Phase Shift: Forget Rooftop Solar — Renters Need Plug & Play Batteries

I rented most of my adult life. I left home at 18, bought my first home at 32, struggled with a mortgage for three years, then sold it to start SolarQuotes. It was another four years before I bought again — only after SolarQuotes started doing well enough.

So I know what it’s like renting, especially the frustration of watching energy bills continue to climb without being able to install solar, batteries or insulation to fight back.

Installing solar panels on rental properties could reduce tenants’ electricity bills. Industry and government have tried to do just this. Australia has seen well-meaning schemes like Victoria’s Solar Homes rental initiative, the Queensland Government’s Solar For Rentals, and startups like Matter, but they’ve all hit the same wall: landlords.

The Great Wall Of Landlords

Most Australian landlords treat their rental properties as lines on a spreadsheet. They’re focused on one thing: cutting expenses and maximising rental income. Even if installing solar clearly boosts the property’s rental yield (by increasing rent or selling solar power back to tenants), landlords rarely go for it. Many are already juggling tight cash flows and won’t spend extra upfront unless absolutely necessary.

At the same time, tenants understandably won’t spend thousands to improve a property they don’t own. So solar rarely ends up on rental rooftops, despite its typical 3-5 year payback.

But I’m here to say renters don’t need solar panels over their heads. They can use their neighbours’ excess solar.

And that’s because electricity retailers now offer special tariffs designed to help soak up the oversupply of solar energy from those neighbours. io Energy, for example, charges just 8c per kWh from 10am to 4pm in SA. OVO Energy offers free electricity from 11am to 2pm.

But these plans come with crippling peak prices in the evening (an eye-watering 75c for io Energy, 65c for OVO). This means batteries become essential, letting tenants store cheap daytime energy to ride through the extortionate evening peak period.

Batteries That Can Move House

The key to making this work is affordable, portable batteries. Currently, the installation fee for installing a home battery starts at around $1,500, and tenants understandably don’t want to pay this twice every time they move (to uninstall and then reinstall).

But imagine if every home’s switchboard had a simple, standardised battery socket. Combined with a specially designed home battery, home battery installation could be as simple as plugging in an EV.

Removing home backup requirements from this new standardised battery socket¹ and mass-producing a portable but high-capacity ‘renters battery’ would keep costs down.

Tenants could then buy a battery, plug it directly into the upgraded switchboard, and easily unplug and take it with them when they move.

One problem: landlords won’t pay for the socket upgrade. Realistically, it would need to be mandatory for rentals or taxpayer-funded.

Another snag: home battery prices aren’t yet low enough to tempt most renters — but they’re dropping rapidly, with battery cells down 90% in the last decade alone. Establishing plug-and-play switchboard standards now positions us perfectly for when battery prices become irresistible.

Forget solar panels on rentals. Let’s help renters directly by giving them affordable, portable batteries and easy access to the cheap solar energy already flooding Australia’s grid. Everyone wins.

Phase Shift is a weekly opinion column from SolarQuotes founder Finn Peacock, in which he shares his views on all things home electrification.

For more on home battery costs today, read this comprehensive guide, or for detail on how solar panels are actually a good investment for landlords, read this explainer.