Continuing the 2026 Installer’s Choice Awards, we asked Australia’s solar installers a simple question:

“Which home battery would you choose for your own home?”

These are the people designing, installing and servicing battery systems every day, so they have a front-row seat to what works well in the real world. And Australian Consumer Law holds the installer liable for the units’ warranty and performance for 10 years plus. So I reckon their opinion is what counts.

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I’m a man with a mission. And that mission is to decide what size battery my sister should get, while taking into account that she’ll be topping it up with free daytime electricity. If I give her a bad answer, I will still be a man — but it may become much more difficult for me to immediately prove it.

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Home batteries are often promoted as a way to keep the lights on when the grid goes down.

But according to a new report from the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO), they may increasingly be helping keep the grid up in the first place. [Read more…]

The good news is, my sister is getting a battery. The bad news is, she says I have to decide how large it should be, and god knows what she’ll do to me if I get it wrong. To find out how I decided what battery capacity to recommend, while taking into account her average electricity consumption, modest 6.6kW solar system, and the fact she’ll be topping up her battery with free daytime electricity — read on. But if you only want to know how I rate my chances of getting out of this unharmed, then also read on.

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The minimum level of charge a battery will keep up its sleeve can be customised to best suit your priorities – whether it’s maximising energy trading profits, blackout protection or reducing degradation. You can even tweak it temporarily in response to unusual conditions – as I found during a power price surge earlier this week.

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This winter solstice has just rolled by, and while the days will be getting longer, the season is far from past.

While the conditions persist, it’s worth checking in on your battery to see how it’s coping with the cold.

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Free power windows arrive for most Australians on July 1. If you own a battery, you probably want to configure it to take advantage, and fill it for free, from the grid.

But your battery will not do this on its own. Out of the box, it has no clue your free window exists. Somebody has to open the app and tell it, and that somebody is you.

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Shared batteries could play a bigger role in apartment solar, with Melbourne-based Allume Energy launching SolShare 2, a new version of its solar-sharing technology that allows multi-residential buildings to combine shared rooftop solar with battery storage.

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Is your battery warm and cosy this winter? Yes, it probably is.

This means it could be a very attractive house for a mouse, so be warned – rodents are terrible for electrical installations, and a mouse plague is currently chewing its way through Australia.
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Fox ESS is going under cover, with the hugely popular home energy brand offering free cable covers to customers amid concerns about installs with inadequate mechanical protection.

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