Have you noticed your solar export payments getting smaller? Feed-in tariffs (FiTs) keep falling across Australia. For many households, that feels unfair. However, there is a surprise hiding in this trend. Falling feed-in tariffs actually make solar battery storage in Australia a smarter investment than ever. In fact, the lower your FiT, the better a battery looks for your hip pocket.
What Is a Feed-in Tariff
A feed-in tariff is the rate your energy retailer pays you for spare solar power. Your panels make electricity during the day. Your home uses what it needs first. Any leftover power flows into the grid. Your retailer then pays you for that export. The payment appears as a credit on your power bill. Simple — but the rate you earn matters a lot.
Feed-in Tariffs Have Dropped Sharply
Feed-in tariffs started high to get Australians onto solar. Early adopters in some states earned 44–66 cents per kiloWatt-hour (c/kWh). Those rates are gone. Today, most daytime FiTs sit between 3c and 10c/kWh. That depends on your state and your retailer.
Victoria shows the trend clearly. Until July 2025, the Essential Services Commission set a minimum FiT by law. Since then, retailers set their own rates. The only rule is that they cannot go below zero. The average Victorian minimum FiT for 2025–26 is now just 1.1c/kWh. That is down from 3.3c/kWh the year before. South Australia tells a similar story. Daytime export rates there typically range from 2–5c/kWh. Likewise, Western Australia’s Distributed Energy Buyback Scheme pays around 2–3c/kWh during the day.
The reason is simple. Australia now has so many rooftop solar systems. They all export power at the same time — midday. Therefore, the grid gets flooded with cheap solar and consequently, the value of daytime exports falls. This is not a policy failure. It is a sign that solar has become mainstream.
What You Pay vs What You Earn
Here is where things get interesting. As of 2025, the average Australian household pays around 39 cents per kWh for grid power. Moreover, the Australian Energy Regulator approved price rises of up to 9.7% from July 2025. Bills went up further for households in NSW, South Australia and south-east Queensland.
So the gap is huge. Use 1 kWh of solar yourself and you avoid paying roughly 25–40c for grid power. However, export that same unit and you earn just 3–10c. That gap runs to 15–37 cents on every single kilowatt-hour. Therefore, self-consuming solar is worth three to six times more than exporting it. That ratio is the key number every solar owner needs to understand.
Batteries Close That Gap
A home battery stores your midday solar. Then you use it in the evening. That is when your household needs the most power. That is also when solar stops generating. So instead of exporting cheap power at 3–5c/kWh in the afternoon, you use your own stored power at night. Furthermore, you avoid buying expensive grid power at 30–40c/kWh. The saving happens on both sides of the equation.
Time-varying tariffs add another layer of benefit. These plans reward exports during high-demand periods. In states like SA, NSW and WA, battery-linked or Virtual Power Plant (VPP) plans can pay 10–25c/kWh for evening exports. That compares to just a few cents for standard daytime exports. Therefore, a battery lets you sell power back at a much better price too. It also gives you more control over when and how you use your energy.
The Battery Boom Is Already Happening
Australians are acting on this logic fast. According to Bloomberg and the Clean Energy Council, households installed more batteries in the second half of 2025 than in the five years before that combined. Over 180,000 units sold in just six months. That is four times the volume from the same period in 2024.
Additionally, the federal Cheaper Home Batteries Program cuts upfront costs by around 30%. For a typical system, that means $4,000–$6,000 off. This has made solar battery storage in Australia far more accessible. Furthermore, the Clean Energy Regulator forecasts up to 520,000 home battery installs in 2026 alone. That would add 12 GWh of storage to the national grid. Clearly, Australians are connecting the dots.
Self-Consumption Is Now the Smart Play
In short, solar strategy has changed. For years, the goal was to install big panels and export lots. Now, the goal is to use more of your own solar at home. A battery is the best tool for that job.
The maths only gets better over time. Electricity prices keep rising. FiTs keep falling. So the gap between what you pay and what you earn from exports keeps growing. Therefore, the payback case for a battery gets stronger each year. Many households now see a full return on a battery within six to eight years.
So if your last power bill showed a tiny export credit, don’t feel let down. Instead, see it as a sign that a battery could make a real difference to your energy costs. The lower the FiT, the more a battery saves you. That is the counterintuitive truth of solar in 2026.