Australians installed 22,661 home battery systems in 2019

One Step Off The Grid

Australian households invested in almost two-and-a-half “Big Batteries” worth of home energy storage in 2019, installing 22,661 systems over the course of the year with a total capacity of 233MWh, and taking further control over their energy supply.

The numbers were published this week as part of the 2020 Australia Battery Market Report, the latest annual market estimates from solar analytics group SunWiz, based on figures reported by leading manufacturers. (You can purchase a copy here).

SunWiz, which has been tracking battery numbers in Australia since 2015, said 2019 home battery uptake was actually slightly down on 2018 numbers, but that an increase in non-residential installations had delivered a new annual record.

“This was a record year for battery installation,” managing director Warwick Johnston said in the report of the combined total of 376MWh of new storage capacity added in 2019.

“The residential capacity decreased, but this was offset by an increase in non-residential battery capacity (143MWh) to reach a new record year.”

All up, the report puts the cumulative tally for Australia at 73,000 battery storage systems, or 1099MWh of battery storage capacity installed since 2015.

Of this number, home battery systems remain by far the biggest contributor, with 738MWh of storage, compared to 361MWh of non-residential storage.

Back to 2019, however, and the numbers suggest that around 1 in 13 Australian solar households also have battery storage, or 7.9 per cent.

This article was originally published on RenewEconomy’s sister site, One Step Off The Grid, which focuses on customer experience with distributed generation. To sign up to One Step’s free weekly newsletter, please click here.

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