The Australian Government has announced the Cheaper Home Batteries program which will start in July this year.

What is it?

The program will provide a discount of around 30% off the price of an installed eligible battery up to 100kWh in capacity, in on-grid and off-grid sites.

How is the rebate calculated?

The scheme operates in the same way as the Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme (SRES) does for solar PV systems less than 100kW: the installer will calculate the number of Small-scale Technology Certificates (STC) that the system is eligible for and reduce the purchase price by that amount.

The discount will reduce over the period 2026 to 2030 when the scheme will end, so that the rebate in 2030 will be around ½ what it is in 2025.

What is an eligible battery system?

There are a few things that are required for an eligible battery including:

• The battery capacity must be between 5kWh and 100kWh though the rebate is payable on 50kWh
• Does not include Electric Vehicles
• The battery must be listed on the Clean Energy Council approved product list
• On-grid batteries must be able to be coordinated through a Virtual Power Plant (VPP) though does not need to be connected.
• One rebate is available per premises.
• The battery must comply with the industry developed Best Practice Guide: Battery Storage Equipment and be installed by an accredited battery installer under Solar Accreditation Australia (SAA)
• The battery must be installed with an existing or new solar PV system at a premises

There are a number of other requirements relating to consumer protection and compliance with state and territory electrical safety regulations.

Is this rebate suitable for your farm?

The key to installing cost-effective renewable energy and storage infrastructure is high utilisation.

1. If you already have solar power installed and are exporting power, a suitably sized battery could store that excess power to be used during the evening to offset power costs.
2. If you don’t already have solar power, you would need to install a solar system as well to take advantage of the battery rebate, which would increase the system costs.
3. If you have solar power, but are not regularly exporting much power, you may need to install a larger solar system to be able to store energy.

Installing batteries to store power will allow farms to utilise more of their solar power on site.

More details about the scheme are available on the Australian Government website here.

Read case studies about the potential for batteries on farm here.

Find out more about installing Solar Power on your farm here.

The Energy Information Service for Landholders (EISL) allows growers to speak to a member of QFF’s energy team to learn more about energy efficiency on their farm, including solar and tariff information. Call 07 3329 7500 Monday to Friday.