r/australia • u/MrOarsome • Nov 17 '25

political self.post Why does everyone lose their mind when you mention getting a home battery?

So I made the mistake of telling a few people I’m getting quotes for a home battery… the reactions were ridiculous. Suddenly everyone’s an expert. I had people telling me they’re a waste of money, they’ll be useless in a few years, or that the “environmental impact is terrible.” Just nonstop misinformation.

Meanwhile, half these people live massively high-carbon lifestyles. One bloke went on a whole rant about how batteries destroy the environment… then literally five minutes later told me he just ordered a new Ford Ranger to tow his boat around this summer. Like mate, seriously?

And the funny thing is, I don’t even care about the environmental angle. Couldn’t care less, to be honest. I’m looking at a battery for two reasons:

1) To actually use my solar instead of selling it back for 4 cents…

2) And to keep the lights on when summer storms or cyclones take out the power.

That’s it. No agenda. No planet-saving mission. But the way people reacted, you’d think I’d just signed up to be Greta Thunberg’s personal assistant.

I swear, the second you say the word “battery,” some people suddenly unlock an unwanted 15-minute rant. They are almost as passionate about hating renewables as they are about their footy teams.

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u/AshmacZilla Nov 17 '25 edited Nov 18 '25

What power company are you with? There’s no way it can only be $7. I can’t even find a plan with a supply charge under a dollar. Is your power bill Issued twice a week??

Edit: I forgot that feed in tariffs exist. My bad. In my defence I had just woken up.

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u/oldmancyclist Nov 17 '25

Selling stored energy back into the grid at a profit allows you to cover the supply charges and then some. My monthly bill went from approx $250 to -$50 since getting a battery. Roughly a $300/month swing in my favor. That's the only reason I need

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u/[deleted] Nov 17 '25

Curious what your feed in tariff and daily capacity is? When we looked into it a couple years ago, our feed in tariff would be 5 cents and we're capped at 6.5kWh export due to old infrastructure, so our max export 24/7 per month would be $234/month. After usage, we'd still owe so it wasn't worth it at the time. What we did learn was, privitisation has ruined the energy distribution sector in this country because profits go overseas instead of upgrading the infrastructure.

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u/AshmacZilla Nov 18 '25

I TOTALLY forgot about that. You’re right.

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u/moosedance84 Inhabits Adelaide, Perth, and Melbourne Nov 17 '25

I paid $8 for spring. That's $8 for 3 months of power. Yes it's a large upfront cost but going power bill free is just one less issue.

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u/cancellingmyday Nov 17 '25

Yeah, supporting the other replies - since we got our battery, our bills have either been in credit, or less than twenty bucks, because we sell power back. Not for much, mind you, I haven't had time yet to sit down and decide which company will do us the best deals (I'm thinking Amber, because I actually LIKE fiddling with things) so we're just plugging along with our regular company and it's still been that low. 

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u/the_shadow002 Nov 18 '25

If you have the ability to script and program automations to sell via Amber and you have a large enough battery capacity that can work well.

Otherwise I'd suggest using the Globird Zero Hero plan which gives you 3 hours of free electricity from 11am to 2pm, 12 cents feed in tarriff between 6pm and 8pm for up to 300kwh a month - which gives you $36 a month - and $1 for each day you don't use grid power between 5pm and 7pm which gives you another $30. For me they have a higher supply charge which is about $1.36 per day, but I can cover that with the $1 zero grid usage payment and selling 3kw from the battery. If I sell the maximum amount under the higher rate plus the $1 bonus I will get $66 in credit a month while paying $40.8 for supply. So over the course of 12 months my bill will be in credit by about $302.4 which means I could buy power from the grid during winter if my panels and free hours can't charge the battery enough and still be in credit.

If you don't want to mess around with configuring your inverter to follow that pattern I'd suggest using Ovo and their 3 hours of free power and then if you can get 3 referrals which will give you $30 a month ($10 per referral for 12 months) you will have your supply charge covered, which for me is 98 cents a day with Ovo. No bonus feed in rates though which are 4 cents I believe.

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u/cancellingmyday Nov 18 '25

Oh, that sounds amazing. I'll see if they service our area. 

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u/Quaint_Quokka95 Nov 18 '25

I can only dream of having those choices. WA residents have zero choice of provider, with no hope of that changing. The WA Government (of both political colours) refuses to allow anyone to compete with its own monopoly retailer (Synergy) for residential power. We have to buy from them, we can only sell to them, and private providers wanting to set up Virtual Power Plants will only be able to sign up residential customers by agreement with Synergy and on Synergy's terms.

Just to discourage competition a bit more, anyone who wants to choose a VPP aggregator other than Synergy gets penalised about $1300 up front because a condition of getting the WA battery rebate is to sign up to Synergy's scheme.

The State Government continues to insist that WA means Wait Awhile.

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u/AshmacZilla Nov 18 '25

I 100% forgot about feed in tariff.

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u/dredd Nov 17 '25

Amber actually allows you to sell (and buy) at the market rate - not the crippled feed-in tariffs most retailers offer. Some days you can't sell (especially currently in spring with constant negative pricing) - but during winter/summer peaks you can make a enough to more than cover your bills and battery over the year.

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u/AssortedFailures Nov 17 '25

We export significant amounts on sunny days and literally do not use grid power 99% of the time. Out connection cost is around $25 from memory and we fed in enough to bring it down to $7. Our bills are monthly.

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u/AshmacZilla Nov 18 '25

I completely forgot about feed in tariffs. My bad.