Comparing 40 battery quotes

I compared over 40 battery quotes from around the country to figure out the average price, size and solar systems being paired with batteries

I downloaded forty quotes from the My Efficient Electric Home Facebook group over the last month to crunch the numbers on the different prices and sizes of batteries being sold across Australia.

The average battery size is 19.6 kWh, with an average price of $10,165

I'm happy to go on the record and say it seems like people are getting batteries larger than they actually need. It's a bit of a shock to see how quickly the batteries have grown in size over the last few months.

I've done quite a few battery analyses for homes at this point, and I've yet to see our battery simulation suggest a battery capacity above 16 kWh. So when I see a majority of people getting 20+ kWh batteries, it makes me wonder if these people know what they are signing up for.

There is no doubt in my mind we're currently in a home battery bubble being inflated by the federal government. Is this a bad or a good thing? I'm not sure, but I suspect there are going to be winners and losers once the dust settles. At the very least, we will get a more renewable energy grid, so that's a silver lining.

Also, a large battery is not inherently a bad thing, as long as the homeowner understands they are signing up for a hobby of balancing their utilisation of the battery, comparing virtual power plant programs, selling energy on the wholesale market, energy arbitrage of importing cheap then exporting high, and more games to come. If they want a healthy ROI on their large battery, they should be prepared to go full energy nerd.

For example, the quote below is for a 48 kWh battery in QLD, note that it includes 20 kW of solar as well. This person is about to turn their home into a small power station. There's nothing wrong with that, but if they are asking Facebook for advice and don't know exactly what they are getting into I can't help but think they are in over their head, and they're about to pay $25,000 for that privilege.

I suspect this article will not be well-received by installers. So I'll do myself a favour and come outright and say analysing quotes at face value has its shortcomings. Mostly because every home is different and the labour cost of installing a system at one home is not the same as the next home. Also, batteries and labour have different costs in different parts of the country.

But in saying that installers almost never itemise their quote to let a homeowner know how much their labour actually costs vs what is the cost of the system. I can't blame them because then they would be putting their costs out there for every competitor to see, but now installers are victims of their own sales strategies, so I'm taking these quotes at face value until this changes.

On average batteries cost around $550 a kWh, allegedly

If you want a simple way to compare the cost of your quote, then take the total cost of the battery and divide it by the kWh capacity of the battery. If your quote is above $550 then you are paying above average, and if its below $550 then congrats you are below average. But not so fast, take this with a healthy dose of scepticism, as some dubious quotes are being circulated on the internet.

Not all batteries are created equal. There are cheaper batteries available that come in significantly below the $550 mark, and then far more expensive batteries that can cost more than double the $500 per kWh. It depends on a range of factors, including the compatible solar system, the battery itself, labour costs, and the homeowner's personal preferences.

The graph below is a scatter plot of the battery sizes and cost per kWh I saw on the Facebook group. Interestingly, there doesn't seem to be much of a correlation between size and a cheaper battery. This could be a limitation due to insufficient data or installers sending out quotes that are not representative of actual prices for quality batteries, or both!

I can say that in the most popular battery brands we saw in the quotes were Sungrow, GoodWe and then Sigenergy. After that, there are a handful of other brands like BYD, SolarEdge and Alpha ESS.

For installing solar and a battery all at the same time the average cost is $17,600

When combining a solar system and a battery system to be installed together, the average battery size skyrockets to 26.7 kWh. I'm not really sure why this is the case. Perhaps installers are putting on a hard sell to the homeowner, telling them they need a large solar system and a large battery to try and cash in on the rebate of the STCs, which provide a sizeable discount.

Overall, the average solar system size paired with a battery is 12.1 kW. This represents a significant step above the average solar size of 9.9 kW in 2024, so it does seem that homes are being upsold larger, more costly systems across the board.

This increase could also be a correlation between people sending quotes on Facebook being more likely to be upsold a larger system. It's hard to know at this point, but it does seem like people are being sold significantly larger solar systems when it's paired with a battery.

All-in-all, it seems like we are in feverish times at the moment, batteries and solar systems have taken a significant jump in size and consequently in costs too. The new federal rebate has significantly reduced the price of larger more expensive batteries, and solar installers are having no trouble selling systems. No doubt this race for batteries is a much-needed boost for renewable energy across the country, but I also can't help but wonder if the battery hype is causing some people to overspend where their money could have been more wisely spent on other parts of the home.

If you have a battery quote you received in the last month or two, send it over. I can take a look and see how it compares to the competition, ensuring you're getting a solid deal.

Get your own battery analysis for your home

If you're unsure what size battery you should get or don't know if you have a good quote or not I can help you run the numbers and see if a battery makes sense for your home.

How it works is we remotely connect to your energy provider, within a few minutes they send us your energy consumption and solar export history for up to years in the past! We then use all that data to simulate how a battery would perform in your home, charging and discharging hundreds of times a year.

The end result is that we can figure out what battery size is right for your home and roughly how much it's going to save you, based on your actual energy profile and current pricing. No more flying blind, taking the word of an installer who wants to sell you the largest battery they can fit in your home. Even if you do want to upsize a battery, we will help you figure out where the point of diminishing returns kicks in.

If you're going to spend $5,000, $10,000 or more, you should research what to buy and how much that battery is expected to save you. Our analysis costs $129, and it could save you thousands.