How to apply the Cheaper Home Batteries Program incentive to your OpenSolar projects

Summary

This article walks you through how to add the new Cheaper Home Batteries Incentive, so you can apply it to proposals straight away.

This article also includes the process to manage the recent changes made to the program to ensure it's longevity.

The rebate came into effect from Tuesday 1 July, and changes have been approved from Friday 1st May 2026 onwards. See more information here: https://www.dcceew.gov.au/energy/programs/cheaper-home-batteries

Remember: existing users don't need to do anything!

Good news: If you have already created the Cheaper Homes Batteries incentive, you do not need to do anything. OpenSolar will automatically update the "Cheaper Home Batteries Program" incentive types to match the new STC period, and will select the deeming period as "Use current date". 

How to Add the Cheaper Home Batteries incentive:

• Go to Control > Other > Incentives.
• Click Add New Incentive. This is where you can configure additional rebates, tariffs, and custom incentives.
• Select "Cheaper Home Batteries Program" as your Incentive Type
• Set the STC price at your preferred price
• Set the Deeming Period as your preferred period. We recommend setting "Use current date", as this will automatically adjust the STC calculations over time, though manually setting this will allow you to quote into the future. 

Note: you can choose to Auto-apply the incentive, so that it is included by default in eligible projects. When doing this, you can choose the auto-apply settings. To do this:

• Enter an auto apply max battery size of 100kWh.
• Enter an auto apply min battery size of 5kWh.
• Select "Nameplate" as Capacity Type. Note: the STC quantity will be calculated based on the usable capacity of the battery, but eligibility will be based on nameplate/ nominal capacity, per the CER.   
• Click Save.

Have an existing project but the incentive is not showing?

Once set up, you will need to manually recalculate any relevant in-flight projects to update pricing.