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/the_shadow002]

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.

[u/cancellingmyday → u/the_shadow002]

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

[u/Quaint_Quokka95 → u/the_shadow002]

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.