At Climate Action Week, Cyan Ventures and Energy Consumers Australia convened a panel on the Cheaper Home Batteries programme to unpack what has become one of Australia’s largest and fastest-moving energy subsidies and where it needs to go next.
The panel, moderated by Shaun Chau, brought together Tim Jordan from the AEMC, Claire Rainbow from Amber, Brian Spak from ECA and Alan Hunter from NRN, with Michael Robinson presenting Cyan Ventures’ analysis to frame the discussion.
A Programme That’s Delivered Scale but Raises Hard Questions
In just eight months, the programme has driven over 265,000 battery installations and added more than 6 GWh of storage capacity to the grid. By any volume measure, that’s a striking result. But our analysis of Clean Energy Regulator data merged with ABS Census and SEIFA socioeconomic indicators across 2,300 postcodes reveals a more complicated picture.
The programme has overwhelmingly benefited wealthier homeowners. There’s a 3x gap in installations per capita between the most and least economically resourced areas, and renter-majority postcodes, home to about 1 in 15 Australians, are receiving roughly 1 in 50 of the installations. A flat subsidy structure also incentivised oversized systems, with the average installation at 23.8 kWh, more than double what a typical household needs, consuming 30% of programme funds from just 15% of projected installations and forcing the budget expansion from $2.3 billion to $7.2 billion.
The System Value Gap
The potential is there. VPP customers are already paying $700 to $800 less per year than regular bill customers, and IEEFA modelling suggests efficient distributed energy integration could avoid $11 billion in network costs. But only 5 to 10% of household batteries are currently enrolled in a VPP. We’ve got gigawatt-hours of subsidised storage sitting behind the meter that isn’t being orchestrated for grid value.
The reason is structural. Existing mechanisms for networks, namely DNSPs, to procure flexibility and help avoid grid overbuild don’t offer enough value to compete with wholesale arbitrage. So orchestrators rationally direct battery capacity toward hedging and market participation rather than grid services. The AEMC’s proposed pricing reforms, which would shift network cost recovery to predominantly fixed charges, change cost allocation but still don’t create a procurement pathway for distributed flexibility.
Three Principles for the Redesign
As the programme heads into its May 2026 tiered redesign, we think three principles should guide what comes next. First, ensure subsidised battery capacity delivers system and grid value, not just retailer value. Second, make consumer protection visible and accessible through an independent comparison platform that answers the basic questions consumers are actually asking. Third, close the equity gap before it locks in. A 3x wealth gap and 3.4x renter gap at $7.2 billion of public investment isn’t sustainable.
The Cheaper Home Batteries programme has proven Australians want batteries. The next phase needs to ensure those batteries work for the whole system, not just the households that can already afford them.
