The Perth suburbs where residents are taking up home batteries with gusto

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City of Armadale residents have been the biggest adopters of home solar batteries under the federal rebate scheme, with 828 batteries installed in the area since the scheme began on July 1.

Outer suburban areas of Perth have been feverishly taking up the rebate, which in WA was combined with a state government scheme to give rebates of $5000 for Synergy customers and $7500 for Horizon customers, as well as no-interest loans of $10,000.

Federal Fremantle MP and assistant climate change minister Josh Wilson.

Following Armadale’s 6112 postcode, the City of Cockburn postcode of 6164 came a close second with 825 installations, followed by the 6065 postcode in Wanneroo with 773 installs.

The rest of the top 10 list covers outer-suburban council areas including Canning, Gosnells, Mandurah, Swan and Rockingham.

More than 22,000 WA homes and businesses have used the rebates, making up about 12 per cent of the total 190,000 installs across the country to date.

Federal Fremantle MP and Assistant Climate Change Minister Josh Wilson said the scheme had seen more than 400 megawatt hours of battery capacity added to the grid in WA.

“That’s basically double the size of the first phase of the Kwinana big battery project,” he said.

“Six of the 20 leading postcodes in Australia are here in Western Australia, and they are generally out of metro suburbs where people want to reduce their energy prices and reduce emissions by adding to the remarkable progress we’ve made in rooftop solar with the addition of distributed battery storage.”

Wilson visited a home in Gwelup, which recently had a home battery installed, where owner Oceana Penniment said the power bill for her family of six had dropped from about $1400.

“It’s a big house, so before the battery got put in, our bills were coming around $1600, now they’re like around $200 and that’s when we’ve got the air con running on in summer,” she said.

“Come winter, [the bills will be] probably nothing, which is great, especially when the pool’s always running.”

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