Feed-In Tariffs Are Falling: Why More Northern Beaches Homes Are Adding a Battery

If you installed solar on the Northern Beaches a few years ago expecting a steady credit for every kilowatt-hour you sent back to the grid, you've probably noticed that credit shrinking. It's not your imagination, and it's not just one retailer. It's a genuine shift in how solar economics work in NSW right now, and it's a big part of why this area recorded the highest number of home battery installations of anywhere in NSW between November 2024 and April 2025.

What's actually happened to feed-in tariffs

Daytime solar exports in NSW are now typically only worth around 3 to 6 cents per kilowatt-hour. That's a long way down from where feed-in tariffs sat a few years ago, and it reflects a simple supply and demand problem: so many homes are exporting solar in the middle of the day that the grid has plenty of it, so it isn't worth much at that time. Where the real value now sits is in time-varying and battery-linked export rates, some of which reach 10 to 20 cents per kilowatt-hour, but only during specific evening or peak windows.

In plain terms, the value of solar has shifted from how much you export to when you export it. A system that just pushes everything straight back to the grid at 9am is leaving money on the table. A system that stores that same energy and releases it during the evening peak is capturing several times the value from the exact same panels.

Why the Northern Beaches specifically has jumped on batteries

With roughly 23,000 rooftop solar systems already installed locally and solar targets around 75% met, a huge number of Northern Beaches homes are sitting on exactly the kind of system that benefits most from adding storage: an existing array that's currently exporting most of its midday generation for next to nothing. Add in the end of the temporary Energy Bill Relief Fund rebate and genuinely rising energy costs, and it's not surprising this area has led the state on battery uptake.

Northern Beaches Council has responded with its own push on community education, including webinars and a free Energy & Solar Expert Advisory Service to help residents work through battery sizing, costs, and how Virtual Power Plants (VPPs) fit into the picture. A VPP effectively lets your battery participate in the broader grid, sometimes earning extra credits for helping smooth out peak demand, on top of what it saves you directly.

What this means if you're deciding whether to add a battery

If your solar system was sized assuming decent daytime export credits, it's worth revisiting the numbers. For most homes here, a battery sized to your actual evening usage, not just the biggest one that'll fit, is what turns a declining feed-in tariff from a problem into a non-issue, because you're using your own stored energy instead of relying on the grid to pay you fairly for it.

We size every battery around how a household actually uses power in the evening, not a generic package, and we'll walk you through whether a VPP arrangement makes sense for your retailer and usage pattern before you commit to anything.

Thinking about adding a battery to your existing solar system? Get in touch with Power & Solar Group for a straightforward assessment of what size makes sense for your home.