“Blows your mind:” Regulator says boom in home batteries and PV puts 82 pct renewables within reach

The unexpected boom in home batteries and the equally surprising surge in rooftop solar installations means that Australia’s target of 82 per cent renewables by 2030 – long dismissed as a lost cause by some – is now very much within reach.

That, at least, is the view of the Clean Energy Regulator executive general manager Carl Binning, who says that the massive investment by households in rooftop PV and batteries reduces the burden on large scale wind and solar to deliver on the 2030 target.

Some analysts have said that the renewables target is well out of reach because of the delay in grid scale renewables, particularly wind energy.

The most pessimistic put the likely renewable share by 2030 at less than 60 per cent, although federal energy minister Chris Bowen has always insisted that the target is still doable, although hard.

Binning, however, says the surge in rooftop installs and home batteries, boosted by the federal rebate, has stunned everyone, including the industry itself, and offered a new avenue to that 82 per cent target.

The Australian Energy Market Operator’s Integrated System Plan assumes another 28 gigawatts of large scale renewables is needed to meet the federal target, a little under 10 GW of additional rooftop solar, and about 5 gigawatt hours (GWh) of home storage.

Billing says home battery storage is already at 11 GWh, and heading for 40 GWh, eight times the ISP assumptions. And the record 441 megawatts (MW) of rooftop solar added in the month of April points to an annual run rate of around 4 GW. Even if it were 3 GW, that still would beat the ISP assumptions.

“If we take stock of this, we can start to see the finish line, and a couple of ways to get there. That is super exciting,” Billing told the Smart Energy 2026 conference on Thursday.

Billing said that those numbers suggest a requirement of less than 20 GW of large scale wind and solar, which is requires an installation rate “just a little more” than the current 4 GW.

And he notes that there is at least 28 GW that the CER is tracking “in the system”, although much of it has yet to reach financial close or begin construction.

He acknowledges that investors are finding it hard to get projects across the line, an issue highlighted by David Leitch, ITK principal and the co-host of Renew Economy’s Energy Insiders podcast, who questions whether Australia can maintain even 4 GW a year without changes to the Capacity Investment Scheme.

See Leitch’s analysis here: The spot mirage: Low wholesale prices show the future, but are a poor signal for new wind and solar

“What I am saying is that it looks plausible now. It doesn’t look like a super stretch target,” Billing said. “The amazing thing about small scale is how flexible and fast it is. Eleven gigawatt hours (of home batteries) in 12 months just blows your mind.”

Billing said that the CER had received more than 70,000 home battery applications in the month of April, and more than 20,000 in the last week.

(The country’s biggest installer (in terms of storage capacity), Fox ESS, says it installed 25,000 systems in the month of April alone, and sees little slowing in demand, even after the rebate changes).

Billing also thinks demand for both rooftop PV and home batteries will continue to grow. The 381,000 home batteries that have been installed since last July just scratches the surface of the nation’s 4.2 million households, and many of these have small systems that they will want to upgrade.

“There is massive upside in coming years,” Billing said. “It’s not just cheaper, reliable energy, it is a sense of control in a rapidly changing world. It is a lay-down mazaire.”

However, beyond 2030, Billing says “we are going to need everything” – big and small scale – as the passenger car fleet and households and industries electrify. “It is not a question of whether small scale will eat large scale’s lunch, it is how they work with each other.

The Clean Energy Council CEO highlighted the issues confronting investors in large scale developments – transmission, market signals, and social licence, an issue fuelled by the misinformation and disinformation highlighted in the recent Senate inquiry.

“The longer we coal fired power stations like Eraring open, the less that (wind and solar) projects are investible,” Trad said. “They are competing with coal in a parallel system. We are going to find the pace very hard in terms of large scale projects.”

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