It’s official, the barrier to mass adoption of home batteries in Australia was never about the technology, it was always about the price.

The federal government’s new ‘Cheaper Home Batteries Program’ kicked off on July 1st this year. In less than four months, it has already helped fund more than 100,000 new battery installations across the country.

That figure is staggering. To put it in perspective, it took years for Australia to reach the 185,000 total batteries installed by the end of 2024. To add another 100,000 in just a few months shows the absolutely massive, latent demand that was just waiting for the maths to make sense.

For years, Aussies with rooftop solar have looked longingly at home batteries like the Tesla Powerwall. They understood the simple, powerful logic: make your own power during the day, store it, and use it at night.

The problem? The 10-to-15-year return on investment. It was just too long for most households to justify the A$12,000 to A$15,000+ upfront cost.

This new program has fundamentally changed that calculation, and 100,000 households have already jumped at the chance.

The barrier was always price, not tech

The technology for home energy storage is mature. We’ve had reliable, safe, and smart lithium-ion batteries for the better part of a decade.

What we haven’t had is the right financial incentive to bridge the “valley of death” between early adopters and the mass market.

Australians have proven they will adopt new tech at a world-leading pace if the economics stack up. We saw it with rooftop solar, where government incentives (and falling prices) led to us having the highest uptake per capita on the planet.

Now, we are seeing the exact same story play out with batteries. The moment the government stepped in to shave a significant chunk off the top, the dam wall of demand broke.

How the new scheme changes the maths

The ‘Cheaper Home Batteries Program’ isn’t a complex cashback scheme. It’s a smart, upfront discount delivered through the existing Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme (SRES).

Here’s the simple breakdown of how it works for you.

What it is
It’s a federal government program that essentially provides a point-of-sale discount on a new battery installation. It applies to batteries between 5kWh and 100kWh, whether you’re adding one to an existing solar setup or installing a whole new solar-and-battery system.

How it works
Instead of you claiming anything, your installer handles it. The program creates Small-scale Technology Certificates (STCs) for the battery’s capacity, which are traded to get a dollar value. This value is passed directly to you as a discount on your invoice.

The discount
For 2025, the discount works out to be approximately A$330 to A$340 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) of usable battery capacity. This is designed to be around 30% of the upfront cost.

A practical example
If you install a typical 10kWh home battery, you can expect an upfront discount of around A$3,400. That’s not a future rebate you wait for; it’s A$3,400 straight off the price you pay the installer.

Slashing the return on investment

This is the real magic of the program. That A$3,400 discount is the game-changer for the household budget.

Let’s say a 10kWh battery system costs A$12,000 installed. For years, homeowners have run that number against their average A$500 quarterly power bill and figured the payback period was somewhere over 10 years.

For many, that’s just too long. A lot can change in a decade. With the new scheme, that A$12,000 price tag instantly becomes A$8,600. Suddenly, the payback period is slashed by years, dropping into the 7-to-8-year range for many households.

That’s a much more palatable proposition. It turns the battery from a “nice-to-have” luxury into a sound financial decision. It makes storing the free energy you make on your roof a financial no-brainer.

A massive win for the grid

This isn’t just good news for 100,000 individual homes. It’s a transformative moment for Australia’s entire energy grid.

The government confirmed this milestone, highlighting the massive scale of this new, distributed storage.

That 2 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of storage is incredibly valuable. It acts as a giant, collective sponge, soaking up the flood of excess solar energy during the middle of the day.

This helps stabilise the grid and prevents renewable energy from being “curtailed” or wasted.

Then, during the evening peak (when everyone gets home and turns on their air-con and TVs), these 100,000 batteries discharge, feeding clean, stored energy back into the homes. This reduces the strain on the grid and lowers demand for expensive, fossil-fuel “peaker” plants.

In effect, Australia has just built a massive Virtual Power Plant (VPP) in under four months.

What’s next?

This explosive uptake proves the model works. Australians are clearly ready and willing to be part of the energy transition. The massive demand does mean installers are “flat out,” so if you’re considering it, you might face a wait.

It’s also worth noting that the program is designed to taper off. The rebate value (the number of STCs per kWh) is set to decrease each year until the program ends in 2030. This creates a clear incentive to act sooner rather than later.

But the main takeaway is clear: the debate is over. The technology is here, and the public is on board. The only thing holding us back was the upfront cost, and with that barrier now significantly lowered, the battery revolution is well and truly underway.

For more information, head to energy.gov.au/rebates/cheaper-home-batteries-program