Home Battery Scheme

Mr TEAGUE (Heysen) (14:37): My question is to the Minister for Energy and Mining.

The Hon. S.S. Marshall interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, Premier!

Mr TEAGUE: Can the minister update the house on the achievements of the Home Battery Scheme in its first year?

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart—Minister for Energy and Mining) (14:37): Yes, of course I can. Thank you to my friend and colleague the member for Heysen. The Home Battery Scheme is going very well. The Home Battery Scheme has just under 4,000 households which have had new batteries installed and/or which have—

Mr Malinauskas interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Leader!

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: Nearly 4,000 households have had batteries installed and/or have qualified and signed up for the scheme and are awaiting installation. We always knew that this program would start slowly. We always knew that we had inherited a basket case, essentially, with regard to energy policy in South Australia. We always knew that we would have to do the hard work to implement our policies and particularly with the Home Battery Scheme that we would start off slowly and it would ramp up and accelerate, and that is exactly what is happening.

As evidence for this, let me share with the house that in the last whole week's figures, which I receive from the Department for Energy and Mining, one week at that point in time represented 2 per cent of the total time that the program had been running, but 4.5 per cent of the total batteries sold had been taken up in that one week. So the program is ramping up; it is accelerating. We are growing, just as we predicted to do, and we will get to the 40,000 batteries at the end of the four years just as we said we would.

Why is that important? Of course, we want the households which invest, the households which receive the up to $6,000 subsidy and, very importantly, the low interest loan for the purchase of the balance of the cost of the battery and the installation of the solar panels. But as well as that, we want all other South Australians to benefit.

Once we have that many households with batteries participating in the scheme and/or in other mechanisms which are available as well, we will then take pressure off our tightest supply-demand balance times across the state. That will improve the system. That will take pressure off and put downward pressure on wholesale prices. That will then flow through to all other South Australian households as well. We are also growing jobs in the state through this. In Elizabeth and down at—what is that southern suburb?

Members interjecting:

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: —Lonsdale, thank you—through AlphaESS and Sonnen, we are growing jobs. We have new companies established in South Australia manufacturing these batteries because of the scheme. They both say that if we didn't have this scheme they would not have set up in South Australia and they would not have created those jobs. I can't imagine why those opposite would not be pleased to see hundreds of jobs in Elizabeth and Lonsdale. This is a good scheme, it is going well, it is on track and it will deliver for South Australia.