SYDNEY — The Australian government expanded its household battery subsidy program in December 2023, increasing total funding to A$7.2 billion and raising the installation target to 2 million by 2030. The program, initially launched with A$2.3 billion over four years starting in July 2023, offered a 30% rebate on home battery systems and had originally aimed to support 1 million installations.

Uptake of the subsidy exceeded early projections, with more than 1,000 household batteries installed daily across the country. Since July 2023, approximately 415,000 home batteries have been connected—equivalent to one unit for every 25 homes. Nearly 60% of global household-scale battery capacity installed during the 2023–2024 financial year was deployed in Australia.

Australia already leads in residential solar adoption, with one in three homes equipped with solar panels and the nation ranking first globally in per capita household solar generation. Solar and wind together now supply nearly half of Australia’s electricity. Batteries enable solar energy to be stored for use during evening peaks, reducing reliance on gas-fired generation, which fell by 24% during summer 2023–2024 compared to the prior year.

“The role of gas used to be in the evening to meet the evening peak and that came at a cost, because gas is not a cheap fuel. But more and more, every day, it is batteries that are surging into the market at 6pm.” said Tennant Reed, climate change and energy director with the Australian Industry Group. He added, “Gas will still play a backup role but, on average, batteries are not as expensive as gas peakers and they are pushing those [gas plants] out even as electricity demand increases.”

Dave Jones, energy analyst at Ember, said, “Home batteries are in the middle of a revolution, large grid-scale batteries have collapsed in price in the last two years, and the quality of them has remarkably improved, with far less critical minerals, a far longer lifetime, and with fire hazard all but eliminated.” He also noted that batteries are now capable of providing continuous power, citing a 1-gigawatt 24/7 plant under construction.

While support for the program is widespread, concerns about equitable distribution remain. “Do we care about where these batteries go? I think we should. We need to ensure there are batteries across the whole country and not just in pockets in the big cities.” said Thomas Longden, senior research fellow at Western Sydney University.