By Jo Nova
It’s a High-Voltage Wealth Transfer Disguised as Climate Policy
The big new “cheaper battery scheme” was so badly designed it accidentally burned through $2.3 billion in just 6 months. We could have built two new gas plants… instead we blessed a few wealthy homes with batteries bigger than they can use, which will probably sit around doing nothing most of the time. The scheme is so bad, the government has already promised to add another $5b to the pyre.
And since most homeowners are not opting to share their battery in a virtual power plant with the voracious retailers, this extra battery power will probably just sit there unused in homes around the country, hopefully not catching fire too often. It’s just another Soviet-style failure of communist midwits.
The government keeps bragging about the rampant success of the program but it is a globalist lemon from end to end. The Cheaper Battery Scheme was supposed to save homeowners $4,000 on a new 10kWh home battery, but the rebate was offered “per kilowatt hour” not per battery. (Does Chris Bowen does even know what a kilowatt hour is?).
The design meant solar installers had every incentive to offer homeowners a supersize battery (a 20, 30, 40 or 50kWh monster) and the homeowners had every reason (apart from morals and ethics) to let taxpayers foot the bill for batteries that were much larger than they needed or would have bought themselves.
Finn Peacock, founder of “Solar Quotes” explained to the ABC that instead of buying a 10kWh battery homeowners could order a whopping 50kWh battery which would get a rebate as high as $18,000 dollars. In the end, he said, it would cost the homeowner effectively the same amount regardless of the size of the battery. That would also give people a reason to buy the biggest cheapest battery they could get — what could possibly go wrong, eh?
The government experts thought people would buy 10kWh systems, like they did in the free market, but in the new fake market, the average size installed is now more like 25kWh.
The scheme started in July, and failed in a predictable fashion, but the government apparently only realized things were running amok after 160,000 big batteries were installed in homes around Australia. According to the ABC, solar and battery installers were asked last Friday to join “an urgent briefing by the minister on Saturday outlining major changes to the policy.” Righto then, panic stations at the Dept of Weather and Energy?
The original plan was to help a lot of households reduce their electricity bill (at the expense of the other households who subsidised the solar panels and the batteries). Instead a few homeowners with enough money lying around to spend thousands on a battery, have had a bonanza with up to $18,000 in battery bonuses.
Battery subsidy scheme set for ‘urgent’ overhaul as costs run out of control
by Daniel Mercer, ABC
The policy was supposed to slash the purchase price of a battery by about 30 per cent, saving consumers roughly $4,000 when buying a typical system with 10 kilowatt hours of storage.
But industry insiders say poor design has fuelled a rush towards much bigger systems up to the maximum eligible size of 50 kilowatt hours, and drained the available budget much sooner than the government was anticipating.
While the government stated the money would last until 2030, analysts say much of the budget has already been spent and will be exhausted by mid-next year.
The glorious waste of it all:
Other industry participants, who were not authorised to comment because of their work advising the government, said the scheme had created significant waste.
They pointed out that most households were only using about 10 kilowatt hours of power overnight and would struggle to fill a system with five times as much storage.
One critic said: “You end up with a lot of batteries that will never fill up, just sitting there empty forever, paid for by the Australian taxpayer.”
If the government then mandates free electricity for everyone at lunchtime, the wealthier battery owners can really capitalize on it.
Too bad about the national economy.
And too bad about the battery chemistry. Some worry that running the batteries flat-tack to make the most of the “free electricity” window is stressing the batteries…
One of his biggest concerns was the flight by consumers to the cheapest batteries on the market — a trend that was being fuelled by the incentive to maximise size rather than quality.
On top of that, he said the spread of “free” electricity periods during the middle of the day to help soak up excess solar power was creating another risk.
“People get the big battery and then they run them absolutely full throttle for three hours a day to charge them from the free electricity,” he said.
“What we’re seeing is that it’s really stressing these batteries to the extent you’ve had a recall already.”
Chinese battery maker Sigenergy issued a voluntary recall for some of its inverters last month over concerns about overheating plugs.
As usual — the Labor Party helped make a few rich-people richer at the expense of the working poor.
Useful links:
Photo: Cosy homes Oxfordshire
Blackout Bowen doesn’t know what a Kilowatt is cos’ he’s a Kilotwatt.
As for the Battery Scheme; Pink Batts anyone?
The Battery Scheme is an Assault and Battery on the long suffering Taxpayer. Unless you are well off of course.
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Perhaps kilotwat is more appropriate?
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The 9 worst words you can hear anyone say.
“I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”
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And the worst 4 words ever written in braille.
Danger, do not touch.
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They added another word at the end –
“I’m from the Goverment and I’m here to help myself”.
180
Just give me $10.00 of your money and I will buy you a free coffee
sarc
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The way Albo and co are trending with the economy, you may not need to put the sarc at the end of your post in the near future. Within a couple of years, a coffee may just be in that price range.
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I saw a line from a UK coffee shop, Nerro?, that mooted that regardless of the global dip in coffee prices, his company would continue to ramp up prices.
As a comment helpfully pointed out, did that mean he was happy to go out of business?
Only the incoming financial crash will tell.
00
Ranking Australia’s most glaring renewables failures in 2025, as fossil fuel energy makes its great comeback in the form of liquid natural gas
2025 was the year the renewables movement crumbled under a mountain of delays and cost blowouts that destroyed net zero’s core premise, writes Nicholas Sheppard.
What became harder to ignore in 2025 is that the political and cultural winds are shifting against net-zero.
The urgency narrative that once underwrote every new climate initiative is losing its force, replaced by a more sceptical public mood that no longer treats “net zero” as a self-evident good.
As households grapple with higher costs and energy insecurity, the rhetoric of crisis feels increasingly disconnected from daily experience.
The more the government insists that spreadsheets show progress, the more brittle the whole project appears.
Net zero was sold as an inevitable destination, but its foundations, heavy reliance on offsets, heroic modelling assumptions, and the belief that Australia can decarbonise domestically while expanding fossil exports abroad, look less like coherent policy than an article of political faith.
As countries reassess their own climate timelines and voters show signs of fatigue, Australia risks clinging to a project that is losing international momentum and domestic credibility.
The headline net-zero numbers are bold, but the machinery underneath is brittle, bureaucratic, and increasingly divorced from the physical realities of Australia’s energy system.
Instead of driving deep, structural reductions, the government has doubled down on unproven offsets and theoretical technologies.
This was the year net-zero lost the plot.
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I disagree with the conclusion. This was NOT the year that net-zero lost the plot. Its advocates lost the plot at the very moment they began advocating for it. Yes public serpents, consultants and politicians I’m looking at you.
And even in this article the propaganda seeps through. What can the term “climate timetable” possibly mean in a sane world?
By 1990 no Australian child will be living in poverty? Oops wrong decade.
By 2050 no Australian summer will be too hot and no Australian winter too cold? Is that a climate timetable?
Or perhaps in 100 years the average global temperature will be 0.0000000001 degrees less than it would be if the net zero program hadn’t been dreamt up. Yes, let’s go with that one.
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Bowen should be put in a dry cell.
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Oh I dunno. He should spend more time in Canberra living off grid. That’d be punishment enough for anybody.
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The nucleus is that Bowen is a few electrons short of a molecule.
I am waiting for someone to ion him out.
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Guv hands out our taxes to the rich. They were the main tax payer in the first place. This forces higher grid connection costs. The poor and manufactuers can no longer afford the grid. Guv subsidizes both. The opposition has a policy of lowering power prices but can NEVER get elected. They do not promise handouts.
The grid collapses.
Anarchy rules.
All manufacturing ceases.
Nearly everyone becomes poor.
Everyone blames guv for their own greed.
Guv gives themselves awards for maintaining guv.
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Yes. Pink batts was my immediate thought as well.
Another government thought bubble.
No doubt all the latte socialists are still cheering it on.
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Don’t forget he’ got a “murraywatt” for back up
10
I’m off grid with a 50kWHr battery, most mornings I find the battery is down to only 96% of the charge left, (ie nearly full). That means that I used 2kWHr overnight.
Not a lot. The house has A/C, dishwasher, etc, etc. I wonder how someone is using 10kWHr overnight, they must have A/C on and the windows open or a very big hot water system.
I think they could do well to skip the battery and look for some more efficient use of their money, something that gets that 10kWHr down to something sensible. Efficient appliances are the key. Spend wisely and save lots over time.
I wonder how many people are looking at going off grid in SA, where the power prices are high enough to scare people away from turning lights on.
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I also note that in the photo at the top of the article, the battery is adjacent to a gate. If that is the exit from that area, then the installation is non-compliant since the battery would be deemed to be blocking an escape or exit route.
Then again, if you’ve paid your money and taken the government coin, why stick to the rules.
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I’m starting to think the photo is fake. The hinges on the gate would mean that it swings onto the battery when open. Surely not real.
[I put photo sources at the bottom right of the post (unless the image is mine). Look for the link to “Cosy Homes Oxfordshire” in Wikimedia. I assume this is real and in the UK. The company “Cosy Homes Oxfordshire” upgrades homes to be sustainable etc. – Jo]
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This is the sort of meaty sub topic I could get my teeth into. Agree that the gate v battery placement is odd but 2 things assuming it is a real photo (which it may not be).
First is your comment about compliance relates to a particular jurisdiction. It might be compliant, or not badly non compliant wherever that is.
Second, regarding the gate. There is possibly a bit of parallax. The path moves out from the wall towards the viewer and I think the hinge point is actually away from the wall. The gate’s swing is stopped at the path edge and never touches the battery.
34
GeeAye, Open up Google and have a look at the siting requirements for batteries. Or are you too lazy to do this. You’ll find something that may amaze you, they are locally applied AND they are based on an international installation standard.
Go on, have a look.
And that gate post, it’s on the wall. How big do you think it is? You see things that just aren’t there and assign it to some magical property of parallax.
Some would call your efforts pathetic, I wouldn’t. I think name calling is cheap.
Report back when you find an installation requirement that doesn’t require an escape path. Here’s a couple where exit paths are required to get you started.
Oz. https://www.gses.com.au/habitable-rooms-and-restricted-locations-for-battery-installation/ Number 11 in this link.
UK. https://www.marley.co.uk/blog/pas-63100-best-practice-for-residential-solar-battery-storage-placement
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Thanks for the arrogant reply.
27
Lord, pot meet kettle
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“EH? Gee!”
00
The hinges are on the battery side and the gate, once opened, would shield persons on the path from the battery. I expect it would be possible for the gate to impact on the battery if the vertical latch was not down to stop it at the path raised edge.
There is a good chance of the gate being slammed back against the battery box and doing a lot of damage. You can see the post does not protrude past the path edging so the hinge point may well be inside the line of the battery box.
My battery installer had a strong preference to locate the battery near the meter box that is accessible without opening gates. It also makes it easier to get it inspected for compliance if you are not at home. The battery should be isolated in the event of a fire anywhere in the house. So it makes sense to locate it near the meter box for that reason.
The batteries are inspected before final energising and that can take a month or more. However the inspectors are contracted to the government and have close ties to the industry so not completely independent.
50
Interesting ?..i just watched a reputable installer put a Tesla powerwall on my daughters house whilst she was working away.
Quick and neat install in 6 hrs ,immediatelly powered up , tested and operational. No mention of an independent inspection ?
10
I am in Victoria.
10
This is at the back of Blackout Bowen’s house and the installer did it all on purpose.
He is a One Nation voter.
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Im sure you know that 2kWh figure will be very different during winter when the sun is weaker ( if any), the daylight hours are shorter, so unable to fully recharge, and you need hot meals,and heating most of the day/night.
A few cold dark days with no grid connection, and that 50 kWh will look like a good investment.
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Don’t really see how the starting state of charge has anything to do with overnight consumption. Sure, a hot dinner (if electric will up it a bit)
Like Ian I was taken aback by the 10kW overnight statement. We are not off grid but well able to handle extended blackouts. I have a 4kW portable battery that easily supports our house as its idling overnight , so I don’t keep us and the neighbours awake with the generator
41
In winter an off grid battery will be need from at best 4 pm through to 9 am…. 16-17 hours. That means all meals , baths, lighting , appliances, heating etc evening and mornings.
That leaves 7 hours of winter daylight to recharge…
10
I’ve got 8kW of solar panels and haven’t been more than 24 hours without being fully charged. Even on a dark day in winter.
Wood fired heating is the key. On a sunny day in winter I’m still fully charged by 9:30am. If the forecast is for sunny weather then I skip the wood heater and use reverse cycle A/C. Why cut wood when you can use the Sun.
And I’ve got history on my side, well over 10 years off grid now. And no it isn’t cheaper than grid power BUT the cost of connecting the grid to my property was well over double what I have paid out for the capital, so I’m in front. A house in suburbia would not have the capital issues and will have to rely on payback when comparing grid pricing only. SA, I think you are close.
70
Everyones situation is different.
For me it is not uncommon to use 25kWh per day in winter ( large house with lots of large single glazed windows and doors !) …even with wood heating and gas hot water !
Solar is seen to give next to nothing on a bad day , so you can see how a 50kWh battery would be useful if i went off grid.
30
Here’s a plan. Get the state governments to ban any new connections to the electricity grid, force any home builders to be fully independent, that would allow industries to use the “government supplied” electrons. Then all the costs are born individually, If you want it you pay for it!
sarc/
30
Just another data point but my overnight battery discharge is around 5kWh from a capacity of 12kWh. That’s roughly 400W for 12 hours which as a rule of thumb equates to the fridge plus and a bit of intermittent load such as making the evening meal.
I would be happy with more battery capacity for the rare occasions I want heating or cooling throughout the night without flattening the battery or drawing on mains power.
So thanks to the tax payers of Australia. I’m about to exploit your generosity by adding another 6kWh of battery capacity.
Guilty as charged your honour.
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Make sure the batteries are suitable to connect together or have settings to allow both to operate without interfering with the other. The last thing you’d want is one of the two to be off line due to it detecting some non-grid device.
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Quite so. The additional capacity will consist of two additional modules added to the top of the existing four module stack all under the control of the existing inverter.
It was one of the things I asked the supplier when they installed the original battery. Can it be expanded? The unequivocal answer was yes and they have not made any cautionary comments since. The long answer was something about getting all of the modules charged to the same level before recommissioning.
I have it in writing should any issues arise.
10
Surely depends on the location. With Perth’s recent run of hot days and nights, my air con system has been running 24/7. And when you look at the AEMO data for the SWIS grid, it clearly shows that its power draw still has to deliver around 45% of peak power throughout the night. So there would have been plenty of larger double-storey houses that have two big air con systems consuming around 70 kWh every day, churning through 10kWh or more every hot night.
10
Many people these days have a multitude of *always on” appliances that they are completely unaware are leaching power.
Especially if they have lots of wi-fi enabled devices.
Each one may be leaching a constant 5-10 watts as it stays in contact with the always on internet.
It’s a sign of the modern world we live in.
11
This government stumbles from one disaster to the next. It is far worse than the government of Rudd or Gillard and must be approaching the ineptitude of that of Whitlam. An Opposition of even marginal ability would be on the attack every day but as Jo often says all we hear is “crickets”. Where are the journalists? Having been indoctrinated that socialism is fabulous they are silent lest they embarrass their fearless, and completely useless, leader, Albo, and his side kick, the ever incompetent Bowen.
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The Opposition are Turnbull/Photios LINOs
The saga of Snowy 2.0. – Malcolm Turnbull Dream
The project was first touted in 2017 as a roughly $2 billion “nation-building” pumped-hydro scheme, later revised to $5.9 billion, and then reset in 2023 to a $12 billion delivery cost, with completion targeted for the end of 2028.
Independent analysts now suggest that once associated transmission and financing are counted, the total cost of making Snowy 2.0 useful to the grid could exceed $20 billion.
Snowy 2.0 was supposed to be the cornerstone of long-duration storage in the national grid.
Instead, it has become a case study in how a project central to net-zero modelling can be allowed to stagger onward under a haze of optimistic assumptions, shifting numbers, and sunk-cost logic.
Energy transitions are not achieved by declarations or by layering new regulation upon old grids.
They are achieved by building generation, storage and transmission that actually work, and by sequencing retirements and replacements in a way that keeps the lights on.
If the transition is built on unrealistic assumptions, inflated promises and mechanisms that do more accounting than abatement, then no amount of bureaucratic refinement will fix it.
A policy born in an era of high rhetoric is faltering in an era of hard realities.
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And the whole pack of cards built on the crumbling foundation of UN scamming Climate Change™.
Trump and a hand full of other leaders get this. I doubt Trump or Pauline Hansen can articulate why WDGs do not lower costs as promised but they are not forced to accept reality as misinformation.
Once you deem anything contrary to government policy as misinformation, you are on the propaganda band wagon that rolls on ignorant to reality until the crash. Australia’s crash is coming. Whether Sleezy and Bowen are still in power remains to be seen.
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“Euthanise Nutt-Zero”
00
If this, then what?
Or …
What can go wrong?
Having participated in many safety talks for volunteer trail workers I can attest sharp tools are dangerous. Your government planners would benefit from our advice.
[Do I sense and echo of the pink batts and the playgrounds of some years back?]
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Beautifully put Jo! And now Albanese will use the Bondi debacle as a distraction to hide the essential budget review and tax hikes! We are as dumb as door nails to continue supporting this egregious and voracious Parliamentary rabble.
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I’d be willing to bet he doesn’t.
I often hear battery capacity referred to by such clowns as “kW”.
Or hear carbon dioxide referred to as “carbon”.
Or windmills referred to by their nameplate capacity and being able to “power xxxx homes”.
They just don’t have a clue.
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People might be stunned as to just how BIG a kwHr is.
If you lift 1 litre of water from the ground to just over your head, (say 2m). Then you have performed work to the value of about 20 Joules.
There are 1000 x 3600 J in a kWHr, so in effect you could lift 50 litres per second above your head for the whole hour. That’s 180,000 litres. A swimming pool, 1.5m deep, 50m long and 25m wide has about the same volume.
So imagine emptying that pool using a bucket. AND note, because the pool level is nearly full at the start, the actual energy you are giving is under the stated amount because the height lifted is near zero to start with, in reality, you’d have to do it twice to burn that kWHr.
20
Swimming pool volume seems too small.
1.5m deep × 50m long × 25m wide = 1,875 m³ = 1,875,000 litres.
10
Oops, fat fingers on the calculator, so you only have to empty the kids pool now and not the big one.
10
But how many kWh to heat the pool in winter. Say a comfortable 28C on a 10C day and starting from scratch using electric heating. And it has to be done on a cloudy day because that is when you want the pool heated.
30
I was in SW vicdanistan back in the early ’90’s, using geothermal energy to heat the local pool. We were pumping about 2MW into the pool on a windy day and still losing temperature.
The energy input was geothermal water, a Tdrop of about 40C, (peak) and a flow of 12 l/s, (fixed). This could only occur when the pool was down around the 20C mark. As it warmed up the delta T dropped along with the energy striped off the supply stream.
20
In the UK, and I am sure also in Australia, pollies are pretty glib with a billion.
Spending a Billion [of other people’s money] is pretty easy.
But I wonder if all of them could write, say, seventy billion in numbers.
Let alone calculate what that amounts to – per taxpayer …
And even if they could, few would want to do so publicly – it might scare the horses!
Auto
EngIan’s pool might be 5m x 25m x 1,5m for ~180 m3.
20
I used my fat fingers and slipped on the m3 to l number, multiplied by 100 instead of 1000.
Oops. You can now do the same work in 10 hours instead. Or ONE pool in 5 hours.
00
Don’t tell UK’s Millibrain about this …. please….
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Just about everything climate related is that; from W&S subsidies, to research grants, to government regulations, to energy taxes, to NGOs..it’s a long list..More lucrative than gold mining-yellow or black.
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Do the punters know that it’s all linked? Bad Government has led to high prices, out of control electricity, poor productivity, anti-semitic violence, industrial poverty, environmental degredation…
Ah, Socialism. Poorly implemented, AGAIN!
150
Could be worse- could be socialism, well implemented.
50
A possible way of using up more money
The nuclear industry is expected to switch on 15 reactors globally in 2026, a big jump after total capacity actually shrank by 1.1 gigawatts this year, according to BloombergNEF.
Just two new reactors went into service this year through November and seven shut down, BloombergNEF said in a report published Monday. About 12 gigawatts of fission power will be added in 2026, including at the Palisades plant in Michigan that is being revived. However, it will likely be several years before any new traditional nuclear projects are completed.
More than 50 new reactors are set to set to go into service worldwide from 2027 through 2030, a significant figure for an industry that’s been largely stagnant this century. However, all that electricity won’t be enough to meet voraciously growing demand, especially from data centers needed to power artificial intelligence.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-15/nuclear-industry-to-add-15-reactors-next-year-after-2025-decline
At the REAL COST of nuclear plants we would have reliable electricity but our politicians and bureaucrats don’t want that.
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This is chicken feed compared to what is on offer for the Chinese belt and road contracts for solar and wind farms (the ones that are commercial in confidence). And the small scale batteries are an economic proposition whereas any additional wind and solar farms are complete waste of money other than for the wealth transfer from Australia to China.
In the last 24 hours, the 790MW of solar farms in SA produced 600MWh – less than 1 hour of full sunshine. They could have produced another 5700MWh or 7.2 hours more of full sunshine if they were not curtailed because of rooftop solar.
Rooftop solar produced 16200GWh, And is now constrained less often by street overvoltage because the rooftops are charging household batteries.
In the words of Net Zero Australia, the cost of household electricity is coming down and anything to the contrary is misinformation. It is only those who do not own property that cannot take action to limit their exposure to grid prices. And of course all the industrial users that government and academics view as the main offenders treating the atmosphere as a sewer that Australia needs to get rid of.
The only way this will stop is to vote for One Nation. And, based on my exposure to the NZAU fanatics, they will not go silent into the night. The belief that they are doing God’s work in saving the planet runs deep. They are crazed zealots, incapable of rational thought. Their livelihoods depend on that belief.
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Rick Will,
Good. No need for a subsidy.
101
True – but it is less than what will go to China for assets that will have no market.
Also, most people grab governments rebates in all forms to reduce their effective tax payment.
Obviously the rebate is highly regressive because only those who own property or have an obliging land lord can benefit. Not a lot of people realise that there are incentives in Victoria for rental property owners to install solar:
https://www.solar.vic.gov.au/solar-rebates-rental-properties
50
Rick Will,
Yes, we are wasting a lot of money on grid-level renewables. But it’s a pretty weak rationale for subsidising home batteries to say that they’ll waste less money. Better we not waste money at all don’t you think?
Your other two points reaffirm: no need for a subsidy.
30
I am now of the view that rooftop solar and battery are on a par or lower cost than what is possible from any grid in Australia even it it all powered by lignite. Would be a different matter if there was less sunshine and the weather was cooler. Also very few solar panels are oriented in southern Australia to maximise winter input so they are not being set up optimally to reduce the impact on grid.
The Australian grid evolved to set power stations on the coal fields and transport power to load centres. Lignite is by far the lowest cost source of generation in Australia but there is a relatively high cost involved in transmitting it to load centres and then distributing it. That high power density makes sense for industry but not for low intensity uses such as households and most commercial premises if they have room for a battery that can be charged off solar; either on site or neighbouring premises.
If the NEM reruns to only having dispatchable generation then retailers and distributers will look after residential and commercial premises and the wholesale market with serve industrial customers. Balancing could be largely achieved locally with minimal power flow from the big generators to the low intensity users.
30
Interesting about landlords being subsidised to install solar panels.
There’s a missing link in the logic. Do they then sell the electricity to the tenants?
10
No, they have a more attractive rental property and can help save the planet despite being a capitalist pig. Many government employees have rental properties and it helps them in the woke stakes to boast about how they are reducing the carbon footprint of their tennants.
You have to think woke to understand the reasoning.
Could you imagine the flak if Blackout and Sleezy did not have solar panels on their rentals.
50
Riiiiiight. That sound you just heard was the penny dropping!
The landlord supplies part or all of the tenant’s electricity for FREE or to be more precise the electricity becomes a benefit to the tenant like the services provided by the body corporate.
20
I like the Cartoons where blackout Bowen has a fairground toy windmill on his bonce.
And he looks like he is wearing a Lifesaver swimming cap. Why, I don’t know.
And as for Albo
An off topic cartoon I know, but very apprpriate –
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary
20
On the flip side of that is that Victoria also has strong incentives for rental property owners to sell those rental properties to escape the swinging taxes the Victorian misgovernment is levying on them.
While supposedly the owner of rental properties can install them and get a handout it’s not going to happen.
20
Remember the general rule: the more the feds meddle with the economy, the worse it gets. Revenues fall…real asset prices drop and opportunities for ripping off the public increase. ~ Bill Bonner
Never truer words expressed!
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Someone with 1 or 2 electric vehicles could find a 50 KWhr battery really useful. Many EV’s have batteries in the 70 KWhr range but you only use about 60% of the capacity normally (to stay in 20-80% charge) which is 42 KWhr. So you if you sized your solar panel system correctly you could charge your fixed batteries so they would be full every 4 days allowing for powering the home and then 2x a week, charge your EV.
I am not suggesting this is a good thing to do but in a dry sunny climate, I could see someone running the numbers with the subsidies on solar panels, fixed batteries and EV’s and realize they would come out ahead. Unfortunately, using poor people’s utility poor bills to subsidize asset purchases by wealthier people has been a hallmark of green schemes for the last 20 years.
110
What better than to spend your time endlessly tinkering with panels and batteries to get cheaper power that we used to get at the flick of a switch.
It all sounds super productive.
90
So they want to waste even more billions on bigger batteries for the homes of wealthy Aussies and the poor can continue to suffer the consequences.
I wonder if the average Aussie voter will ever wake up to the fact that they’ve been conned over the last 30 years.
The data proves that there’s no CC emergency at all and in fact the weather/ climate has been benign since Dr Hansen’s BS speech in Washington DC in 1988.
This takes 5 minutes to find online yet our idiot govt would rather waste more billions of $ and destroy our environments forever.
But the Chinese and Russian presidents etc will be very pleased with our lunacy as we follow the EU down the plughole.
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The question remains how far these clowns are prepared to go in pursuit of this madness.
I think complete economic collapse is the objective and I’m confident they’ll make it.
Australia remains a fanatical pursuer of Net Zero even after other woke countries have seen some common sense.
Australia will be the very last fanatic and will remain committed even after economic collapse is fulfilled.
Australia really is governed by some of the world’s most ignorant and stupid people.
It all happened because:
1) A fake conservative Liberal Party that believes in nothing and is directly responsible for some of Australia’s worst energy disasters e.g. banning nuclear power twice, banning fracking in Victoria, giving away much of Australia’s gas supply to the Chicomms at world’s cheapest prices on a 30 yr contract with no provision for inflation or market prices, the ethanol subsidy, signing us up to the Kyoto Agreement (but not ratifying but may as well have) etc.. Additionally it is dominated by its far Left “moderate” faction who are so far Left they would put many Labor members to shame. Susssan Ley and Jess Wilson (Victoriastan “opposition” “leader”) are both “moderates”.
2) The Tasmanian Dams Case (1983) which set the way for extra-territorial governance of Australia via UN and other communist-inspired treaties.
Australia is apparently signatory to 4515 treaties and other treaty-like instruments which are used to govern us extra-territorially. See https://docs.dfat.gov.au/australian-treaties-database/search Do a search on an empty search field and 4515 will become visible.
Which model of economic and societal collapse will we follow?
South Africa?
Venezuela?
Argentina (pre-Millei)?
Other? We’ll do it “our way”.
160
David,
Around 1985-6, at a public meeting like IPA used to hold, the Chief Justice of the High Court and I were both in the audience. At question time, there was discussion of international treaties, both bilateral and multilateral, because Senator Gareth Evans was on a roll, introducing many more new treaties at a pace far than ever in our history. The Judge stood up and opined that there was no bother, the government could easily deal with the 20 or so treaties we had. I stood and said that there were now several hundred treaties and that we were facing a torrid time when the conflicts between these hundreds of treaties became apparent as unintended consequences emerged from the rush jobs being done. Now you count 4,515 treaties, proof of another government system out of control but providing beautiful bureaucratic lives for hordes of grifters.
He simply had no idea of the real world aspects of treaties, seeming to be happy in his ignorant complacency. I guess that he went on to enjoy a very comfortable pension after retirement, while I ended up on the meagre old age pension. KBE GCMG AC after his name would have helped.
Geoff S
100
Hmmmm, around 1985-6?
That would have been the wondrous intellect of Lionel Murphy.
No wonder he had no clue.
30
The story of the magic pudding comes to mind. No matter how often it is eaten it reforms in full.
So not to worry. By analogy economic literacy is of no consequence. All that is needed is the financial version of a magic pudding. And happily one exists. The taxpayer!
I’ll leave it to the reader to identify the flaw in what passes for reasoning.
80
Ideological purity is the benchmark for pleasing the Chicom masters.
30
I see a race between the WEF and Co, China, and Islam for Oz, with Islam in front at the moment, then China, with the WEF and Blob losing pace through their miscalculation over Ukraine.
00
Again their CSIRO tell us that the SH is already a NET ZERO SINK of co2. See the last sentence of the CSIRO quote.
“Seasonal variation”
“Carbon dioxide concentrations show seasonal variations (annual cycles) that vary according to global location and altitude. Several processes contribute to carbon dioxide annual cycles: for example, uptake and release of carbon dioxide by terrestrial plants and the oceans, and the transport of carbon dioxide around the globe from source regions (the Northern Hemisphere is a net source of carbon dioxide, the Southern Hemisphere a net sink)”.
70
Neville , sorry but again the UN has a different definition of net zero
https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/chapter/glossary/
20
Personally, I believe we have Malcolm Turnbull to thank for this mess! Turnbull was the money market instrument that caused the metaphorical beheading of Tony Abbott. Turnbull and his Singapore based financier son have since made millions of $$$ controlling fresh water, by buying water licenses, and solar farm installations. Chinese cash won’t be a million miles away in these endeavors!
90
Could say Albo and BOB are guilty of assault and battery!
30
Well, what did we expect? After COVID when the government paid us to sit at home and do nothing, the endless dependence on the government is just that, endless. But, but…. we were working from home. In between watching Netflix, making sourdough bread and walking the dog. So, now we want the government to pay our power bills. Just because. If you’re a pensioner or on the NDIS, you want the government to pay for your 3rd mobility scooter. Because Frank down the road just got a new red one. Rick and Ian have got one of those new fangled battery/inverter thingies, so I better go off to Bunnings and sign up for mine, before they all go. Even better if you live in a Teal electorate, they’ve got oodles of money but they love free stuff even more!! Besides, what’s $5b more anyway and we dont really need all those smelly, dirty factories and processing plants. We can buy all that stuff from China. Oooh, I nearly forgot, when I’m down at Bunnings to order my new battery/inverter thingy, ( or should I just get the ALDI one? ) I must remember to also buy one of those EV charging stations. Nigel’s coming for Xmas lunch in his new electric BMW, I’m sure he’ll need a top up while we eat the turkey.
90
Who got paid to sit at home and do nothing?
30
The entire Guv’ment and many others.
The unemployed got their benefits doubled and ‘New Start’ changed it’s name to something else. Years ago. it was called the ‘Dole’ and in Scotland ‘The Brew’.
Nice work. Or, not work.
40
Again, here’s the real world data for the liars and con merchants to think about.
OWI Data shows death rates from extreme weather etc since 1900 to 2025 and obviously we now live in the safest period in Human history.
Check out death rates since 1988 and Dr Hansen’s BS speech in DC.
Each year on the graphs are active for the last 126 years. Just use your mouse.
This takes just 5 minutes online, so what’s their problem?
Just 1.6 billion people at risk in 1900 and 8.2 billion at risk today.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/natural-disaster-death-rates?country=Flood~Extreme+weather~Wildfire~Drought~Extreme+temperature
41
A colleague/friend of mine, lives in a middle-level Sydney suburb, had installed panels a few years ago and has now just completed a battery installation. He only bought the battery when Bowen announced the subsidies, but we all knew that would happen. Without the tax hoover (from less wealthy people’s tax), he had no intention of putting in a battery. No, he’s not greedy, just aware that we are all being deliberately pushed into this nightmare.
Battery size is 30kWh, which he agrees is “nice to have”. although unlikely all of it is needed in summer. He considered an even larger battery but the cost didn’t balance for his economics. At this stage, he’s empirically measuring the best balance between battery charging, use of AC and panel/grid power input. All up costs for him, including the discount buttress from other people’s tax, is about $40k. He has no intention of allowing a power retailer to “discharge” his expensive battery for him.
Winter is another mix of factors entirely. Does reverse AC heat the house off the battery economically ? (My geographical location makes both panels and batteries marginal at best in summer, useless in winter, so the costs are prohibitive even allowing for Bowen’s profligate use of other people’s tax).
As a side note (and I see Robert Swan above has picked it up too), Rick Will is constantly on about “economic small batteries” but never admits to the actual out-of-pocket expense to a household. Like my colleague’s $40k. And Rick disingenuously wondered why he had an unexpected invitation to some greenie conference … ho hum.
70
Just a data point.
My reverse cycle air conditioner can usually heat or cool my main bedroom overnight off my 12kWh battery without completely draining it. My main house air con will flatten the battery in a couple of hours.
40
Most normal sized (<15kWh) battery systems wont run an A/C system or even a electric oven/ cooktop.
The grid linked systems are limited by the inverter capacity and usually set up to be “back up” for a limited number of circuits on the distribution panel ,..lighting , kitchen fridge, TV, etc
An off grid or whole house system needs a much larger capacity inverter
40
Yes. One of the tasks when my additional battery capacity is installed is to rewire the switchboard so that all circuits remain powered when the mains power goes off. If I’m stupid enough to run the battery flat that’s my lookout.
This became an imperative for me one morning when the mains power went off to replace some power poles in my street. We have a gas powered instant hot water service. Little did I know that it required electricity as well as gas. I was in the shower when the power went off and the water suddenly went cold. An educational moment if there ever was one.
30
I don’t know if querky Quis Bowen can speak French but if he were Marie Antoinette he would probably guts multiple
brioches then say of the starving poor who, by their serfdom, subsidised the rich: Qu’ils mangent de la vent!
60
Ford has just scrapped its EV program and written off $29 billion.
100
A very cunning way to gain public funding to provide battery bandaid solutions to the failing electricity grid supply of Labor RET Transition
40
“Euthanise Nutt-Zero”
10
Pity no one from any other party said anything when the legislation was enacted, I’m guessing those in opposition saw what a good deal this was and signed up.
As for building a few new gas plants, where will they get the gas from? Under the Liberal party rules we pay more for our own gas than citizens of any other gas producing state
10
Close down all unreliables, go back to gas and clean coal(yes it can be clean) and push down the cost of energy by 50%.
80% of the cost of everything we buy is cost of energy spent on that item from mining the ore or whatever it is made of, to home delivery.
Drop the price of energy and the economy will fly.
The USA is expecting an economic boom following the lower oil price resulting from Trump’s drill baby drill policy
10