Press conference in Canberra, ACT

ANDREW LEIGH: Good morning. My name’s Andrew Leigh, the Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities, Treasury and Productivity, and the federal member for Fenner. And it’s a delight to be here at this really important event celebrating a milestone in Australia’s home battery rollout.

Canberrans are enthusiastic about doing their bit for the planet and about ensuring that we save money. And the enthusiasm with which Canberrans have taken up batteries has really been pleasing to me as a local member.

I’m here, of course, with Chris Bowen, the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, John from the Smart Energy Council and Benn from SolarHub. And I’ll hand now to Chris to say a few words about this exciting announcement today.

CHRIS BOWEN: Thanks, Andrew. It’s great to be back at SolarHub to mark a significant milestone in the rollout of cheaper home batteries across Australia. As of this morning 40,000 Australian households have installed a cheaper home battery – 40,004 to be precise. And this is a success story of Australian households but not just Australian households, small businesses and community groups as well. I’ve visited small businesses that have put in batteries over the last eight weeks. I’ve visited community groups, surf life saving clubs that have put in batteries over the last eight weeks as well as, of course, many thousands of homes.

And primarily this is a suburban and regional story – outer suburban and regional story where Australians who are trying to save money and reduce their bills are installing batteries at a very significant rate – roughly a thousand a day. Some of these Australians didn’t have solar panels before and have put on solar panels and a battery at the same time; some Australians had solar panels but not a battery; others had a small battery but have now upgraded to a bigger battery to cater for their needs. That’s all good and it all great. And it all helps the grid.

These batteries that we’ve installed over the last eight weeks are equivalent to 714 megawatt hours of capacity. We are installing roughly one Hornsdale big battery a week in terms of capacity. That makes managing the grid easier and better. It puts downward pressure on bills for everyone as demand at peak times falls.

And also I mentioned small businesses that have benefitted from installing batteries, but also those small businesses that have benefited from being an installer of batteries. Every installer I talk to around the country talks about how they’re growing their business, employing more Australians, growing their investment. And that’s a good thing and we welcome that very, very much.

So I want to thank Australian households. You can have all the government policies you like; unless households lean in and participate then that policy is not going to be successful. The Albanese government has provided the certainty, stability and clear signals of support for Australian households, and they’ve responded enthusiastically. While others argue about whether science is real or whether climate change is happening, whether we should do anything about, whether we should bother, arguing internally about net zero, the Albanese government gets on with the job.

I want to thank, as I have before, John Grimes of the Smart Energy Council, the peak industry group, for your engagement and collaboration, working to ensure that we roll this out smoothly. There were plenty of sceptics when we announced this plan saying, “Oh, this is not going to work.” Australians, their government and the households working together have ensured that this works and will continue to work.

I’ll ask John to say a few words and then Benn, and then I’ll take questions.

JOHN GRIMES, CEO SMART ENERGY COUNCIL: Well, thank you, Minister. And what a fantastic milestone – 40,000 batteries today. That's a great milestone for Australia. Australians are used to slashing their power bills by getting a boost of sunshine during the day. And what this program does is it allows them to store that energy and power their house and small business, their community group around the clock with Australian sunshine, reaping saving and the benefits of the world’s cheapest and most abundant power source.

We’re also seeing a transformation of industry as industry scales up, employs and expands. That’s a good news story for the tens of thousands of small businesses right across the country that are powering this transformation.

And we did some modelling we released last week with the Australian Conservation Foundation showing that this program is really making meaningful differences and impacts when it comes to addressing climate change. Our research shows that this single policy will add a further 10 per cent emission reduction in the electricity sector alone by 2035. Good for bills, good for jobs, and good for the environment.

BENN MASTERS, CEO SOLARHUB: Thanks, John, thanks Minister, thanks, Mr Leigh, for coming today. This has been a great program for our business, and all the other business leaders that I talk to in the solar and battery space have also benefited greatly from this. I think the biggest thing for us is the jobs. This is enabling us to employ new apprentices, new electricians, new support staff. So it’s created for us probably about four or five jobs in the last few months alone, and I know that’s rippled across the whole industry. So there’s some side benefits – as much as the home owner is benefitting, so are people in getting employment in the industry and building up that electrical workforce that we’re going to need to continue this in the future.

So we really appreciate this program. It’s been great. We’re, you know, struggling to meet demand, like any business, but we are growing and we’re looking forward to rolling out these batteries over the coming years. So thanks very much for coming along today, and always happy to host you here.

CHRIS BOWEN: Thanks, Benn. Thanks again for having us. We’ll go to questions, and I believe Nick is on the phone.

JOURNALIST: No, I’m good, thank you.

CHRIS BOWEN: Thanks guys