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34 stories · most recent 30 August 2026 · this page is generated at build, so it is never out of date
EVs & charging
The ATO's EV home charging rate rises from 4.20 to 5.47 cents per kilometre for years commencing on and after 1 April 2026. What the shortcut is, who can use it, why it is a safe harbour rather than an entitlement, and the electricity price at which it stops covering your actual cost.
Data
ARENA's first Community Battery Portfolio Data Report, prepared by enX, covers 284 planned batteries and 23 installed. Within the slippage analysis, initial planning projected 92 installed by 31 December 2025 against 22 actual. Capital expenditure is now expected to reach $480 million, and interval data from 28 batteries shows some charging when voltage is low and discharging when it is high.
Data
The Net Zero Energy Demand Homes project at Ed.Square monitored 51 all-electric homes against 10 conventional ones for two years. The final memorandum confirms the emissions case, reports that all-electric electricity use rose in year two while the conventional homes fell, and says its own sample is not statistically robust.
Rebates
For the Cheaper Home Batteries discount the installer must be SAA accredited and the battery on the Clean Energy Council list. Buying from a seller signed up to the New Energy Tech Consumer Code is something you can choose, not something the rebate requires.
Rebates
The federal Cheaper Home Batteries Program and two state schemes only pay for products on the Clean Energy Council's approved lists. Those lists are dynamic: a product can be suspended for up to three months, or de-listed, at any time. Suspended and de-listed products stop earning small-scale technology certificates, and the date that matters is the installation date, not the quote date.
Hot water
We downloaded the GEMS registration database for four product types. Air conditioners carry ten star-rating fields and 6,062 registrations; fridges carry two and 3,896. Electric and gas water heaters carry none at all, across 2,163 registrations, and not one of those is a heat pump. The register is a plain CSV download, and this is what it says about what the rules actually measure.
Bills
The ABS released the July 2026 CPI on 26 August 2026. Annual electricity inflation is 6.1 per cent, down from 22.4 per cent a month earlier, and the ABS attributes both the level and the fall to government rebates rather than to the price of electricity. In the month itself, measured electricity prices fell 1.6 per cent, in the same month most bills were reset upward.
Batteries
AEMO's 2026 Integrated System Plan, read in full. Under Step Change, small-scale batteries grow from 5 GW and 12 GWh in April 2026 to 35 GW and 78 GWh by 2050, and just over half of those batteries are assumed to be coordinated in a virtual power plant. That coordination is worth up to $5 billion in avoided utility-scale storage. The plan also says the consumer trust it depends on is not there yet.
Policy
The AEMC is deciding whether distribution networks may roll out kerbside EV charging as a regulated service. If it says yes, the AER then makes a separate decision that determines whether every customer pays through network charges or only the drivers who plug in. Consumer advocates have put that second decision on the record.
Hot water
Water heating is about a quarter of household energy use, and the two systems public money actively subsidises through the SRES, solar and heat pump, are the two the rules ask least of. The government's own energy rating body states they have no energy efficiency requirements, and no water heater sold in Australia has to carry an Energy Rating Label.
EVs & charging
July 2026 was a record month for new-vehicle sales, and battery-electric share fell from June's 23.3 per cent to 21.7 per cent on the same all-sources definition. The release also states 23,510 BEVs and 103,656 vehicles delivered, which works out at 22.7 per cent, not 21.7. Here is why both are right.
Solar
On 7 August the Clean Energy Regulator permanently suspended a company's registration under the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act, so it can no longer create the certificates that pay for the discount on rooftop solar and batteries. The notice also carries a warning about associations with people already found not fit and proper. The public register that would let you check your own installer's agent exists, and it is harder to use than it should be.
Solar
From 1 October 2026 solar systems up to 1 MW can create small-scale technology certificates, not just those up to 100 kW. It is aimed at warehouses, farms, schools and hospitals rather than homes. But STCs for solar are counted in the small-scale technology percentage that retailers must meet, and the regulator says plainly that battery certificates are not.
Policy
Energy ministers asked the AEMC how to make data centres offset their own demand so other customers are not worse off. The advice went to ministers on 28 July and was made public on 5 August: four linked obligations, staged by size. It is advice, not rules, and nobody has costed what it does to a household bill.
The Grid
AEMO's Q2 2026 report records new minimum demand lows in South Australia and Victoria, a 72.2 per cent all-time renewables peak, and negative prices that got both rarer and shallower. What the midday grid records mean for a household bill.
Batteries
In its Q2 2026 Quarterly Energy Dynamics report, AEMO compared 10,000 households with solar only against 10,000 with solar and a battery. Battery households drew 0.7 kW less from the grid during the 4pm to 9pm peak, a 73 per cent reduction, and the effect is now large enough to show up in the national demand curve. Wholesale prices fell 47 per cent over the same quarter.
Policy
The AER's fourth contribution determination puts $593.16 million on NSW distributors for 2026-27, to be recovered through network charges: Ausgrid $254.23m, Endeavour $221.40m, Essential $117.53m. Comment on the guideline that sets the method closed on 19 August 2026, and the AER expects to publish the final guideline in September 2026.
Policy
Endeavour Energy, Essential Energy and Ausgrid have applied to pass through the cost of building remote solar curtailment under the NSW Emergency Backstop Mechanism: $35.9m, $47.0m and $45.3m. Submissions closed on 21 August 2026. The AER's notice says that if none arrive it may not make a determination, and the amount proposed is then taken to be the approved amount.
Policy
Energy Networks Australia has asked the national rule-maker to let distribution networks install and operate kerbside EV chargers as a regulated service, which means recovering the cost through network charges on everyone's bill. Nexa Advisory has asked for the opposite protection. Both sit inside the AEMC's new Electricity Network Regulation Review. Submissions closed on 23 July; the public forum was held in Sydney on 18 August 2026.
Policy
The AEMC has made a final rule changing how life support customers register and are contacted, taking effect December 2027. Existing customers keep identical protections and do not need to re-register. What changes: choice of contact method, an emergency contact person, annual check-ins, penalties for slow deregistration, and retailers must ask every new customer.
Policy
On 21 July 2026 the Clean Energy Regulator confirmed it is set to become Australia's national technical regulator for interoperable consumer energy resources. It is the enforcement half of a plan to make your solar inverter, battery and EV charger work together and stop locking you into one brand. Here is what it covers, what it does not, and why it matters to a household.
Grid
On 22 July the federal government announced $30 million for 14 projects under a new Grid Enhancing Technologies grant. The two it led with are the household wins rebates can't reach: shared solar for apartments, and using your EV as a home battery. They are funded pilots, not a rebate you can claim, but they map where the next household-energy wins are meant to come from.
Policy
On 16 July the AEMC made a final rule forcing distribution networks to plan on a 20-year horizon and publish consistent data on the low-voltage grid, the street-level wires where rooftop solar, home batteries and EV chargers actually connect. It is plumbing, not a rebate, but it targets the blind spot that already limits what your solar and battery can earn.
Batteries
In its 10 July 2026 electricity report the ACCC found solar-and-battery households had median annual bills $329 to $909 lower than regular customers, and battery-plus-virtual-power-plant households $762 to $1,093 lower, on the back of 402,700 installs under the Cheaper Home Batteries Program. It also warns the consumer protections have not kept up. The figures, charted, with sources.
Policy
Customers on electricity plans more than three years old pay $221 a year more than customers on new plans, the ACCC found. The AEMC's draft fix was a same-price rule; its June 2026 final report dropped it for a disclosure obligation. Nine consumer groups say that leaves the work with the customer. The AEMC says a stronger rule looked too much like price control.
Rebates
The federal Energy Bill Relief Fund ended on 31 December 2025 and no 2026 round has been announced. The government's own energy site now points households to state concession schemes, in a year the ACCC says retail prices rose 6 per cent.
The record
Five product safety recalls now cover home electrification hardware sold in Australia, from Tesla Powerwall 2 batteries to a 7kW EV wall charger recalled on 29 June 2026. Each recall, its PRA number, and exactly what to do, from the ACCC's own register.
EVs & charging
June 2026 EV market share is reported as 23.3 per cent, about 25 per cent and 35.8 per cent by the two main data publishers, and all three numbers are honest. Which definition and which denominator each uses, and what actually happened to EV sales this year.
Rebates
Since 1 May 2026 the Cheaper Home Batteries Program pays full support only on the first 14 kWh of a battery, 60 per cent to 28 kWh and 15 per cent to 50 kWh. What that means for a 13.5, 20, 30 or 45 kWh quote, with the working shown.
Batteries
Clean Energy Regulator postcode data shows 460,792 home batteries were installed from July 2025 to June 2026, well ahead of the 314,650 new rooftop solar systems in the same window. The average battery peaked at 36.7 kWh in April then fell once the discount became size-tiered. The numbers, the postcodes, and the caveat that matters.
Bills
Regulated electricity prices fell in NSW, south east Queensland, Victoria and regional Queensland from 1 July 2026, rose in SA and WA, and there is no national price at all. The figures, region by region, with sources.
Policy
From 1 July 2026 retailers in NSW, south east Queensland and SA must offer an opt-in plan with three free hours of electricity in the middle of the day. The regulator's own fact sheet says it will not lower every bill. Who it suits, who it does not, with the working shown.
Rebates
The federal battery discount applies everywhere, WA and the ACT add real money on top, Victoria has tightened its solar rebate income cap, and several state schemes households still read about are closed. The ledger, with what we could and could not verify, re-checked 22 July 2026.
Getting off gas
From 1 January 2027 new Victorian homes are built all-electric; from 1 March 2027 a gas hot water system that dies must be replaced with an efficient electric one. Gas cooking in existing homes is untouched, repairs stay legal, and owner-occupiers keep their heaters. What the gazetted regulations actually say.