Well, as the year draws to an end and I sit and reflect on the year that was, I can only say, WOW!!
With the migration of people to the area we were already busy with off grid enquiries, but the Cheaper Home Battery Rebate on offer by the federal government has taken it through the stratosphere.
So much so, that the talk in the industry is that the money has almost been spent and by January, the program will be pretty much done.
So in just over 6 months, they will have spent $2.3 Billion on battery rebates.
It’s sad when you think about it. In my lifetime power has gone from a government provided utility to one of the household’s biggest bills.
Even worse, the service is so expensive and so poor, that the second that a rebate is available, people are bailing out on mass. But don’t worry, my guess is that the rebates are just getting started.
Any grid connected systems must be VPP (Virtual Power Plant) ready which means in the future, they can take power back from your batteries.
Building coal fired power stations is not politically popular and the US just walked away from the UN driven climate targets.
But when they work out that they can give you a % of money for your batteries, and YOU have to maintain them, and then they can take power back…well, watch this space.
My guess is that the battery rebates will happen again. For anyone who is at the quote stage now and looking at new year installs, you need to be careful and make sure you can afford the total system price, because once the fund is empty…it’s over!!
You would want a written personal guarantee from anyone claiming that they can “guarantee you” a rebate…just saying.
Interestingly, the battery rebate program has enabled some of the smaller less known battery players to get a foot in the door as the bigger more popular brands were out of stock for weeks and weeks. ZYC (Zero Your Carbon) is one battery manufacturer who have really risen to great heights during the last 6 months and mostly because they had batteries while few did, and you know what, the product is solid.
Many of us would normally not have given them a look in as we used our daily faithful products. But when you can’t buy your staple…you are forced to try new products.
Locally we have been dealing with the full spectrum of power systems, from massive fresh installs (with rebate) to old systems that we are limping through while we try to recover old abused lead batteries.
Not everyone has a big budget for shiny new batteries and they need to try and get what they have, to work.
And that’s ok.
We all want Santa to bring us something…hey!
Megsy Out
Written by Jason Marshall.
Chitchat Newspaper. December 2025.