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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2018-10-17 Daily Xml
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Home Battery Scheme

Mr DULUK (Waite) (14:25): My question is also to the Minister for Energy and Mining. Can the minister please update the house on the progress of the government's home battery scheme?

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart—Minister for Energy and Mining) (14:26): Thank you to the hardworking, diligent member for Waite—another Liberal MP focused on what is important for his electorate and for all South Australians. One of the important things about this—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: One of the important things about the member for Waite's question is that he highlights that our energy policy is multipronged. Our energy policy is multipronged. We have many planks and one of them is the home battery scheme, which I have to say—

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for West Torrens will not—

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: —is extremely popular.

The SPEAKER: —interject about movies. The minister has the call.

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: We announced this before the election. We are delivering it now. We have had a very positive reception. Consumers are excited. Potential consumers are excited about the possibility to access a government subsidy for a significant chunk of the purchase price of a home battery—perhaps a third of it up to a maximum of $6,000 per household—plus the opportunity to access a concessional loan, which comes to them with the help of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation for the balance of the purchase price of the battery, plus new solar for their household if that's what is right for them and their household.

We held an industry forum attended by nearly 300 people, the vast majority of whom were people or organisations wanting to be suppliers in the program, wanting to provide the batteries or provide the installation or be involved in one way or another. Nearly 300 people in our supply forum turned up, and they were all very impressed with what the government and the department has put together.

This program will of course benefit those households who participate in it by getting new batteries and potentially new solar as well. Perhaps more importantly, it will benefit all other South Australian electricity consumers. Of course, we want to help the people who get involved and invest and have their own homes to use this for, but we want people who don't have their own homes.

We want other small businesses and other consumers to benefit as well. By taking the top off the peak in evening demand, by these households being able to connect peak generation early afternoon with peak demand early evening, this will depress prices for all other South Australian electricity consumers. Not only will we help the 40,000 but all others as well. This is a very important program, and electors in the member for Davenport's electorate, all over metropolitan Adelaide, all over regional South Australia will have the opportunity to—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: —Waite, sorry, and Waite as well. I will have it. This is going to be great for South Australians. This household battery scheme, our grid-scale storage scheme, our demand management trials empowering consumers, our interconnector to New South Wales—all of these programs will dovetail together very well. We are determined to make sure that we harness renewable energy for the benefits of consumers.

We already know that in South Australia we are very good at generating electricity from the sun and from wind, and full credit to the previous government for proving that. However, they rejected the calls that came throughout their term of government to help consumers as well. They punished consumers. We will turn things around. We will prove that renewable energy can be harnessed for the benefit of consumers, can push prices down, improve reliability and help with cleaner and greener energy. Of course we will also support gas generation, which will still be needed at the same time, to get all these benefits wrapped up together.

The SPEAKER: I call to order the members for Hurtle Vale and Waite.

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