Amid the hype around the July 01 2026 launch of the Solar Sharer Offer, federal Labor’s flagship consumer energy policy – the Cheaper Home Batteries scheme – quietly celebrated its first anniversary – with a new set of very impressive numbers.
After one full year delivering generous rebates on generously sized residential battery energy storage systems (BESS), the number of systems installed through Cheaper Home Batteries has officially passed the 450,000 mark and is making its way to half a million.
Federal energy minister Chris Bowen made mention of the new milestone in federal parliament on Wednesday, alongside a bunch of other facts and figures that drive home what a success the Albanese government policy has been.
“Today’s the 1st of July, Mr Speaker, which means the cheaper battery policy is officially one year old today. And I’m pleased to tell the house that 457,439 households have installed a cheaper home battery since [then],” Bowen said
“[This] means, on average 1,255 Australian households are putting in a cheaper home battery every single day for the last 12 months.
“And it also means, Mr Speaker, that not in per capita terms, not per head terms, but in absolute terms, Australia has now more household batteries than the largest, most populous state in the United States of America, California.
“That’s the achievement of Australians over the last 12 months. And since we came to office, [when] home batteries were in one in 60 houses – now it’s one in 17.
“And that’s wonderful for those families that are reducing their bills, in many cases to nothing – in some cases, getting a rebate instead of a bill. But it’s very good for putting downward pressure on energy prices for everyone.”
Bowen’s latter point is an important one – and one that was driven home by the CEO of the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) recently in an update on the state of the National Electricity Market.
AEMO chief Daniel Westerman says the market operator has been surprised by the positive, system-wide impact that hundreds of thousands of “passive” home batteries have had on the grid, changing the shape of demand even without high levels of third-party orchestration through virtual power plants.
Westerman says that, on average, across the first quarter of 2026, households with batteries reduced the amount of energy they drew from the grid during the evening peak by nearly a kilowatt. That suggests total peak reduction of nearly 600 MW from 600,000 households.
“Even acting in passive mode, so a consumer with complete control over their battery, just soaking their own solar or using a free power period during the day, actually has enormous benefit to our grid, reducing their own costs and reducing the costs for everyone involved,” Westerman told the AEW 2026 conference.
“If you had have asked us 12 months ago, would we have seen such an impact on on the grid from passive home batteries? I think we wouldn’t have pointed to such an impact.”
Meanwhile, for some participants in the Cheaper Home Batteries scheme, the benefits of installing an oversized, discounted home battery could be about to get a good deal better, with Wednesday’s launch of the Solar Sharer Offer.
As Ronald Brakels from SolarQuotes told Renew Economy’s SwitchedOn podcast this week, the people most likely to embrace the three hours of free power up for grabs through the SSO – and to benefit the most from it – is likely to be the owners of home batteries, and batteries on wheels in electric vehicles.
In this way, Brakels says, the SSO could be the perfect companion to Cheaper Home Batteries, if the mission is to soak up excess solar during the middle of the day and shift it into the evening peak, pushing down power prices for all.
“They’ll charge it for free in the middle of the day, and then the battery will be full early in the afternoon every day,” Brakels says. “Once you have more people using their own battery power in the evening, the demand for grid electricity drops.”
That, Brakels argues, is where the real value of the SSO lies, not just in giving away free electricity to households that can’t install solar, but creating a predictable reduction in evening peak demand.
“If we didn’t have people topping up their battery during free periods, then we wouldn’t have a reliable reduction in the peak energy period, which is what lets us shut down coal power stations.”
Happy birthday, Cheaper Home Batteries!
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