this post was submitted on 25 Feb 2026
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Power Games: Who’s driving high power bills? (www.climatecouncil.org.au)
submitted 3 days ago by okwithmydecay@leminal.space to c/australia@aussie.zone
20 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Power bills have become a growing source of stress for Aussie families and businesses. Many families are forced to make impossible choices: three in 10 parents are struggling to afford basics like food, electricity and insurance. Government rebates provided some relief, but this was only a band-aid solution.

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[–] thatKamGuy@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Your pricing information is a bit out of date; with current Government incentives a 10kW array and 50KWh batteries can be gotten for less than $10K.

True, general feed-in rates have tanked due to a glut in solar panels, but certainly providers do still offer generous rates for shoulder periods (around dawn and dusk) where you could potentially discharge part of your battery into the network (I think?).

But the real savings from having the batteries will eliminate your need to use power during evening peak times, eliminating the need for buying petrol if/when switching to an EV and having the ability to buffer energy from a rare sunny day in winter into free energy for the next 2-3 overcast days.

Depending on how aggressively you monitor and take advantage of market offers, and electrify your home - the pay-down period can be as low as a few years.

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 1 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Fwiw a 50 kWh system is insanely excessive for most people. I have 10 kWh and have used grid electricity 3 days in 9 months. Granted, I live alone, but usage does not scale linearly with number of people. I'd hazard a guess than even a family of 4 would be unlikely to need more than 25 or 30 kWh, with some basic attention to how they use it (like run the dishwasher and washing machines during the day, and preferring rugging up to running the heater—which is reverse cycle AC and not the far less efficient resistive heaters of course—where possible, and having good insulation).

[–] thatKamGuy@sh.itjust.works 2 points 8 hours ago

40-50kWh given the current incentives (which are changing in May) only costs only a few hundred dollars more than ~15kWh, and provides owners with more flexibility in terms of EV charging (especially if the car is used for daily commuting and would not be able to directly take advantage of solar), and discharging back into the network at optimal times to recoup the system cost that much faster.

But otherwise, I do agree with you - our peak usage is less than 16kWh/day (2 WFH adults, 2 grandparents and 1 child); while our solar exports usually triple that amount in summer and we usually net-0 in winter (ie. the amount we export matches what we buy in over those ~3 months).

We don’t have a battery installed yet - but we are very seriously considering it, hence I have the figures available off the top of my head.

[–] YeahToast@aussie.zone 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yeah, to be fair, having a quick look at prices they seemed to have dropped a lot (I paid about 10k for a 5kwh solar system about 5 years ago), although I'm not sure if I trust some of those batteries, they're looking far too cheap.

I suppose a lot of the calculation is also dependent on use. We use about 7-9kwh per day during winter (no gas heating) which is only roughly 2.50 a day, one of the bigger killers comes from the >1 dollar a day for connection.

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 2 points 8 hours ago

one of the bigger killers comes from the >1 dollar a day for connection.

Yeah that's it for me. I built new and moved in 9ish months ago. The covenant on the land required a battery and solar as standard. Since moving in, I've used grid power on maybe 3 separate days. Because of government handouts my electricity account was several hundred dollars in credit when I moved in, and I haven't paid a cent from my actual bank account as a result. But the credit is slowly draining, entirely as a result of the connection fee.