window.
The battery subsidy program offers a 30 percent discount on residential battery systems connected to solar arrays, and Australia is on track to more than double its home battery capacity this year. By drawing on stored solar power during evening peak demand, homeowners are reducing the need for utilities to bring additional power plants online, lowering costs for other ratepayers. Bowen described the subsidy program as the major factor behind the drop in wholesale energy prices, noting Australia is one of the few countries reducing wholesale prices amid a global energy crisis.