Ten recent stories on rebates, bills and the home energy market, summarised in plain English with links to the original articles.
The Victorian Government has announced that residential solar support will shift into the Victorian Energy Upgrades (VEU) program from 1 July 2027, using upfront certificate-based discounts instead of the current Solar Homes model. Until 30 June 2027, Solar Homes solar PV rebate and interest-free loan applications stay open under existing arrangements. The current rebate is worth up to $1,400, with an optional matching interest-free loan.
Why it matters: the current Victorian pathway has a clear end date. Talk to us about timing before you decide.
Read the full article at Energy Matters →Over the past 12 months rooftop solar supplied nearly 14% of the country's power, while coal's share fell to about half. The report cites the ACCC finding that households with solar and a battery have bills 20% to 52% lower than regular customers, and households in a virtual power plant 57% to 63% lower. More than 270,000 batteries were bought in the first half of 2026.
Read the full article at The Guardian →Eligible households can now get three free hours of electricity a day from around 11am under the Solar Sharer offer in South Australia, NSW and south-east Queensland, and Victoria's Midday Power Saver. Many customers use the window to charge batteries and EVs and run appliances, and the article reports demand jumps of about 360 MW across the national market and over 700 MW in Victoria.
Read the full article at RenewEconomy →The Solar Sharer Offer began in July 2026 and Victoria's equivalent, the Midday Power Saver, from 1 October 2026. The free windows are limited to set hours and usage caps, so households benefit most when they can shift their use, or store the free energy in a battery and use it later.
Read the full article at Canstar →The Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme is scheduled to finish at the end of 2030, and the battery rebate is being wound down year by year until late 2030. Battery prices are expected to fall over the same period, and the battery rebate settings are reviewed with the aim of keeping the effective discount around 30%.
Read the full article at SolarQuotes →The household solar rebate loses one year of deemed generation each 1 January and ends for systems installed from 2031. Larger commercial systems get a fixed five-year period, but homeowners don't, so waiting past 1 January only reduces the entitlement.
Read the full article at Energy Matters →AEMO's latest quarterly report found households with rooftop solar and a battery drew roughly three-quarters less grid electricity at the evening peak than households with solar alone. It also found gas generation fell 34% to its lowest third-quarter level since 2000, as grid batteries outpaced gas at the evening peak for the first time.
Read the full article at OilPrice.com →Rooftop solar generation across the National Electricity Market reached 17,488 MW at midday on a clear Sunday, with Victoria setting its own record of 4,191 MW. At the peak, rooftop and large-scale solar together met a record 72.29% of the market's consumption.
Read the full article at pv magazine Australia →Based on the Clean Energy Council's report, Australian households installed 180,878 rooftop solar systems and 276,011 home batteries in the first half of 2026. The number of battery models approved for the federal rebate rose from 1,259 to 3,406.
Read the full article at The Cool Down →More than 35% of Australian households now have rooftop solar. UNSW's Associate Professor Anna Bruce says renters and apartment residents find it hard to access the benefits, and notes that plug-in solar panels, available in Europe and parts of the US, cannot currently be legally bought or used in Australia.
Read the full article at UNSW Newsroom →Last updated 3 November 2026. Summaries are Mercy Rays' own plain-English notes on articles from the publishers named; follow the links for the full reporting. Rebate rules and figures change, so confirm current details with the relevant agency or ask our team. This page is general information, not financial advice.
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