Battery and solar support in Australia is a stack: a federal discount that applies everywhere, with state schemes layered unevenly on top, and a graveyard of closed schemes that still show up in guides written last year. This ledger records what each government's own page said when we read it. Where a government site would not let us read it, the table says so rather than repeating a number we could not check.
| Where | What is on offer | The gate | Verified |
|---|---|---|---|
| Federal (everywhere) | Cheaper Home Batteries Program: around 30% off eligible 5 to 100 kWh batteries via STCs, tiered by capacity since 1 May 2026 (full rate to 14 kWh). The arithmetic. | Battery connected to new or existing solar; program rules apply | 4 Jul 2026 |
| WA | Residential Battery Scheme: rebate up to $1,300 (Synergy customers) or $3,800 (Horizon Power customers), plus an optional no-interest loan up to $10,000 (3 to 10 year terms). Stacks with the federal discount. | VPP participation mandatory; loan gated at household gross income under $210,000; batteries installed before 1 July 2025 not eligible | 4 Jul 2026 |
| ACT | Sustainable Household Scheme: 3% loan up to $20,000 over up to 10 years for batteries, EVs (price threshold $60,000), chargers, heat pumps, induction, insulation and, newly, electric cargo bikes. Concession holders: Home Energy Support rebates. | $20,000 cap applies to new applicants from 1 July 2026 (earlier applicants keep a $15,000 lifetime cap) | 4 Jul 2026 |
| VIC | No battery rebate or loan: Solar Victoria states it "is no longer taking applications for interest-free loans for the installation of a solar battery system" and points Victorians to the federal program. Solar panel rebate (up to $1,400) and hot water rebate (up to $1,000, or $1,400 locally made) remain open. | Solar and hot water rebates: combined household taxable income now under $150,000 (was $210,000; applications from 1 July 2026), owner-occupied, property under $3 million | 4 Jul 2026 |
| NSW | Battery support runs through the Peak Demand Reduction Scheme as installer-applied incentives, listed on the state's energy site under "Install a battery" and a separate "Virtual power plant (VPP) incentive". Amounts vary by system and location; we print no figure because the pages would not render for us (see note). | Applied through accredited suppliers at point of sale | Partially: page requires a browser |
| SA | The page to check is the Retailer Energy Productivity Scheme (REPS), the scheme SA delivers household energy incentives through. We could not read any SA government page on 4 July 2026 (hard block on automated readers), so this ledger makes no claim about current amounts or eligibility. | Unverified at publication | No: check the official page |
| QLD, TAS, NT | We could not verify any currently open state battery rebate: the Queensland and Tasmanian scheme pages did not render for our tools on 4 July 2026, so this ledger makes no claim about their schemes either way. The federal discount applies in every state regardless. | Check the federal rebate directory for your state | Directory only: energy.gov.au/rebates |
Every "Verified" link is the page we read, on the date shown. Rows marked unverified are exactly that: we do not repeat dollar figures from third-party guides, because stale rebate figures are the single most common error in this field.
The news in the table
Two changes landed this week. Victoria's income cap for the solar panel and hot water rebates fell from $210,000 to $150,000 for applications from 1 July 2026, which removes eligibility from households between those figures who qualified a fortnight ago. And the ACT lifted its Sustainable Household Scheme loan cap from $15,000 to $20,000 for new applicants on the same date, while adding electric cargo bikes and resetting its EV price threshold to $60,000.
The closed schemes still circulating in guides
Solar Victoria's interest-free battery loan is the clearest example of the trap: the agency's own page states it is no longer taking applications and points Victorians to the federal program instead, yet guides written in 2024 and 2025 still describe the loan as open. State battery schemes in several other states have also stopped taking applications in the past two years. We have not repeated those closure details here because we could not read the relevant state pages on publication day; the practical rule stands regardless: if a guide quotes a state battery scheme as open money, check the scheme's own government page, and the guide's date, before acting on it.
Reading a stack correctly
Where a state adds support, it stacks on the federal discount rather than replacing it: WA's page, for example, describes its rebate and loan as complementary to the federal program, and Victoria's hot water rebate is applied to the price after STCs are deducted. When you compare quotes across guides, make sure each discount is counted once. The ledger above will be re-verified as schemes step down or reopen.