The math on batteries still doesn't work..

So, assessing the 'damage' for 2022/23 electricity price uplifts.

Inconveniently (or is it for their corporate convenience?) I haven't been able to access my simply energy account for about a month (technical difficulties apparently.. cough.. give me a break, as my mother always said: 'do I look like I came down in the last shower').

But by sleuthing around elsewhere it's pretty clear there has been a 10% lift in daily charges, a 10% uplift in kw/hr charges, and a 40% decrease in feed-in-tarrif. I suspect this is probably indicative for S.A., nonsensically it's different in every other state..

So notionally on the solarpv front we can have a close guesstimate that a 13% 'yield' will reduce by about 30% (you can be relatively accurate about this using a past years figures as your base guide, +/- the changes) to about 9% per annum.

Net cash costs will rise from circa $200, to circa $450 per annum.

So on the cash front not bad, but not insignificant.

On a return on investment basis, a 10 year pay back period is more realistic versus the previously more optimistic 6-7 year payback period.

So batteries at around $1K per 1kw/hr storage (i.e. I'm guessing a 10-14kw/hr telsa installed is still going to come in at around $15k) is becoming even less attractive. You'd have to have massive daily use (close to 100% charge/discharge use per day) to get even close to covering the cost of the battery in its 10 year life. Given companies are always increasing the fixed cost (daily connection charge) you can never avoid that, now, $400+ per year, battery or not.

It shouldn't really be a surprise. SolarPV and/or batteries were never going to be viable at small scale (per home) without subsidies. And the battery costs have not come down as anticipated, and the subsidies have not been big enough, to ever make them financially viable. Unfortunately, in reality, anybody who is running 'home batteries' presently are likely to be paying more for their electricity from their battery than they would if they bought it straight from the grid. It is possible that per kw/hr prices will rise so much as to change this situation but I suspect not - because recent uplift in CPI across the board is likely to keep battery prices moving up (instead of down as previously anticipated) as well.. Keeping 'real ROI' ever out of reach.

And of course, as I've said before, none of this has anything to do with climate change - there's way more efficient ways, at scale, to deal with that. Rooftop SolarPV has always been, at best, virtue signalling and a very nice middle-class investment vehicle to boot.