With power bills still soaring household batteries are emerging as a hot topic for the next federal election. More homes are installing storage systems as the amount they get back from energy retailers for their excess solar power drops to record lows and they're still unaffordable for many households.
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00:00More Australians, like Neil Kumar, are installing battery systems on their homes so they can
00:09store their excess solar.
00:11It makes sense to actually recycle the energy that I'm producing in my own house rather
00:18than feeding it back to the main grid.
00:21Neil says the cash that he gets from his energy retailer for his excess solar, known as a
00:27feed-in tariff, has dramatically reduced.
00:30Fits are varying across the country.
00:32In 2020, homeowners in the nation's biggest state were getting on average about 10 cents
00:38per kilowatt hour.
00:40Now they're getting almost half that at 5.8 cents.
00:44What we're seeing is more and more solar getting installed on roofs, which is a great thing,
00:48but that's meaning there's a supply glut.
00:50But this energy economist says they're getting more attractive for households that use a
00:55lot of power.
00:57In combination with steeply rising grid prices and steeply falling sales prices for export
01:04of solar surpluses, batteries I think are making a lot more sense for many customers.
01:10The Clean Energy Council is calling for federal grants to make home batteries more affordable.
01:16The federal government says it's already giving households low-interest loans to help them
01:21buy things like batteries.
01:23The opposition says it's worried this scheme is a mirage and it's yet to release its own
01:29household battery policy.
01:31Neither has the Greens.
01:33And as we get closer to the election, the Greens will be pushing the government to do
01:37more to help people get batteries into their homes.
01:40Homes like Neil's that can afford to stay cool this summer.