Solar battery rebates for Victorian homes: Eligibility and impacts

Rohan Best, Danielle Kent and Maggie Lee

Energy Policy, 2023, vol. 178, issue C

Abstract: To promote the uptake of home batteries, the Victorian state government has introduced rebates, beginning in 2019. Using postcode-level data, we quantify some important drivers of home battery uptake with methods such as a negative binomial model. The results show a more robust impact on home battery uptake from housing values rather than income. This suggests that policymakers should change rebate eligibility criteria to support households with lower levels of assets rather than income. Greater focus on assets could involve more support for low-asset households, enhancing equity compared to the current approach of a high and binary eligibility threshold of $3 million related to housing values. We also find evidence that battery uptake was higher by 58% in the nine months to March 2021 for postcodes that had earlier eligibility for rebates, compared to postcodes without eligibility at the start of the period. This suggests that even minor timing differences in rebate availability can have substantial impacts on technology adoption. There are also potential social equity implications for policymakers to consider if some locations receive earlier eligibility. Our analysis showing battery-policy effectiveness is informative for other jurisdictions considering details for battery policies, given the novelty of the battery context.

Keywords: Battery; Rebate; House price; Income; Solar (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421523001799
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:enepol:v:178:y:2023:i:c:s0301421523001799

DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2023.113594

Access Statistics for this article

Energy Policy is currently edited by N. France

More articles in Energy Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().