Carbon emission reduction: News and technology

[JimC]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-02-04/ ... /106300776

Australian households installed as many batteries in the final six months of 2025 as they did in the entire preceding five years, according to figures showing the boom in demand for storage devices.

Amid generous federal government subsidies that slash the up-front cost of batteries, a report from the Clean Energy Council found customers were taking up the offers at a breakneck pace.

More than 183,000 units were sold in the six months to December 31, the Clean Energy Council found, a "fourfold" increase on the same time in 2024.

It was also equivalent to the combined battery sales for 2020 and 2024.

But as battery demand surged, the council noted that Australians may have reached a tipping point in their uptake of rooftop solar, which had long been an engine of the country's energy transition.

Installations of rooftop photovoltaic, or PV, cells dropped 20 per cent in 2025 compared with the previous year to 254,664.

The council said about 4.3 million households now have solar, and demand may have reached a saturation point.

"This was the first time since 2020 that total annual rooftop PV installations did not surpass 300,000," the council noted in the report.

"(It) suggests we have now passed the peak of rooftop PV installations as consumers turn their demand towards small-scale batteries."
The extraordinary growth in demand for batteries has been boosted by taxpayer-funded incentives that reduce battery costs by about 30 per cent, or $4,000 for a typical system with 10 kilowatt-hours of storage.

Amid the clamour for subsidies, federal Energy Minister Chris Bowen acknowledged in December that the entire $2.3 billion budget would have been spent by mid-year.

Under its original design, the funds were intended to last until 2030.

The government has also faced criticism for its handling of the scheme, which experts said had been exploited by companies selling consumers super-sized systems of up to 50 kilowatt-hours.

In a shake-up announced before Christmas, Mr Bowen said the government would tip in an extra $5 billion to keep the scheme going.

At the same time, it tightened the eligibility criteria to guard against the over-selling of super-sized systems.

Demand 'like a rocket'

Jackie Trad, the Clean Energy Council's chief executive, said there were now more than 450,000 batteries installed on homes and businesses across the country.

"We know Australians have long had an appetite for energy independence to drive down bills and as a result have been adopting solar and battery technology at a record pace for the last several years," Ms Trad said.

Certainly the subsidies were a big part our our decision to get a battery, although we also got a much better solar array as well.