South Australia just proved that solar is capable of supporting the electricity grid. In a recent event observed by the AEMO, rooftop solar met 99.9% of grid demand setting a new record for winter.
Here is what happened:
What South Australia’s solar record actually was
Why the same afternoon set a national record
What the batteries were doing
What it means for solar owners in NSW, the ACT and Queensland
What happened at 1:30pm?
South Australia’s demand for grid-scale generation fell to 2 MW. Homes and businesses were running almost entirely on power made on their own roofs.
At the same time the National Electricity Market set a new winter minimum operational demand record of 11,992 MW, beating the 12,144 MW set in August 2024. Operational demand is the power the grid has to supply. Rooftop solar pushes it down, because those homes are not asking for much.
Across the NEM, rooftop solar was supplying close to 54% of underlying demand. Renewables of all kinds accounted for 71% of generation.
Why is a winter record a bigger deal?
Winter is solar’s hard season. The sun sits lower and the days are shorter. It shows that rooftop solar can carry a state through its weakest months.
What were the batteries doing?
Working hard. Wholesale prices went negative across every NEM region, from -$7.40/MWh in Queensland to -$8.60/MWh in Tasmania. Negative prices mean more power is available than the market needs.
Batteries treated that as an opportunity. Charging soaked up around 10.5% of everything being generated, with hydro pumping taking another 2%. That midday surplus was not wasted. It was held and released into the evening peak.
What does this mean for NSW, the ACT and Queensland?
The same grid, the same direction. Queensland saw negative prices that afternoon too.
Rooftop solar is now the biggest single generator in the country by the middle of the day, and AEMO is planning the system around it. More storage. More flexibility.
For a homeowner the read is simple. Midday power is abundant. The households getting the most from it are the ones storing it rather than exporting it, which is worth weighing up when deciding what battery you install.
Can rooftop solar really power a whole state on its own?
For short periods, yes. South Australia came within 0.1% of it at 1:30pm. Holding that around the clock is a different problem, which is where storage comes in.
Why do electricity prices go negative?
When more power is being generated than the market needs, generators pay to keep supplying rather than shut down and restart. It happens most often on sunny, mild days with low demand.
Could NSW or Queensland reach the same point?
Both are heading the same way. Queensland recorded negative prices in the same window. Neither has South Australia’s rooftop solar density yet, so the milestone will come later there.
Sigenergy vs Goodwe, the two biggest battery brands on the market right now. They look similar, but every day I have clients asking me what are the actual differences between them.
Here at Lenergy we prefer Sigenergy. This article will break down exactly what the real differences are and how they will actually impact your user experience.
How the two platforms differ once you look past the casing
The warranty number that separates them most clearly
What the software does to your bills over ten years
Why the installer matters more than either badge
What is the difference between Sigenergy and GoodWe batteries?
Both are all-in-one home energy storage systems. An inverter or energy controller sits on top of a stack of battery modules. Both offer whole-home backup, app control and the option to add capacity later. Both use lithium iron phosphate cells, the safer chemistry for a home.
The Sigenstor stormed the market when it was first introduced and has set the standard for batteries since with its innovative all-in-one design. Some say Goodwe was copying Sigenergy’s homework when designing their battery and it certainly looks like it. However, once we get into what’s underneath the differences are clear.
Copying a shape is the easy part. Rebuilding the engineering and the software behind it takes years.
Amp hours (Ah) measure how much charge a single cell holds. A 314 Ah cell stores about 1 kWh on its own, so a 9 kWh module needs around nine of them. Smaller cells mean you need more of them, and more internal connections to join them up.
Fewer, larger cells means fewer internal connections. Fewer connections means fewer places for something to go wrong across fifteen years. That does not guarantee a longer life on its own. Cell quality, thermal management and the battery management system all matter too. It is simply a design choice we are more comfortable with.
Does the warranty difference actually matter?
This is the clearest measurable gap, and it is worth a minute of your time.
Throughput is the total energy a battery can pass through before the performance warranty limit is reached. Think of it as the odometer rather than the age of the car.
Sigenergy’s Australian warranty lists around 3.7 MWh of warranted throughput for every usable kWh of capacity. GoodWe’s lists around 3.0 MWh. On a comparable capacity basis, that is roughly 23% more energy through the battery before the guarantee runs out.
Whether that matters depends entirely on how you use it.
Say your battery does one gentle cycle a day. Solar fills it, the house empties it overnight. Neither battery will get near its limit inside ten years.
Now say you are on a time-of-use tariff. You charge from solar through the middle of the day. You discharge into the evening peak. You charge again on cheap overnight rates. You join a VPP and the battery discharges when wholesale prices spike. That is two or three cycles a day, and the odometer climbs quickly.
For that household, 23% more headroom is not cosmetic. It is the difference between a warranty that lasts the distance and one that runs out early. As the electricity grid becomes increasingly dynamic this is becoming a more important spec for batteries.
What does the battery software actually do for you?
Software is one the bigger differences, Sigenergy built its ecosystem around one coordinated system from the start. Solar, battery, inverter, gateway, smart loads and EV charging all talk to each other. The mySigen app pulls in your household consumption, solar forecasts and weather data, then works out when to charge and when to discharge.
GoodWe has added AI scheduling, dynamic pricing support and its SEMS platform. The features exist. The platform is less mature.
Now, here is why we care about this more than the spec sheet.
Your electricity bill is getting more complicated, not less. Feed-in tariffs keep falling. Time-of-use pricing is spreading. VPP payments and dynamic tariffs all reward a battery that can think about timing.
A battery that cannot respond to that is not ready for the increasingly dynamic trajectory of the Australian grid.
Is Sigenergy better than GoodWe if you drive an EV?
Yes, and this is one of the clearer gaps between them.
Sigenergy offers an integrated 25 kW DC EV charging module that sits in the same tower. It draws directly from solar, battery or grid. It is also built for vehicle-to-home and vehicle-to-grid, so your car’s battery can eventually support the house.
GoodWe sells EV chargers. It does not currently offer an equivalent integrated DC module or the same bidirectional readiness.
If an EV is in your plans over the next five years, this is worth real money. If it is not, skip past this one. It does not apply to you.
Can you avoid running a cable to the switchboard?
With Sigenergy, often yes. Your battery needs to know how much power the house is drawing, and a sensor at the switchboard reports that back. Normally over a data cable that has to be physically run between them.
Sigenergy offers a wireless kit that does the same job without the cable. It works to around 200 metres and handles walls and electrical noise well. GoodWe does not currently offer an equivalent official kit.
On a straightforward install this will not matter. On a property where the switchboard and battery sit far apart, or where running cable is difficult and expensive, it removesa common headache and keeps everything inside the one system.
Which differences impact you less than you might think?
Difference
On paper
In your home
Safety design
Sigenergy uses five protection layers including aerogel insulation and internal fire suppression. GoodWe uses LFP cells, aerosol suppression, heating and multiple electrical safeguards
Neither is unsafe. Sigenergy’s package is the more considered design.
Backup switchover
0 ms against roughly 4 ms
A technical win for Sigenergy but your appliances will barely notice either one
Mixing old and new modules
Sigenergy did it first with per-module optimisers. GoodWe now offers similar flexibility
Gap closed. Both let you expand later
What is the risk of the cheaper batteries?
The GoodWe is a good battery. However, you have to be careful about what a low price tends to attract. A quote that competes purely on price has to find that money somewhere. Some of it is the equipment, which is fair enough. The rest can come out of design time, consultation, backup scope, switchboard compliance work, commissioning, or the margin that pays for someone to come back when something needs attention in year six.
So compare what is actually included. Two quotes carrying the same battery can be very different jobs.
Sigenergy vs GoodWe: which battery should you buy?
We prefer Sigenergy, and we will say it plainly. Stronger architecture, more warranted throughput, more mature software, a clearer EV pathway. Across ten to fifteen years we think the extra cost comes back.
What matters most when considering a battery is who installs it.
Both batteries are a significant investment into your home and you are entering into a relationship with the company that installs it. If all goes well this could be for 10-15 years, at the end of the day you want a company that will still be there for you.
Check the installer holds SAA accreditation. Check the ABN history, read the reviews, and pay attention to how the company replies to the negative ones. Ask for public liability and professional indemnity cover.
This is probably the largest electrical upgrade your home will ever have. Take the time to get it right.
What are the main differences between Sigenergy and GoodWe batteries?
Cell architecture, cycle rating, warranted throughput, software maturity and EV integration. Sigenergy leads on all five. GoodWe comes at a lower price. The differences that matter most to you depend on how hard you plan to work the battery.
Is Sigenergy or GoodWe more compatible with existing solar systems?
Both are all-in-one systems designed around their own inverter rather than bolted onto an existing one. If you already have solar, either can be retrofitted, though the design work differs depending on your current inverter, its age and your switchboard. This is a question for a site assessment rather than a spec sheet.
Half a million Australian homes now have a solar battery. So Australia’s grid operator, AEMO, took 10,000 of them and compared them to 10,000 homes running solar alone. They found the impact of solar batteries was that homes cut their evening peak grid use by 73%, and we explain why.
Here is what this article covers:
What the AEMO solar battery study actually measured
The 73% figure, and how it breaks down across NSW, the ACT and Queensland
Why the evening peak is the costly part of your day
What a 73% drop does not mean for your bill
What did the AEMO solar battery study actually measure?
AEMO took two sample groups. Each had 10,000 detached houses. Every home had rooftop photovoltaic solar panels under 20 kW. One group had solar only. The other had solar plus a battery, installed between 1 July and 1 December 2025.
Then it compared their smart meter data across the whole quarter.
The measure was net grid imports during the evening peak, 4pm to 9pm. Net means power bought from the grid minus power sent back to it. That distinction matters, and we will come back to it.
How much do solar batteries reduce grid usage?
Across the national market, battery homes pulled 0.7 kW less from the grid during the evening peak. That is a 73% reduction against the solar-only group.
The figure moves by region:
Region
Average cut in evening peak grid imports
Queensland
0.9 kW
New South Wales
0.7 kW
There is a second finding worth noting. Battery homes switched to net exports later in the morning, because the battery charged first. They then kept exporting later into the evening. The battery covered the house and still had surplus going out. That is home battery storage changing grid reliance in both directions.
Household uptake explains why this now shows up in national data. NSW has installed 4,865 MWh of battery capacity since July 2025. Queensland has 2,570 MWh. Nationally that is 389,137 installations in twelve months.
Why does the evening peak matter?
Think about when your house actually uses power. Lights on. Oven going. Heating or cooling running. Someone in the shower.
That is 4pm to 9pm, and your panels stopped producing an hour ago.
So you buy it back, at the hours grid electricity tends to cost the most on a time of use plan. Meanwhile your solar spent all day feeding power back for next to nothing.
A battery closes that gap. It stores the midday surplus and releases it after sunset. That is self consumption, which simply means using your own power instead of renting it back from your retailer.
The AEMO figures show how much of that evening a battery can genuinely cover.
Does a 73% drop mean a 73% lower bill?
No. This is the part worth being straight about.
The 73% measures grid imports across a five hour window. It is not your total household usage. It is not your bill.
Your bill still covers the rest of the day, your daily supply charge, and whatever the battery could not carry on a heavy night.
Averages hide that. A battery sized to your average day will still buy power on the cold nights, the guest nights, the 9pm load of washing. We use 24 kWh as a starting reference when, then size a system to suit the house in front of us.
Two more limits are worth naming. The homes in the study chose to add a battery, so they are not a perfect stand-in for the average household. AEMO also found home battery charging pushed daytime demand up. Storage moves load to times where the grid has a higher supply of electricity. It does not erase it.
What has the impact of solar batteries been on the grid?
Less stress on the network when it is under the most.
The 4pm to 9pm window is the hardest part of the day for the electricity grid. Demand climbs as people get home. Solar has stopped producing. That is when the system strains.
A battery takes that load off. Not by using less power, but by supplying it from a box on the wall instead of pulling it down the street.
One home doing that does nothing for the grid. Hundreds of thousands doing it across the same five hours takes real pressure off the network.
That is the impact so far. Homes covering their own evenings, and a peak that is easier for the system to carry.
What did the AEMO study find about solar batteries in Australian homes?
AEMO compared 10,000 solar-only homes against 10,000 solar-plus-battery homes over the June 2026 quarter. Battery homes reduced their net grid imports during the 4pm to 9pm evening peak by 0.7 kW on average, a 73% reduction. Battery homes also kept exporting to the grid later into the evening.
How much can solar batteries reduce reliance on the electricity grid?
In peak hours, substantially. AEMO measured a 73% cut in evening peak grid imports across the national market, with Queensland homes averaging a 0.9 kW reduction and NSW homes 0.7 kW. Over a full day the reduction is smaller, because batteries draw power to charge and most homes still buy from the grid at some point.
Are solar batteries worth it for Australian homeowners?
It depends on your usage shape and your tariff. A household that uses most of its power after dark and pays a high evening rate gets more from storage than a household that is out all evening. Sometimes, for some homes, the figures do not stack up. Check your own bill against your usage pattern before deciding.
Reliable off-grid power is one of the most important aspects of survival for living in rural Australia.
Recently we installed a 17 kW solar system with 40 kWh of battery storage on a property in the hills above Kangaroo Valley. Fully off-grid. No poles, no wires, no retailer.
This article walks through that job, and through what it actually takes to make off-grid solar reliable enough to live on all year.
Here is what the job involved:
Why this property went off-grid in the first place
The system we installed, spec by spec
Why we rebuilt work that was already half done
What makes an off-grid system reliable, and when it does not stack up
Why go off-grid instead of connecting to the grid?
For a lot of rural blocks, the grid is the expensive option.
Running new poles and wires out to a remote property can cost tens of thousands of dollars, and on longer runs it climbs past $50,000. You pay that once. Then you keep paying network charges and retail rates forever after.
Off-grid changes the maths. You spend that money on your own generation and storage instead of renting your electricity from someone else. No network charges. No rate rises. No outage because a storm dropped a line twenty kilometres away.
In the plant room, the solar DC cables run through the wall, along the concrete ceiling, and down into the inverter. The battery modules stack underneath it. The gateway then links the inverter to the main switchboard so the house draws from solar first and the batteries overnight.
Why did we rebuild work that was already done?
Because it had not been completed and not all of it was up to standard.
The install was half finished by a previous installer when we were called in. Ziad, our lead installer, took the team back through the existing work and brought it up to current Australian standards before finishing the job.
What makes an off-grid system reliable?
Four things, mostly.
A real load assessment, not a guess. Daily kWh use and peak simultaneous loads, measured properly.
Sizing for the worst month of the year rather than the average one.
Enough storage to ride out a run of poor weather. One to three days of autonomy is the usual target for a residential off-grid solar installation.
Compliance with AS/NZS 4509, the Australian standard for stand-alone power systems.
Most off-grid homes still keep a backup generator. In a well-sized system it barely runs.
Is off-grid right for your property?
Sometimes, for some homes, it does not make financial sense.
If there is already a grid connection at your fence, staying connected with solar and a battery is usually cheaper and simpler. Off-grid earns its keep when the connection quote is high, the supply is unreliable, or you want out of the retail market entirely.
Federal STCs still apply to the solar on most stand-alone systems, and the battery may qualify for the Cheaper Home Batteries Program.
How much does an off-grid solar and battery system cost in Kangaroo Valley?
It depends on how much power the property uses and how much autonomy you want. The honest answer is that off-grid pricing is driven by your load, not your roof size, which is why the assessment comes before the quote.
What size solar and battery system do I need for a rural property in NSW?
A family home off-grid commonly lands somewhere around 8 to 15 kW of solar with 30 to 50 kWh of storage. The Kangaroo Valley property sits above that at 17 kW and 40 kWh. Small cabins need far less.
Is off-grid solar reliable enough for full-time living in Kangaroo Valley?
Yes, when it is sized and installed properly. That is the whole condition. A correctly designed system runs the house day and night through winter with the generator sitting idle most of the year.
Same home, same battery but two different quotes?. One is a little more than you hoped. The other is so cheap it stops you in your tracks….and here’s why that’s the one you should worry about.
Most people read that gap as a win. It is better read as a question. Cheap home battery quotes in Australia are rarely cheap because someone found a better deal on hardware. They are cheap because something has been left out, usually the part you cannot see once the job is done.
Here is the bit that matters most. You get the federal rebate once per property. Get it wrong and there is no second go.
This article covers:
Why some home battery quotes come in so far below the rest
Where cheap quotes cut corners
What it costs a household when a cheap install goes wrong
A checklist to run over any quote before you sign
Why are some home battery quotes so cheap?
Because the real costs of a battery install do not move.
There is the battery. A matched inverter. Cabling and protection to Australian standards. A licensed electrician on site for the day. Switchboard work in a lot of homes. Paperwork, insurance and freight.
The Cheaper Home Batteries Program discount is already inside the number you are quoted, applied at the point of sale. A headline price of a few thousand dollars sits on a system worth far more.
Our friends over at Solar Quotes ran the numbers on one way this goes wrong. A system advertised at $6,000 installed, with a rebate worth around $16,800, is really a $22,800 job. GST is owed on the full $22,800, roughly $2,073. Charge it on the $6,000 alone and you remit about $545. After hardware, almost nothing is left for labour, insurance and support.
DISCLAIMER: These figures are taken from what would have been a a job don before the rebates dropped in May. Current rebate figures will differ. Read more about what rebates are currently available here.
Now think about what that leaves the business. A price that thin is not a bargain being passed on. It is a margin too small to send a qualified team, hold spare parts, or answer the phone in three years.
A battery is not a fridge you plug in. It is a small power station bolted to your garage wall, wired into your switchboard. Do it once and do it right. The only thing more expensive than a good roofer is a bad one.
Where do cheap home battery quotes cut corners?
Almost always on the installation side.
Labour. There is a rumour doing the rounds, and it is worth calling it a rumour, not a fact. Some installs are said to be happening with no qualified sparky on site, with an accredited electrician turning up another day to take the compliance photos and sign off work he did not do.
Sizing. The classic is a 50 kWh battery stack sold with a 5 kW inverter. The inverter moves power in and out of the battery, and its size sets how fast that happens. A 5 kW inverter cannot fill a 50 kWh stack in a day, and nowhere near it in winter. Planning to charge inside a free electricity window? You will fill a fraction of it. Read more her about why the size of your inverter matters more than you think here.
The bits left off the quote. Switchboard upgrades, circuit protection and correct labelling, added as extras once the job has started. Or whole-home blackout protection that turns out to be a single circuit.
Brands. A battery warranty is only worth the company standing behind it. Even large manufacturers get this wrong, and the LG battery recall is the one most homeowners still remember. A brand that landed here last year with an importer and a website is riskier again. We install SigenStor because Sigenergy has been here long enough to answer the phone, and because fire suppression sits inside the module.
What happens when a cheap battery install goes wrong?
The Clean Energy Regulator inspected 1,278 battery systems installed under the Cheaper Home Batteries Program between July 2025 and April 2026, about 0.5% of all installs. Of those, 60.8% were substandard and 1.2% were judged unsafe. For a thorough breakdown of what happened read our article about what the 60% substandard install figure actually shows.
Plenty of those faults were labelling and paperwork. Plenty were not. Loose wiring, poor connections, cable left without proper protection.
Complaints have followed. Reports to the ACCC about home batteries and new energy services rose 107% over twelve months.
Then there is the quiet problem. Orphan systems. The installer has folded, the warranty is a piece of paper, and nobody wants to touch their wiring.
We have seen where that ends. One homeowner came to us with an oversized battery on an undersized inverter, in a model already discontinued. Nothing could be added, nothing swapped. The whole lot came out. That was their one rebate, spent.
How do I compare home battery installation quotes?
Run every quote through this before you sign.
Get three written quotes, each based on a site visit. No site inspection, no quote worth reading. (It is possible to do an inspection over the phone the designer just needs thorough photos of your switchboard battery location, inverter and property. If someone is trying to give you a price prior to receiving these they shouldn’t be trusted.)
Look up the company’s ABN registration date. One registered around April 2025, when the rebate was announced, deserves a second look.
Insist on itemisation. Exact battery model, usable capacity in kWh, inverter model and size, every piece of electrical work, and the product, performance and workmanship warranties.
Read the substitution clause. Wording that lets a company swap in similar components is how bait and switch happens.
Read the one-star reviews, not the five-star ones. CHOICE and Solar Quotes are worth reading before you shortlist anyone.
Never sign on the doorstep. Unsolicited sales carry a ten-day cooling off period under Australian Consumer Law.
A familiar face fronting the ads is not a credential. Neither is a countdown timer.
None of this is a reason to skip a battery. Solar and storage together are cutting real money off real bills, and more again inside a virtual power plant. The rebate is worth taking advantage of
Spend it once. Price is what you pay. Value is what you get, and those are not the same number.
What is a fair price for home battery installation in Australia?
There is no single number, because usable capacity, inverter size and the electrical work at your place all move it. Compare quotes on installed cost per usable kWh after the rebate, with the same inverter size across all three. A cheaper quote is not automatically wrong. It is always worth asking what the other two included that this one did not.
How do I know if a cheap battery quote is too good to be true?
Look at what is missing rather than what is cheap. No site visit, no itemised component list, no named installer, a substitution clause buried in the terms, an ABN registered in 2025, or pressure to sign this week. One of those is worth a question. Three is worth walking away.
Does the Cheaper Home Batteries Program affect the cost of battery installation?
Yes. The discount is applied at the point of sale through small-scale technology certificates, so the price you are quoted already has it built in. It steps down over time and applies once per property, which is why the first system you install is the one that counts. Read more here.
The Solar Sharer Offer gives eligible homes at least three hours of free daytime electricity, so it pays to have your battery charging from the grid while that power costs nothing. This guide shows you how to set a force charging schedule on a Sigenergy SigenStor in the mySigen app, step by step.
The whole job is one setting change. You switch the battery to time-based control, then draw a simple daily schedule that charges during your free hours.
This guide covers:
why you would force charge your Sigenergy battery from the grid
the exact steps in the mySigen app, in order
how to set the schedule to match your own free hours
Why force charge your Sigenergy battery from the grid?
Most SigenStor systems run in self-consumption mode by default. The battery stores your solar and feeds the house first, which suits most days. The Solar Sharer Offer changes the maths for part of the day. During your free window, grid power costs nothing, so filling the battery from the grid gives you cheaper stored energy for the evening peak.
Force charging is simply telling the battery to draw from the grid during set hours instead of waiting for the sun. You can force charge a battery from the grid on a SigenStor through a time-based schedule, which is what the rest of this guide walks through.
How do you set a force charging schedule in the mySigen app?
Lenergy technician Ziad sets one up in the video. Here is the same process, step by step. The in-app menu names below are against the current mySigen version.
Open the mySigen app on your phone, then:
Tap Settings at the bottom of the screen.
Open System settings,
Then Energy management settings,
Then Current mode.
Change the mode from Self-consumption, or whatever it is set to, to Time-based control.
Tap Schedule.
If this is your first schedule, the page is blank.
Tap Edit and clear anything already there.
Now picture the day as a single timeline from midnight to midnight. You fill it with three blocks.
9. Set Self-consumption from midnight to 11am.
10. Tap Charging to add the force charging block. It starts where the last block ended, at 11am. Change the end time to 2pm.
11. Tap Self-consumption again to fill the last gap. It runs from 2pm to midnight automatically.
That covers the full day. Leave the advanced settings below as the system default. There is nothing else to change there.
12. Tap Next, then Save, then Save again in the top right corner.
The schedule is set. Your battery will force charge from the grid between 11am and 2pm, then return to normal use for the rest of the day.
How do you know the schedule is working?
Once saved, the schedule runs on its own each day. During your free window, the app should show the battery charging from the grid. If it does, you are set. The schedule repeats daily until you change it, so this is a one-time job.
What if your free hours are different?
The 11am to 2pm window in the video is only an example. Your retailer sets your own free hours under the Solar Sharer Offer, and they may sit at a different time, such as noon to 3pm. The method does not change. Set self-consumption up to the start of your free window, set the charging block to match your free hours exactly, then set self-consumption again to fill the rest of the day. Save it the same way.
Check your plan for the exact hours before you set the times, so the charging block lines up with the free window and not a minute either side.
Open the mySigen app, go to Settings, then System settings, Energy management settings and Current mode. Switch from Self-consumption to Time-based control, then build a daily schedule with a Charging block set to your free hours. Save it, and the battery will force charge from the grid during that window each day.
Can I charge my Sigenergy battery during the free electricity hours?
Yes. A time-based schedule lets you set a charging block that matches your retailer’s free window under the Solar Sharer Offer. During those hours the battery draws from the grid at no energy cost, then powers your home through the evening peak.
Do I need an installer to set a force charging schedule?
No. The whole change happens in the mySigen app on your phone, and it takes a couple of minutes. You are only changing the operating mode and the daily schedule, not the hardware or wiring.
What if my free hours are not 11am to 2pm?
Use your own hours. The 11am to 2pm window is just the example from the video. Set the charging block to your retailer’s free window exactly, with self-consumption filling the time before and after. The steps are identical.
In 2023, David Duncan opened a power bill for over $3,000 in a single quarter. His most recent bill was $58. That’s thousands in solar battery savings.
David and his family live near Trangie, in western NSW. Solar on its own halved their bills. The battery did the rest, because they were rarely home during the day to use the power their panels were making.
This is David’s story, of how installing a solar battery is saving him thousands of dollars. It covers:
What his power bills looked like before, and how far they climbed
Why solar on its own only got him halfway
How a home battery turned wasted export into real savings
What choosing and working with Lenergy was actually like
What were David’s power bills like before?
“Our power bills became excessive,” David says. “Over the last 10 or 15 years, power bills have crept up from something that was affordable, $300, $400 a bill, and then it crept up into the thousands of dollars a quarter.”
The worst of it came in 2023, when adult children were living at home and the household grew. “We actually had a power bill for a quarter that was over $3,000,” he says. For a family that wanted to stay put, that was the tipping point. “We like living where we live,” David says. “If we’re going to keep living there, we need to get this to a manageable point. It became unmanageable.”
Why didn’t solar on its own fix it?
Solar helped, but it did not finish the job. “We put the solar on and that reduced our power bill in the order of probably half, or a bit better,” David says.
The problem was timing. David and his family were out during the day, exactly when the panels were producing the most. They tried to work around it. “We tried having timers on the dishwasher or the washing machine, tried all those sort of tricks, but it didn’t really change things,” he says. The power the panels made while nobody was home went straight to the grid for little in return. “We were generating power that was going back to the grid that was worthless,” David says. It is a common gap for solar households, and it is worth understanding why the grid no longer pays much for exports and how it currently operates.
How did the battery turn solar into real savings?
“What changed for us was getting the batteries on,” David says. That is the heart of his solar battery savings.
A 38.4kWh home battery let David store the power his panels made during the day and use it at night, instead of buying it back from the grid at peak rates. “By generating it and having a battery store that, we could gain the full benefit of this solar system,” he says. The result showed up quarter after quarter. “The last three power bills have come back to probably $150 a quarter, then $120, and the last one the other day, I think, was $58 a quarter,” David says. “We’re starting to get used to it.”
For a household that is out during the day, adding a battery to a solar system you already have is often what turns modest home battery storage savings into the kind of drop David saw. Getting the size right matters, which is why it helps to understand how to choose a battery size for your home before you commit.
Why did David choose Lenergy?
Before Lenergy, David had heard plenty of pitches that did not fit his life. “There was a bunch of door-to-door salesmen, and I just wasn’t interested in the story they were telling us,” he says. “The story they were trying to tell us was wrong for us. There’s no way that we could use 80% of our power through the day, because we simply weren’t at home during the day to do that.”
Lenergy started somewhere different. “When we talked to Lenergy, they got the message straight up,” David says. “That was comforting.” The plan was staged and simple: solar first, then the battery, then the right energy plan to match.
What was it like working with Lenergy?
“Stressless,” is how David puts it. “They had the confidence in what they were putting forward, and it followed logic. It made sense.”
For David, the proof was that the plan held. “They’ve been able to supply and deliver, and what they said would happen did happen,” he says. Asked if he would recommend Lenergy to others, his answer was short. “Absolutely.”
How much money can a solar battery save you each month?
It depends on your household, your usage and your current plan, so there is no single figure. David’s own numbers give a real example. His bills went from over $3,000 in a quarter at their worst to about $150, then $120, then $58 across his three most recent quarters, which he puts down to solar and the battery together. The biggest savings tend to go to homes that generate plenty of solar during the day but are not there to use it, since the battery stores that power for the evening instead of sending it to the grid.
Is a home solar battery system worth the investment?
For David, the value was clear once the battery was in, because it let the family keep their lifestyle without the bills that came with it. A residential solar battery system makes the most sense when you already have solar exporting a lot of unused power, or when your household uses most of its electricity outside daylight hours. The return depends on your usage, your tariff, and how much of your own solar you can store and use rather than buy back at peak rates.
How long does it take for a solar battery to pay for itself?
There is no fixed answer, and it is worth being cautious about anyone who gives you one. Payback depends on how high your bills are to begin with, how much solar you export today, and your time-of-use rates. Households with large bills and a lot of wasted daytime export, like David’s, generally see the fastest return, because every kilowatt-hour stored and used at night is one they no longer buy at peak prices. A good installer will model this for your home before you buy.
More than four in ten Australian homes now have rooftop solar. So you are not a guinea pig.
If you are considering solar panels in Australia and have no idea where to start, that is the most common place to be. Hundreds of companies. Thousands of products. Prices all over the place, and not everyone has had a good experience.
These five steps all happen before you speak to anyone selling solar. Going through them will have you well prepared to approach an installer confident that you know enough to make sure you get a quality install that actually achieves your goals.
Work out what you actually use
Check your roof, switchboard and export limit
Understand the money
Vet the installer, not the company
Read the quote properly
What should you do first if you are considering solar?
Pull twelve months of bills.
You want three numbers. Your highest daily usage. Average daily use. Consider how much of that lands in daylight versus after dark.
That last one matters most. Solar only pays when you use what you make. Self consumption, meaning power you generate and use yourself instead of exporting it. Feed-in tariffs now sit around 0 to 5 cents a kWh while you buy power back at 25 to 45 cents. Exporting is feeding it back for next to nothing.
If you’re looking for a system to eliminate your bill fully you want to account for the days where your usage is highest and size around that.
Then run SunSPOT, the free government-backed calculator at energy.gov.au. It estimates size, cost, savings and payback, and it does not ask for your phone number.
Consider what you want to achieve with your system, not everyone is looking for a system that will protect you in a zombie apocalypse, some will just want to lower your electricity bills. Account for changes to your consumption profile that might come such as, an EV, a battery, heat pump hot water. Size a system to suit where you are headed.
A note on batteries, with current rebates and feed in tariffs it nearly always makes sense to install a battery when getting a solar system. Read more about this here.
Is your roof suitable for solar?
North-facing is best in Australia. East and west still work, with a bit less output across the year.
Then look at what gets in the way. Trees, aerials, the neighbour’s roofline. Shade on one panel can drag down a whole string of them, which is why some homes need optimisers or microinverters.
Check the roof itself. Panels last 25 years or more, so the roof needs to as well. Older switchboards often need upgrading before anything can be connected.
What rebates can you actually get?
The federal rebate is not a cheque. It runs through Small-scale Technology Certificates, or STCs, which your installer claims and deducts from your quote before you ever see it. Certificates trade around $33 to $38 each. Read our most recent update one the rebate works here.
That discount shrinks each year until the scheme ends in 2030. Shrinks, not disappears. Anyone telling you the rebate ends next week is trying to force the sale.
State support sits on top:
NSW. Interest-free loans up to $15,000 for solar and battery through approved suppliers.
ACT. Zero-interest loans for batteries under the Sustainable Household Scheme.
Queensland. Narrower, and largely aimed at renters.
How do you check a solar installer is legitimate?
Accreditation belongs to the person, not the business. That is the part most people miss.
Solar Accreditation Australia took over installer accreditation from the Clean Energy Council in May 2024. The CEC still runs the approved products list for panels and inverters, so both names remain in play, doing different jobs. Your installer needs current SAA accreditation or your STC discount is not valid.
Ask for the number. Check it on the SAA site yourself. Takes a minute.
Then check the seller against the New Energy Tech Consumer Code approved list. It is voluntary, so absence is not damning, though presence is a fair signal.
Get three quotes. Insist on a site visit. A quote drawn from satellite images misses switchboard capacity, roof access and shading, and those come back later as variations.
What should be in the quote before you sign?
A price is not a quote. A quote is a document you can check.
It names the exact panel and inverter models. It shows a site-specific design. It lists the rebate as its own line. It sets out three separate warranties: product, performance and workmanship. Workmanship is often only one to two years, but quality installers such as ourselves will have up to a 10 year workmanship warranty.
A good company will design a system that works for you and will treat the sales experience as one that educates you on your options and will be willing to answer every question you might have.
How do I know if my home is suitable for solar panels in Australia? Orientation, shade and roof condition decide it. North-facing with clear sun is ideal, east and west still work. If your roof is near the end of its life or your switchboard is old, sort that first. A site visit answers all three properly. A satellite quote does not.
What solar rebates and incentives are available for Australian homeowners in 2026? The federal STC discount applies nationally and comes off your quote automatically. NSW offers interest-free loans up to $15,000. The ACT and Queensland run their own schemes.
How do I choose a reliable solar installer in Australia? Check the individual installer’s SAA accreditation number on the SAA website. Check out their worst reviews. Look for the company on the NETCC approved seller list. Get three quotes, insist on a site visit, and treat pressure to sign today as a reason not to.
Do these steps apply to a business or a larger system? Mostly, yes. The federal scheme currently caps eligible systems at 100kW, though the Clean Energy Regulator has flagged plans to lift that toward 1MW, which would open it up to larger commercial and community installations.
More than 500,000 home batteries have been installed across Australia since July 2025. That is a real milestone, worth celebrating.
60.8% of installations inspected by the Clean Energy Regulator up to April 2026 were found to be substandard. That’s the part that gets far less attention.
So the lesson from half a million batteries is not about which battery you buy. It is about who puts it on your wall and we’ll show you exactly what separates a quality installation from the rest.
This article covers:
How big the home battery rollout actually got
Why the rebate changed on 1 May 2026, and what that did to system sizes
What the inspections found, and what those faults look like
How to check an installer before you sign anything
Whether a home battery still stacks up
How Many Home Batteries Has Australia Installed?
Around 507,000 under the federal Cheaper Home Batteries Program by August 2026. That is roughly 14 GWh of storage in about 13 months.
More than three quarters of installations are in outer suburban and regional areas. Castle Hill has the highest install count of any postcode in the country.
Australia now sits third in the world for total home battery deployment, and first per person.
Now, that pace needed people to do the work. The number of accredited battery installers roughly doubled to 8,846, according to Smart Energy Council figures. Hold onto that number. It matters shortly.
Why Did Home Battery Sizes Suddenly Shrink?
The original rebate did not taper by size. A 50 kWh system earned the same rate per kWh as a 14 kWh one.
So people bought big. By the end of 2025 around 175,000 applications were in, many of them close to 50 kWh, and the $2.3 billion budget was going faster than planned.
The government changed the settings from 1 May 2026. Funding was expanded to an estimated $7.2 billion over four years, with a target of more than two million batteries by 2030. The discount now tapers. Full rate on the first 14 kWh, 60 per cent from 14 to 28 kWh, then 15 per cent from 28 to 50 kWh. The STC factor also steps down every six months instead of once a year.
Well, everyone saw it coming, so everyone rushed. By the end of April 2026 the average system size had blown out to 40 kWh and 350,000 systems were in the ground.
That rush is the important part. A doubled installer workforce, working to a deadline, on systems sized for the rebate rather than sized to suit the home. Something had to give.
Since May the market has settled. The 20 to 30 kWh band is now the largest segment by volume, which is much closer to what most homes actually need.
What Did the Battery Inspections Find?
Between July 2025 and April 2026 the Clean Energy Regulator inspected 1,278 installations. That was about 0.5 per cent of everything installed at the time. Of those, 60.8 per cent were rated substandard and 1.2 per cent were rated unsafe.
Read that carefully. Inspections are targeted rather than random, so it is not a clean measure of every system in the country. It is still 60.8 per cent of the ones they chose to look at.
Some faults were paperwork. Missing or incorrect warning labels. Unlabelled backup circuits.
Others were not. Exposed or loose wiring. Substandard electrical connections. Batteries mounted in direct sunlight, which shortens their life and costs you capacity on hot days. Battery units wall mounted with standard plugs instead of proper fixings.
The regulator has since lifted inspections to around 3,400. It can strip accreditation, fail the certificates that fund your rebate, and refer matters for civil or criminal action.
How Do You Check a Battery Installer Before You Sign?
Six things, and none of them take long.
Check the individual installer is currently accredited with Solar Accreditation Australia. Not the company. The person on your roof.
Look up the ABN. Be careful with businesses that appeared the same month the rebate did.
Insist on a site assessment. Nobody can quote your home properly without seeing your switchboard.
Read the one star reviews rather than the average. Patterns tell you more than a score.
Get the discount amount, the warranty terms and the payback period in writing before you pay a deposit.
The red flags are consistent. Same day sign-up pressure. Claims that a rebate is about to end. A large deposit with no firm installation date. Vague “or equivalent” wording on components.
Complaints to the ACCC rose 107 per cent in the first quarter of 2026 against the same quarter in 2025. The ACCC now wants a mandatory code of conduct tied to rebate access, so a company doing poor work loses the subsidy. Solar Quotes has called the current voluntary code a toothless tiger, which is fair enough. Being expelled from it does not stop anyone installing batteries.
Look, the brand still counts for something. In the 2026 Solar Quotes Installers’ Choice awards, Sigenergy came first on 26 per cent of installer votes. Installers voting on what they trust to install in their own homes tells you more than any marketing claim. That is why we fit SigenStor.
Is a Home Battery Still Worth It?
For most solar homes, yes.
ACCC figures put households with solar and a battery between $329 and $909 a year below grid-only customers. On a virtual power plant plan, between $762 and $1,093 below. AEMO has said the effect on evening peak demand has been a pleasant surprise, even from batteries not enrolled in a VPP.
If your usage is small a large battery will not be cash flow positive. Size a system to suit your home, not to suit the rebate. That is the whole lesson of the past twelve months.
What is the Cheaper Home Batteries Program and who is eligible?
A federal program that started in July 2025. Your installer claims small-scale technology certificates and passes the value on as a discount on your invoice. Homeowners, small businesses and community facilities can all access it. The battery needs to be on the approved product list, installed by an accredited installer, paired with solar (new or existing), and capable of joining a VPP. One battery per electricity meter.
How do I know if my battery installer is reliable and accredited?
Check the individual installer, not just the company, against the Solar Accreditation Australia register. Confirm the seller signed the New Energy Tech Consumer Code. Look at how long the ABN has traded. Then insist on a proper site assessment before anyone quotes you.
What should I look for when choosing a home battery system in Australia?
Size it against your evening usage rather than the largest rebate you can claim. Check the warranty covers capacity retention, not just faults. Confirm the brand has Australian support behind it, and that the battery and inverter are designed to work together.
From 1 October 2026, subject to the regulations landing, the commercial solar rebate cap lifts from 100 kW to 1 MW.
That is a great new policy for Australian businesses. The 100 kW line was arbitrary, and it had businesses putting 99 kW on roofs that could carry four times as much. Removing it is the most useful thing to happen to commercial solar in years.
Whilst a step in the right direction cost is not the only factor that has been slowing commercial solar uptake. A rebate is not a connection approval. It is not permission to export. It does not tell you who should build the thing.
This article covers:
How long it takes to get commercial solar approved
Whether you can actually use what a bigger system generates
Why the installer matters more at this size
What a lot of new certificates does to the discount
What the expansion actually fixes
Cost, and only cost.
The discount is worth roughly 20 per cent off an install, and on a 250 kW system that is around $68,000. We covered the numbers, the eligible sectors and the start date in what the expanded commercial solar rebate is worth .
Whilst a great start to growing commercial solar there still a lot of red tape and other factors that need to be resolved to help this side of the industry boom.
How long does commercial solar approval actually take?
Longer than the rebate does, and the two are not connected.
The rebate comes from a federal scheme with published rules and a known value. Your installer handles the certificates and the discount comes off the invoice. Permission to connect comes from your local distribution network, which sets its own requirements and its own timeframes. Neither waits for the other.
Seventy-one per cent of industry members surveyed by the Smart Energy Council named approval times as a leading barrier. One Victorian network told its regulator that a 200 kW approval takes five to ten business days. The same consultant watched compliant, paid-up jobs sit for five months waiting on it.
Requirements shift as well. A design that met the rules in March can need reworking by June, and you pay for the rework.
The government has said it will push for faster approvals on mid-scale solar. That work has not landed yet.
Is the grid ready for this?
Not entirely, and that is worth knowing before you size anything.
Every one of these systems generates at the same time. Middle of the day, all at once, across the same networks. That is already the part of the day when the grid needs the least power, and minimum daytime demand keeps falling.
So a lot of new generation is about to arrive exactly where the grid has the least room for it. The rebate was announced on its own. The connection rules that need to sit underneath it are still being asked for, not written, and that order has cost businesses money before.
Networks respond the way they always do. Where daytime solar is already heavy, new systems get a fixed export limit, a flexible one, or a zero export condition. Mechanisms also exist that can pause or restrict rooftop solar during rare but difficult grid conditions.
Which means the power you generate and do not use does one of three things. It gets exported, if your network allows it. It gets stored, if you have a battery. Or it gets curtailed, which is a polite way of saying generated and thrown away.
Export is worth less than it used to be as well. The Smart Energy Council documents a steel manufacturer with 1.5 MW of export capacity that was charged for exporting during periods of negative wholesale prices. They switched export off.
None of this sinks a project. It changes what the project is. A system that exports is selling power. A system that cannot export has to use it on site.
So the sizing conversation stops being how many panels fit on the roof and becomes how much you actually draw between 9 and 4. Half-hourly data. Weekends. Shutdown weeks. Seasonal swings.
It is also where a battery stops being an optional extra. Surplus you would otherwise throw away gets used late in the afternoon, which is exactly when commercial demand charges bite hardest.
Does it matter who installs it?
More than it did at the residential level.
A 500 kW system is not a residential quote multiplied by fifty. Roof structure, fire compliance, switchboard capacity, protection settings and cable design all turn into engineering questions with real consequences.
A rebate this size attracts good operators. It also attracts people who have never built anything at this scale.
Check the installer is SAA accredited, and ask what they have actually delivered above 100 kW. A badly designed 500 kW system is not a big version of a small mistake. It is an expensive one sitting on your roof for the next twenty years.
What happens to the discount itself?
Worth understanding. Not worth panicking about.
The rebate runs on tradeable certificates. If a lot of commercial systems create a lot of certificates quickly, supply rises, and the price per certificate can fall. That would trim the discount for everyone, households included.
The government sets how many certificates must be surrendered each year, so it can steer this. Whether it steers quickly enough is a fair open question.
What it is not is a reason to rush. If someone tells you to sign today because the rebate is about to collapse, they are selling, not advising.
So what has actually changed?
The price, and nothing else.
The 100 kW cap was arbitrary and it did real damage. Businesses put 99 kW on roofs that could carry four times as much, for a reason that had nothing to do with their roof or their power bill. Removing that line is the most useful thing to happen to commercial solar in years.
What it does not do is shorten a connection queue. The rebate and the network approval are still decided by different organisations working to different timetables, one with published timeframes measured in business days and real ones measured in months.
It does not make room on a grid that already carries a lot of midday generation, and it does not settle how much any given site will be allowed to export.
It does not make a 500 kW system simpler to build, or make the people quoting on one more experienced than they were in September.
It does not guarantee the discount holds its value once a lot of new certificates start arriving.
None of that is an argument against the policy. The cost barrier was real and it is being removed. The rest of the barriers were always sitting underneath it, and they are still there.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does the bigger rebate mean I can install a bigger system?
It means you can claim the discount on a bigger system. Whether you can install and export one is a separate decision made by your local network, on its own timeline.
What is the new maximum system size for the commercial solar rebate?
1 MW, up from 100 kW, expected from 1 October 2026 and subject to the regulations.
Will the commercial rebate reduce the household solar rebate?
It could put downward pressure on the certificate price if commercial uptake runs ahead of forecasts. The government adjusts annual surrender requirements to manage this. Nobody should be using it as a reason to hurry you into signing.
Do I need a battery to make a large commercial system work?
Not always. It becomes much more important if your network limits your exports, because a battery lets you keep surplus generation instead of losing it. What the new PDRS rules mean for solar batteries covers where commercial sites now stand.
Mike Chapman’s power bills used to sit at about $12,000 a year. Now he pays $900. That’s close to $11,000 a year of solar and battery savings.
Mike runs a demanding home in Wildes Meadow, in the Southern Highlands, and he did his homework before he committed. Here is how the numbers stacked up.
This story covers:
what Mike was paying before, and why his home used so much power
why he chose Lenergy after looking at other providers
how automation squeezed even more out of the setup
what his results suggest for other high-use homes
Why were Mike’s power bills so high?
Mike’s home is not a light user. He runs underfloor heating off a heat pump, two separate hot water systems, and two separate air conditioning systems. All of that adds up. In his words, “power bills were sitting at around $12,000 a year, now they are $75 a night.”
A home like this is where solar and battery savings can go furthest. The more power you use, the more there is to offset. A large, well-matched system has more room to pay for itself.
Why did Mike choose Lenergy?
Mike did not rush. “We had done a lot of research,” he said. He was introduced to other providers first, then came to Lenergy through local people he knew.
What won him over was how the quote was presented. “Their approach was fantastic in the video presentation, their transparency on all the quoting. We just felt extremely comfortable with what they presented.” He was given a number of options and picked the one that fit.
Mike was an early adopter of Sigenergy in the area. “I think we were the first in the Highlands to go with the Sigenergy batteries,” he said. He has been happy with the choice since, from the quoting and pricing right through to the install.
What system does Mike have?
Mike’s home runs on a Sigenergy SigenStor, the battery Lenergy installs. His setup is built for a high-demand household:
That is a large amount of storage. It needs to be, given the loads Mike runs. Solar panels on the roof charge the battery through the day, and the battery carries the home through the evening when grid power costs the most. Working out how much storage a home actually needs is the step that makes a system like this pay off.
How does automation add to the savings?
The savings did not stop at the hardware. Winston, from Lenergy, introduced Mike to a local automation company. They worked together to automate the parts of the home that draw the most power, including the underfloor heating and the heat pumps.
“That again has made maximum use of the energy efficiency with the new panel and battery installation,” Mike said.
This is where the SigenStor earns its place. Automation works best when the battery can talk to the rest of the home and shift energy to the right moment. The SigenStor is built for that kind of smart control, which is a big part of why it suits homes that want to automate. Getting the timing right, charging when power is cheap and drawing stored energy at peak, is what turns a good system into a great one.
What do Mike’s results mean for other homes?
Mike’s numbers are his own, tied to his home and his usage. Your results will differ. Still, the shape of his story is common for high-use homes. Big bills leave big room to save. The right system, sized to the load, does the rest.
Mike now recommends Lenergy to others. “We’ve referred them to a number of friends,” he said. For a household that was paying $12,000 a year, dropping to around $75 a month is a clear result.
What factors affect how much you save with solar panels and a home battery?
Your savings come down to how much power you use, when you use it, and how well your system is sized to match. Bigger households with high daytime and evening loads, like Mike’s, have more to offset, so the savings tend to be larger. Your tariff, your solar generation, and how much you can shift into cheaper periods all play a part too.
Is a large battery worth it for a high-use home?
For a home running heavy loads like heat pumps, multiple hot water systems and air conditioning, a larger battery lets you store more of your own solar and lean less on the grid at peak times. Mike’s home uses a 48.36 kWh SigenStor for exactly that reason. The right size depends on your usage, so it is worth mapping your loads before you decide.
Why is there still a small monthly bill with solar and a battery?
Even with a well-sized system, most homes keep a small bill. Fixed daily supply charges still apply, and there are days when the home draws a little from the grid. Mike went from about $12,000 a year to around $75 a month, so the remaining charge is small next to what he was paying before.
NSW Government figures say an all electric home can save you up to $2,771 a year. Add solar and that saving climbs towards $4,000.
So, should you electrify your home? If you’re in NSW or the ACT and still on gas, then yes. For most homes, it’s worth it.
There’s one catch: the order you do things in. That’s where most people go wrong and it’s exactly what we’ll walk you through in this article.
What this article covers:
What electrifying your home is worth in NSW and the ACT
Why the generation side comes first
The loans, discounts and rebates in each
The order to do the work in
Is home electrification worth it in NSW and the ACT?
For most homes still on gas, however, be ready for the upfront cost and plan it right.
NSW Government figures show an electrified house can save up to $2,771 a year. With solar, potential savings move toward $4,000. Apartments can still save around $2,400.
Most of that comes from two places. Hot water is about 29% of an average NSW energy bill. Heating and cooling is about 27%. Those are the biggest gas users in the house, so that is where the savings sit.
There is a third saving people forget. The fixed gas supply charge. You pay it every quarter whether you burn gas or not. Remove the connection and it goes.
Emissions drop by around 2,120 kg a year for a NSW house. In the ACT the effect is larger, because ACT electricity is already 100% renewable.
The air inside the house improves as well. Gas appliances burn fossil fuels indoors and release pollutants while they run. Several NSW councils have banned new gas connections on health grounds. Reverse cycle systems also cover heating and cooling in one unit, which suits NSW summers and Canberra winters.
Why does NSW say to do solar and a battery first?
Because electrifying your home does not remove your energy use. It moves it.
Every gas appliance you replace becomes an electricity load. Hot water, heating, cooking, eventually the car. Electric appliances are far more efficient, so total energy use drops. A heat pump uses around 30% of the energy of a conventional electric hot water system. You are still buying that electricity from somewhere.
Get the generation in first and a lot of that load costs you nothing.
Hot water is the easiest win. It is about 29% of an average NSW energy bill, and a heat pump on a timer can run at midday on your own solar. Heating and cooling is another 27%, and much of that can shift too. Run the reverse cycle hard through the afternoon while the sun is up, and the house holds that temperature into the evening. EV charging shifts as well, if the car is home during the day.
Some loads will not move. Dinner is cooked at dinner time. Heating a Canberra house through a July night is not a midday job. That is what storage is for. A SigenStor system holds the day’s surplus and runs the house on it after dark, or you can use it to profit off of through a vpp, instead of sending it to the grid for a feed in rate that no longer covers much.
The order is the point. Solar and storage first, then the appliances arrive into a house that can already power them.
What support can you get in NSW and the ACT?
Support comes in three layers, and they stack.
Federal first. Small-scale technology certificates cut the cost of rooftop solar for every household in Australia. They apply automatically. Your installer claims them and the discount comes off the quote, so there is nothing to apply for.
The discount shrinks every year. It is worked out from how many years are left before the scheme ends on 31 December 2030. Install in 2026 and you get five years’ worth. Wait until January 2027 and you get four. Same system, smaller discount, every year you wait.
The Cheaper Home Batteries Program works the same way, taking around 30% off an eligible battery installed by an SAA accredited installer. Two things to know. The discount now steps down every six months rather than once a year. It also tapers by size: the full rate applies to the first 14 kWh of usable capacity, 60% of the rate to the next 14 kWh, and far less above that.
That taper matters when you size the system. On a 24 kWh battery, the first 14 kWh attracts the full rate and the remaining 10 kWh attracts 60% of it. The rebate still applies. It just does not scale evenly.
Discounts up to $4,000 for incomes up to $80,000 or concession card holders
Up to $5,000 in rebates for concession card holders
Solar panels
Eligible
Not covered for most households
Batteries and EV chargers
Eligible
Eligible
Two things the table does not show.
In NSW, if you qualify for both the discount and the loan, apply for the discount first and use the loan for the balance. The other way round costs you.
In the ACT, rooftop solar is no longer covered under the loan for most households. Canberra readers sometimes read that as solar being unsupported. It is not. Federal STCs still apply in full, exactly as they do in NSW. The ACT loan simply covers the rest of the job instead.
How do you transition to an all electric home?
NSW publishes the order. It works for ACT homes too.
Plan. Check your bills and work out which appliances are near end of life. Replacing something with years left in it could waste money.
Find a tradesperson. Use an SAA accredited installer with a good history of reviews for solar and battery work.
Solar and battery. The generation side first, for the reasons above.
Hot water. The biggest gas user in most homes. A heat pump replaces it.
Heating and cooling. Reverse cycle covers both.
Cooking. An induction cooktop is the last appliance, not the first. It uses the least gas.
Disconnect the gas.
Two practical notes. Older switchboards sometimes need upgrading before the load increases, and that upgrade is eligible under the NSW loan. Home EV charging is the logical next step once the house is electric, and both schemes cover it.
Electrification only pays when you use power at the right time of day. Our article on free daytime electricity explains how the new free power windows change that maths.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does it mean to electrify your home?
It means replacing gas appliances with electric ones. Hot water, heating, cooking, and often the car. The last step is dealing with the gas connection itself. Disconnection is temporary and reversible. Abolishment is permanent, with the meter and service line removed. Only abolishment removes the fixed supply charge for good.
How much does home electrification cost in Australia?
It depends on how many appliances you replace and whether you add solar and a battery. Most households stage the work over several years rather than doing it at once, which spreads the cost. NSW covers up to $15,000 with a zero interest loan and the ACT up to $20,000 at 3%, which covers the core of the job for most homes.
What are the benefits of switching to an all-electric home?
Lower bills, no fixed gas supply charge, lower emissions, better indoor air quality, and one energy bill instead of two. Reverse cycle systems also give you heating and cooling from the same unit.
Are there government rebates for home electrification in Australia?
Yes. NSW runs the Home Energy Saver program. The ACT runs the Sustainable Household Scheme, plus a fully funded Access to Electric Program for eligible low income homeowners who agree to permanent gas disconnection. The federal Cheaper Home Batteries Program applies nationally. Renters can request upgrades but cannot authorise them, since the decision sits with the property owner.
Is home electrification worth it without solar panels?
You will still save, because heat pumps and reverse cycle systems use far less energy than gas, and losing the fixed supply charge helps. The savings are noticeably smaller. Without solar you are buying every unit from the grid, often at peak rates in the evening when an all electric home uses the most. Solar and a battery are what turn a modest saving into the $4,000 figure NSW quotes.
