Australia’s World-Leading Solar Drives Residential Battery Boom
(Bloomberg) -- Australian households — already world leaders in the number of rooftop solar panels per capita — installed as many batteries in the second half of 2025 as they did during the previous five years combined.
More than 180,000 home battery units were sold in the six months, four times more than in the same period of the prior year, the Clean Energy Council said in a report. Rooftop solar installations slowed slightly, approaching “critical mass” with panels on almost a third of homes, according to the industry body, further pushing the network away from centralized power generation.
Australia has become a bellwether for the energy transition, as it seeks to replace a rapidly aging fleet of coal power stations and meet an ambitious target to more than double renewable generation to 82% of the total by 2030. The rapid uptake of home batteries following the start of a subsidy program in July has added impetus to that drive, leading to the plan’s expansion in December.
“Australians have long had an appetite for energy independence to drive down bills and as a result have been adopting solar and battery technology at record pace for the last several years,” said Jackie Trad, chief executive officer of the Clean Energy Council. “Recent government home battery programs have strapped a rocket to this momentum.”
Australia will add a record-breaking 5.2 gigawatt-hours of residential batteries this year, even as installations are slated to slow after May when subsidy reductions for larger units come into effect, according to BloombergNEF. The units should help reduce some of the price swings that turned the nation into one of the most volatile power markets.
There are now 4.3 million Australian households with rooftop solar panels, amounting to 28.3 gigawatts worth of installed capacity, the Clean Energy Council said. Installations are expected to reach 37.1 gigawatts by the end of the decade — 1 gigawatt more than under the network operator’s latest forecast, according to the report.
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