In Australia, a Home Battery Boom Has Helped Cut Wholesale Power Prices

澳大利亚：家用电池热潮助力批发电力价格减半

In Australia, a Home Battery Boom Has Helped Cut Wholesale Power Prices in Half. A little more than one year ago, Australia rolled out a program to heavily subsidize home batteries, part of a larger effort to make use of the huge volumes of solar energy that were going to waste. On Friday, officials announced that more than 500,000 batteries had been installed under the plan, helping to slash wholesale power prices roughly in half.

在澳大利亚，家用电池热潮助力批发电力价格减半。一年多前，澳大利亚推出了一项大规模补贴家用电池的计划，旨在充分利用此前被浪费的大量太阳能。周五，官方宣布该计划下已安装超过 50 万台电池，帮助将批发电力价格削减了约一半。

Energy Minister Chris Bowen said that Australia now has more home batteries than the United States, which has a population 12 times larger. “This is a story of global significance that Australian households have achieved,” Bowen said in a press conference.

能源部长克里斯·鲍文（Chris Bowen）表示，澳大利亚目前的家用电池数量已超过美国，而美国的人口是澳大利亚的 12 倍。“这是澳大利亚家庭取得的一项具有全球意义的成就，”鲍文在新闻发布会上说道。

Australia is the world leader in rooftop solar, with panels installed on more than one in three households, the highest rate of adoption globally. But abundant solar power has created a new dilemma as the grid faces a surge of electricity from connected rooftop arrays. Power prices plunge. Centralized power plants are forced offline, threatening grid stability. And much of that solar power goes to waste.

澳大利亚是全球屋顶太阳能领域的领导者，超过三分之一的家庭安装了太阳能电池板，普及率居全球首位。然而，充沛的太阳能也带来了新的困境：电网面临着来自屋顶光伏阵列激增的电力冲击。电价暴跌，集中式发电厂被迫停机，威胁到电网的稳定性，且大量太阳能被白白浪费。

The government has moved to make use of this surplus solar energy, including by offering free power in the early afternoon to homeowners in Queensland, New South Wales, and South Australia, regardless of whether they have solar panels on their roof or not. The goal is to spur more consumers to run appliances or charge electric vehicles during this window.

政府已采取行动利用这些过剩的太阳能，包括向昆士兰州、新南威尔士州和南澳大利亚州的房主提供午后免费用电，无论其屋顶是否安装了太阳能电池板。此举旨在鼓励更多消费者在这一时段使用电器或为电动汽车充电。

With its home battery subsidy program, launched in July 2025, the government is aiming to help households use more solar energy by providing a 30 percent discount on residential battery systems connected to solar arrays.

政府于 2025 年 7 月启动了家用电池补贴计划，旨在通过为连接太阳能阵列的住宅电池系统提供 30% 的折扣，帮助家庭使用更多的太阳能。

The subsidy program has spurred a boom in installations. Australia is on track to more than double its home battery capacity this year, Bloomberg reports. The program has also been a boon to the grid. By relying on batteries in the early evening, when demand peaks, homeowners are reducing the need for utilities to fire up additional power plants during those hours, which is helping to lower costs for other ratepayers, officials say.

该补贴计划引发了安装热潮。据彭博社报道，澳大利亚今年的家用电池容量有望翻一番以上。该计划也让电网受益匪浅。官员们表示，通过在傍晚用电高峰期依赖电池供电，房主们减少了公用事业公司在高峰时段启动额外发电厂的需求，这有助于降低其他纳税人的用电成本。

The subsidy program has been “the major factor in the wholesale price of energy falling in Australia by 47 percent in the last 12 months,” Bowen said. “Australia is one of the very, very few countries in the world which is reducing wholesale prices in the midst of a global energy crisis.”

鲍文表示，该补贴计划是“过去 12 个月澳大利亚能源批发价格下降 47% 的主要因素”。“在全球能源危机背景下，澳大利亚是世界上极少数能够降低能源批发价格的国家之一。”