Rooftop solar and home batteries are the \u201ckryptonite\u201d to Australia\u2019s powerful fossil fuel lobby, a Sydney conference has heard, with hundreds of thousands of households adding storage to the millions of rooftop solar systems and \u201cabsolutely changing the game\u201d on energy.<\/p>\n
Speaking at the Smart Energy Conference in Sydney on Wednesday, the Smart Energy Council (SEC) CEO of 18 years, John Grimes, said the political heft of rooftop solar was revealed in 2014, when the national SRES scheme survived the anti-renewables rein of Tony Abbott, unscathed.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just found our kryptonite,\u201d Grimes recalls thinking at the time.<\/p>\n
Flash forward to 2026, and federal Labor\u2019s dazzlingly successful Cheaper Home Batteries\u00a0scheme \u2013 a policy the SEC lobbied hard for and helped to design \u2013 has seen households around the country install more than 380,000 energy storage systems and driven a new boom in rooftop solar.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the culmination of all the research and development, the engineering, the manufacturing, the distribution, the finance, the installers, the retailers,\u201d Grimes told the Sydney conference in what will be one of his last major addresses as CEO before he departs the role on May 15. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a culmination of policy and advocacy. It\u2019s a culmination of government action. And all of that comes together, and it\u2019s come together in an absolutely unique way here in Australia. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re doing something here that has not been done in the world before. We are demonstrating that a bottom-up revolution, driven by individual action, by community action, is changing the dial in a very significant way,\u201d said Grimes. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat gives us all great hope, because \u2026 [while] large-scale is important, \u2026 then you have transmission blocks, and then you have social license blocks, and then you have financing blocks, and then you have environmental law blocks, right? <\/p>\n
\u201cWell with this transition, you don\u2019t have any blocks at all. You have installers on every rooftop around the country, apprentices, people in the workshop activating literally everywhere at the same time, and absolutely changing the game.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Grimes, whose next career move is to head up the Renewable Energy Council Asia Pacific \u2013 a standalone organisation created by the SEC that will operate as its regional strategic partner \u2013 says the Australian model of consumer energy success should now be rolled out around the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think not only have we changed the Australian energy system\u2026 empowering people with economics, which is just so exciting, but we are going to demonstrate what this means to the whole world. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe can transition quickly if we adopt the Australian model,\u201d he says. \u201cSo suddenly, those vested interests of fossil fuels\u2026 can be broken, we can empower and transition rapidly. I think it\u2019s super exciting.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As for Australia, Grimes\u2019 wish is for the industry to continue making the most of its solar and battery \u201ckryptonite.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cNow, while we harness all of these people with batteries and home electrification, my strong urging \u2026 is double down on that constituency \u2013 that is our superpower. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey may have the vested interests, on the other side, of a handful of big fossil fuel companies. We have the people power of 27 million Australians.\u201d<\/p>\n
If you would like to join more than 29,000 others and get the latest clean energy news delivered straight to your inbox, for free, please\u00a0click here to subscribe to our free daily newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n
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