6 May

In Australia household solar generates more electricity than all of our coal-fired power stations combined. And it’s still growing at an enormous rate. That was thanks to John Howard, who introduced the subsides for rooftop solar installation. Albanese is now using the same subsidy scheme to do home batteries, starting right now (go out and buy one). It will revolutionise how the entire world sees energy, just watch. It will help flatten the ‘duck curve’ of huge demand on the grid morning and evenings. If the ALP had done this at the start of their first term (as Saul Griffiths advised them to), a million or more Australians would now have effectively no energy bills at all. This will also drive prices down for all Australians, because there won’t be the same huge pressures on the grid, pressures that are enormously expensive to fix. The political debates about electricty prices are ridiculous, for many Australians (me included), you can have as good as zero electricity bills at any time. We haven’t paid a cent for electricity in over 3 years. Now it even powers the car, for free.