Member for Indi, Helen Haines, has urged the federal government to help households bring down their power bills through improving access to home battery storage.

Meeting with Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Josh Wilson, in Parliament this week, Dr Haines pushed for support of her Cheaper Home Batteries Bill in response to collapsing solar feed-in tariffs and the rising cost-of-living.

Dr Haines said it was past time the government prioritised home batteries to deliver practical relief measures to help households maximise the full benefit of home solar energy.

“Energy bills are one of the biggest costs in a household budget and we need to support people to reduce their energy costs,” she said.

“One in three Australian households have already taken their power literally into their own hands by installing rooftop solar to reduce their power bills and emissions. If those households had batteries to store that energy, they could reduce their costs further.

“That is why we need my Cheaper Home Batteries Bill – to make this technology more affordable and accessible – and to store more clean renewable energy for use when the sun isn’t shining.”

Dr Haines introduced a private members bill in 2022 and again in 2023 to include home batteries in the Small-Scale Renewable Energy Scheme (SRES), with the Parliamentary Budget Office publishing an official costing at $3.6 million over four years.

“The SRES is responsible for bringing down the cost of solar panels and the highest take up rate of rooftop solar in the world,” Dr Haines explained.

“This is the missing piece of the puzzle, which would help households use their stored power during peak periods instead of buying it back from the grid.”

Dr Haines said she would continue to take every opportunity to push the government to act.

Time for energy change has come

“I raised this with the Assistant Minister of Climate Change and Energy when we met this week, as part of a broader conversation about home electrification,” she said.

“I told the Assistant Minister about the financial pressure being felt by so many people in Indi, with groceries and energy high on the list.”

“Changing settings in the electricity sector have seen a steep reduction in feed-in tariff rates and a risk that consumers will be charged to export their excess power back into the grid.

“I have been talking about the need for this legislation for more than two years and it is clear as Solar Feed-In Tariffs drop that the time for this change is now.”

Dr Haines said only a fraction of consumers with solar panels were able to harness the full benefit of renewable energy to ease their household budgets.

“My Bill replicates an incredibly successful government program and it should be a no-brainer for the government to extend this to batteries,” she added.  

This article appeared in the  Corryong Courier, 17 October 2024.