The battery incentive.

01What it is

On 1 July 2025 the federal government extended its small-scale scheme to home batteries, under the name Cheaper Home Batteries. It uses the same certificates as solar, and it reaches you the same way: signed over to your retailer and taken off the price.

You'll hear them called battery STCs. They aren't a different kind of certificate. They're the same ones, earned by a battery.

02How the number is worked out

A battery earns certificates for each kilowatt-hour of usable capacity, multiplied by a factor set for the date it's installed. Usable capacity is what you can actually draw from the battery, which is a little less than the figure in its name.

There's no zone rating here. A battery in Melbourne earns the same as one in Brisbane.

03It steps down twice a year

The factor falls on a published timetable, and more often than the one for solar. It stepped down on 1 May 2026. From 2027 it steps down every 1 January and every 1 July, through to the end of 2030, when the scheme closes.

Each step is smaller than solar's annual one, but they come twice as often, and across the life of the scheme the factor falls to about a quarter of where it began.

Solar's incentive steps down each January. A battery's steps down each January and each July.

04It favours modest sizes

Not every kilowatt-hour is counted equally. The first 14 kilowatt-hours of usable capacity are counted in full. From 14 to 28, each counts for six-tenths. From 28 to 50, each counts for less than a sixth. Above 50, nothing more is added.

The effect is that the incentive covers a good share of an ordinary home battery and very little of the last few layers of a very large one. It's another reason to size a battery to your nights and not to the largest that fits.

05Who is eligible

As with solar, there's no means test, and homes and small businesses both qualify. The battery has to be between 5 and 100 kilowatt-hours, on the Clean Energy Council's approved list, and installed by an accredited installer.

It must be connected to solar, either installed with it or added to a system you already have. And a battery on a grid-connected home has to be capable of joining a virtual power plant. Capable is the word: you don't have to join one.

06Adding to what you have

If you already have solar, adding a battery qualifies. If you already have a battery, adding capacity to it can qualify for the added part, within the same size bands.

The date that counts is the day the battery is installed and working, not the day it's ordered.

The schedules and rules here were checked against the Clean Energy Regulator and Solar Victoria in October 2026. Both change from time to time, so read them at the source before you rely on them.