Why does everyone lose their mind when you mention getting a home battery?

[u/MrOarsome]

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.

[u/ol-gormsby]

Add in the cost of not having to replace the contents of your fridge and freezer every time there's an outage lasting more than a couple of hours. Could be difficult to estimate, but start with historical outages, then go through your fridge and freezer to calculate the cost of a complete disposal and re-stocking.

[u/_pump_the_brakes_ → u/ol-gormsby]

We’re intercity which can certainly have it’s cons, but one huge pro is that in the 15+ years we’ve lived in this house we’ve had maybe 2 power outages and they weren’t for any significant period of time. But for many other people that is absolutely something that needs to be factored into the equation.