Is a home battery worth it? How to work out the payback

Whether a battery pays off is a question about your household, not batteries in general. The steps below use numbers from your own bills. Solar Victoria recommends weighing the battery’s cost and the feed-in tariff you give up against the bill savings, and that’s what this method does.

Step 1: gather three numbers from your bills

• Solar exported per day. Your bill shows the kWh you exported. Divide by the days in the billing period.
• Evening use per day. If you have a smart meter, your retailer or distributor can show how much you use after the sun goes down.
• Your two prices. The usage rate you pay in the evening (the peak rate on a time-of-use plan) and your feed-in tariff.

Our guide to reading your electricity bill shows where each number is.

Step 2: work out how much a battery could shift

A battery can only shift the smallest of three amounts: what you export, what you use in the evening, and what the battery can store. A 13.5 kWh battery won’t help much if you only export 5 kWh a day.

Step 3: put a value on each kWh

Every kWh you store is a kWh you don’t export, so you give up the feed-in tariff to save the usage rate. The value of each shifted kWh is the difference. With feed-in tariffs now a few cents in most states (see feed-in tariffs by state), most of the evening rate is saved.

An illustrative example

Say a household shifts 10 kWh a day, pays 35c/kWh in the evening and gets a 5c feed-in tariff. Each kWh is worth 30c, so the battery saves about $3 a day, or about $1,095 a year. These prices are assumptions for the example; use your own.

Step 4: work out the payback

Get quotes, and use the price after the federal discount. For batteries installed from May to December 2026, the Cheaper Home Batteries Program discount is designed to take around 30% off the upfront cost. Then divide:

Compare the payback with the battery’s warranty. A battery that pays back well inside its warranty period is a stronger case than one that needs every year of it.

Value that doesn’t show up in the sum

• Backup power. A hybrid inverter can run the home from the battery during a power failure, but not every battery set-up can. If backup matters, ask for it in writing.
• Virtual power plant payments. Some operators pay to use your battery at busy times. Our guide to virtual power plants covers the trade-offs.
• Future loads. An EV or a heat pump can change your evening use, and your sum, a lot.

When a battery is less likely to pay off

• You export little solar, because the household already uses most of it during the day.
• Most of your use is in the middle of the day, when solar covers it anyway.
• You pay a low evening rate, so each shifted kWh saves little.
• You don’t have solar yet: price the solar system first, then the battery.

To compare battery quotes, see our questions to ask before you sign.

This guide is general information, not financial or legal advice. Rules, rebates and prices change, so check the linked sources before you decide. Facts checked 18 October 2026.