Solar power could be cheaper than conventional electricity in three years: Australian report

Climate advocates say the coupling solar panels with battery storage could be the cheapest way to obtain electricity within three years, revolutionising the way Australians access their energy needs.

Australia could be the premier market for home battery storage as electric feed in tariffs are phased out and grid electricity becoming more expensive, a Climate Council report released on Wednesday shows.

The report argues by 2018, due to advances in battery storage and solar cells, Australian house-holds going off-grid will become more cost competitive, creating a potential 24 billion Australian dollar (17.36 billion U.S. dollar) market if just half of Australia's households adopted the technology.

"Anyone who has PV [photovoltaic cells] on their roof knows they're paid a fraction - maybe a tenth - of what it costs them to buy power off the grid," the Climate Council's Andrew Stock said.

"If they have a tool, a battery, that can allow them to store the surplus power during the day and use it at night, it means they're going to get greater control than they already have over their power bill."

U.S.-based tech company Tesla's and rival EnPhase's have previously announced Australia is to become the first market for new high-capacity batteries that supply household energy via solar cells, following the development of cheap, high capacity lithium-ion batteries.

Analysts argue uptake in Australia will be faster than anywhere else in the world due to high retail prices for electricity.

"It's going to be about as big a change as we've seen in the telecommunications industry with mobile phones," Renew Economy editor Giles Parkinson told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation at Tesla's announcement earlier in the year.

Within five years, Tesla's factory in Nevada is expected to produce 35 gigawatt hours (gWh) of lithium-ion battery storage each year, more than the entire worldwide production of the batteries in 2013. Endit