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Racing to buy a home battery? Read this first

Since July 2025, more than 260,000 households, businesses and organisations have installed home batteries under the federal government’s Cheaper Home Batteries Program.

The program offers a discount of about 30% on the upfront cost of installing eligible small-scale battery systems, which help cut power costs while taking pressure off the main electricity grid.

But from May 1, the government is changing how it calculates this discount. This is to keep the rebate sustainable as battery costs fall, while also discouraging people from installing oversized systems.

For a typical household battery with a storage capacity of about 10–13 kilowatt-hours (kWh), the May 1 rebate change will likely reduce upfront costs by between A$600 and $800.

Rooftop solar surges to new high on back of battery boom

Australia’s rooftop solar market climbed by 31% in the past month with the latest data revealing that a record 442 MW of small-scale PV capacity was installed across the country in April 2026.

Australian households and businesses installed more rooftop solar last month than in any other month on record with new data from solar and storage market analyst SunWiz showing 442 MW of sub-100 kW rooftop PV capacity was registered nationwide in April 2026.

This marked a 31% increase on the 341 MW registered across the country in March and is almost double the 225 MW of new capacity registered in April 2025.

“We have now reached the strongest month in the history of STC (small-scale technology certificates),” SunWiz Managing Director Warwick Johnston said, adding that the market is now running 35% ahead of the same point in 2025.

The next step after solar: understanding modular home batteries

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Many Australians with rooftop solar are looking into adding battery storage. A modular solution can be scaled up, or down, as needed.

4.3m homes and small businesses have solar panels installed, says the Clean Energy Council. Households are turning sunlight into electricity, reducing emissions and trimming power bills. But once those panels are up and running, many homeowners start asking the same question: what’s the next step?

A home battery allows households to store the solar energy they generate during the day and use it later: in the evening when the sun goes down, or during peak pricing periods when grid electricity is most expensive. The idea is simple: store the power you produce and rely less on the grid.

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