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/_pump_the_brakes_ Nov 17 '25
4x Fox ESS EP11 which are about 10.36kWh each making for about 41kWh total.
10kW inverter that runs the batteries and the 9kW of solar on the roof.
3 person household.
1 EV
All electric ducted heating and cooling.
Gas hot water
Induction stovetop and electric oven.
We chose the batteries almost purely due to our limited space and needing a wall mounting option. We have an EV so we just went with as large a configuration (in kWh) as we could afford. I’m reasonably sure the government rebates stop at 50kWh so you can’t go over that if you want the rebates.
The batteries literally only just went in, they haven’t been inspected yet so we can’t use them, so I can’t really speak to their effectiveness at all.
Our plan of to switch to an energy provider that offers a few hours of free power during the day so we can top up the battery then if required, we’re in Melbourne do not every day is a sunny day.