u/AussieSolarGuy

Mid 2000s Australians with solar were literally getting paid more than they paid for power. Some people had negative power bills for years.

Now in 2026 most retailers pay 1–4c per kWh to export. Some can legally pay zero.

Wild how fast it changed.

(Still worth getting solar btw the maths just works completely differently now. Happy to explain if anyone's curious) Just drop a couple answers into Aussiesolarinfo.com and I'll tell you.

For anyone looking into solar in Victoria, the rebate situation shifted from today and there's a lot of outdated info floating around so worth clarifying.

Solar panels Victorian $1,400 rebate still running, released in monthly allocations. Federal STC rebate still applies on top of that. So for panels the incentives are still there.

Batteries the old Victorian state battery rebate has closed. From today the federal Cheaper Home Batteries program has moved to a tiered structure. Batteries under 14kWh still get a solid point of sale discount. Batteries between 14 and 28kWh get 60% of the previous rate. Batteries above 28kWh get 15%. So larger battery systems just got significantly more expensive.

Feed in tariffs are still cooked regardless about 4 cents per kWh to export while you're paying 30 cents to buy. The whole value now is in self consumption, using solar directly during the day or storing it in a battery.

Whether solar makes sense still depends entirely on your situation. High bill, home during the day, decent roof the numbers can still look really good. Lower bill, out all day, no battery and it often doesn't stack up.