Australians have installed almost 500,000 home batteries since the introduction of the government’s subsidy scheme, but most are unaware of programs that would ensure money back in their pocket – and power companies are lacking incentives to change.

🔋Getting your moneys worth? On their own, home batteries just store power, usually from solar panels. They start making real money when homeowners sell that stored power back to the grid.

When batteries across many homes are grouped together, they can act as one large, flexible power source. That's what's called a virtual power plant (VPP).

🚫 Why more people aren't signed up? An Energy Consumers Australia survey of 420 battery owners who hadn’t joined a VPP found 36 percent said they didn’t understand how VPPs work. 

  • 29 percent said they were worried about losing control over their battery. 

💰 The pay gap: Joining a VPP in Australia currently earns a household somewhere between $100 and $200 a year.

Independent energy expert Dr Gabrielle Kuiper told the National Account that households in Britain earn "at least four or five times" that, because the UK government changed regulations to make it worthwhile for power companies to pay households for their batteries.

🫴Incentives: Kuiper compared it to Airbnb. When the short-stay platform arrived in Australia it was met with much skepticism, but when people started making a good bit of money it was widely adopted, so much so that it's now contributing to the housing crisis.

Why rent to locals when Airbnb pays double?

Landlords on the NSW Mid North Coast are making double on short-term rentals than long-term leases. And councils pleading with them to rent to locals are hitting a bizarre wall.

Kuiper said if power companies paid people enough for the use of their batteries, households would be far more likely to take part.

⚡ Why they’re not paying up: There are two key reasons why energy companies aren’t paying battery owners more. 

  • Networks like Ausgrid, Energy Queensland, Endeavour and Ergon currently earn more by building expensive new grid infrastructure than they would by paying households to ease pressure on the network with their batteries.

    This happens because the laws that set how much profit energy networks are allowed to make are based on how much infrastructure they build.

    Money spent on paying battery owners doesn't count toward that profit calculation, it's treated as a cost.

  • Retailers like Origin and AGL largely protect themselves from price spikes by essentially buying insurance, rather than paying households directly to use their batteries at high-price moments.


Watch the National Account's Archie Milligan below:

Image credit: AAP

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