Kylea Tink (North Sydney, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Of all the debates in this 47th Parliament, one that has consistently frustrated my community of North Sydney is on the role the federal government should be playing in decoupling our economy from the fossil fuel sector and breaking the hold of that industry on most of our energy generation. You see, my community understands that, as a nation, we have abundant natural resources that can be harnessed to generate the energy we need, but, currently, energy storage is a missing piece of the puzzle. Yet, despite a significant amount of advocacy from both within and outside this parliament, the Labor government has failed to deliver. With cost-of-living pressures now dominating almost every single conversation, the truth is this government could help a significant number of households slash their energy costs whilst also setting them up for long-term sustainability simply by committing to the rollout of a national home battery subsidy scheme.

Not only would such a scheme provide almost immediate relief to across the country; importantly, it would help us meet our renewable energy targets whilst providing security from blackouts and supporting Australian industry and jobs. The idea is so obvious, in fact, that over 8,000 everyday Australians, including many from my community, recently signed a petition organised by the public advocacy group Solar Citizens calling on the government to prioritise the delivery of affordable household energy storage.

Overwhelmed by the response, the team from Solar Citizens have invited the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Chris Bowen, to accept this petition and discuss ways to make home energy storage more affordable, yet on multiple occasions the minister's office has declined. As a consequence of this refusal, I stand here to encourage the minister to accept this position and listen to the cause of both energy experts nationwide and thousands of everyday Australians to establish a federal home battery subsidy scheme, because, for many homes and our wider economy, batteries just make good micro- and macroeconomic sense.

In the broader context, solar panel use across our country has soared, currently accounting for around 11 per cent of Australia's electricity supply, yet frustratingly, as feed-in tariffs—that is, the amount households are paid for excess solar into the grid—have dropped, excess energy generated during the middle of the day is not being leveraged. This is all while electricity costs have kept rising. The missing piece in the puzzle, then, would seem to be storage capacity. With rooftop solar and home battery systems making so much sense, it's hard to understand why the federal government is not moving this direction.

The Clean Energy Council recently calculated that households with a standalone battery could save over $900 per annum on their energy bills, while those with an orchestrated battery could save nearly $1,200 each year. At the same time, the integrated systems plan modelled by the Australian Energy Market Operator has shown that we need around eight gigawatts capacity of consumer energy storage by 2030. While eight gigawatts sounds like a lot, the truth is this could be achieved if roughly an additional one million homes had not just their solar panels but batteries installed to accompany them.

Clearly, consumers are ready to embrace this opportunity where they can afford it, with over 250,000 households already installing batteries across Australia to date, including a record 57,000 doing it just this past year. Yet the kicker in that participation is that this opportunity seems to be very much determined by a household's own financial capacity, and this is where I see we need the federal government to step in to ensure equity for all. Some states are attempting to leverage this moment, with the former Queensland government's vastly oversubscribed Battery Booster program showing just how solar households are ready to get involved, while the NSW government battery rebate has shown how a battery subsidy scheme can be made available using existing energy related initiatives.

No matter which way you cut it, upfront costs are still stopping everyday Australians from realising these savings, and the absence of a cohesive federal policy is sorely felt.

To be clear, it wouldn't be difficult for the government to step in here, as the member for Indi has shown in her Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment (Cheaper Home Batteries) Bill 2023. Including home batteries in the Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme, as proposed by the member for Indi and called for by numerous climate energy experts, simply makes sense.

Ultimately, the embedding of all the small-scale devices, from rooftop solar panels to electric vehicles, into our energy mix will be pivotal in meeting our 82 per cent renewable target by 2030. The truth of the matter is that not all the good ideas have to come from the government, and I really call on the minister and the government to listen to the people who signed the Solar Citizens petition, to listen to the experts who have been advocating for this and, for goodness sake, to step into a space that is calling for you.