> For 2N government dollars, the program gets 3N home battery. Grid is 2x more efficient by their own accounting. Therefore, we could have gotten 4N grid storage. This is not comparable to the home solar programs - which I understand to 'enticed' more private investment. Simply buying votes and lying to the public. I feel for the renters who paid their taxes and never saw a cent.
I'd rather the 50% of Australians who don't own the home they live in had skin in the game! But I do love my 42kwhr battery
Retail prices have barely fallen - the article makes a cherry-picked statement about falling average prices in Q2 (winter). This is true, but it is a reduction from a historic peak. $140/MWhr -> $74/MWhr. For comparison, the Q1 (summer/autumn) price has been stable at $75/MWHr which is still over 10% ABOVE wholesale price in USA, etc. Essentially, Australian's paid over double the typical winter wholesale prices for a few years during the transition, which has finally paid off. I would need to pull numbers, but I suspect wind is more relevant here than batteries. With more batteries coming, we're still in a period of extreme investment relative to the size of the market, and it will take time to know just how far prices will fall.
How bad was the Q2 peak that prices have fallen from?
> The wholesale 30-minute energy prices exceeded $5,000 per MWh 66 times in the quarter - 19 times in NSW, eight times in Queensland, 15 times in Victoria, 15 times in South Australia and nine times in Tasmania. This compares to 11 high prices in the previous quarter and 19 high prices in the same quarter last year.
But ultimately, I was given $14K cheque from the government. My tax bill is above the national median full-time income. How long would it take my neighbour to see that ROI? If they did get a 50% discount due to the home batteries on their average $1.4k annual power bill it would take 20 years! (and it's silly to say only home batteries have caused this trend - there's a huge amount of renewable investment which is reaping rewards now). Doesn't sound fair to me.
Building grid scale batteries would have reduced the costs further and faster and would have been far more equitable.
PS the policy comes with no obligation that I'm required to export the power I generate -> I could just use it to mine crypto. I do know of one such person who uses theirs to heat a pool.
> For 2N government dollars, the program gets 3N home battery. Grid is 2x more efficient by their own accounting. Therefore, we could have gotten 4N grid storage. This is not comparable to the home solar programs - which I understand to 'enticed' more private investment. Simply buying votes and lying to the public. I feel for the renters who paid their taxes and never saw a cent.
I'd rather the 50% of Australians who don't own the home they live in had skin in the game! But I do love my 42kwhr battery