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When Sydney households installed rooftop solar and batteries to keep the lights on during bushfires and floods, they didn’t realise they were also building a shield against the fuel crisis now gripping global markets.
But that’s exactly what’s happened, and why it’s time to push harder, not pause, the renewable energy transition. The more solar, the more batteries and the more EVs we have in Sydney, the more we can go back to not worrying about the Strait of Hormuz.
The connection is obvious. Households that generate their own electricity, store it in batteries and drive electric vehicles have fundamentally reduced their dependence on oil and gas.
Because whether those fuels are disrupted by extreme weather, grid failures or geopolitical turmoil, the result is the same – cities forced to a standstill, held hostage by spiraling costs and global uncertainty – it’s no way to live, and we don’t have to live that way.
The answer being presented on a silver platter? Renewable energy zones – designated areas with solar panels on roofs and batteries in homes that can change the energy landscape from big power stations to local, community-based energy.
If we start taking this seriously, metropolitan Sydney could meet up to 75 per cent of its annual energy needs through rooftop solar with battery storage.
Industrial estates alone could produce 500 to 1000 per cent as much energy as they need, creating huge amounts of excess power that can be funneled to nearby residential areas.
This isn’t about inner-city, wealthy elites. Contrary to what might be assumed, the areas of Sydney with the most solar on their roofs and batteries on their walls are in parts of Western Sydney – in the city’s southwest and northwest mortgage and first-home buyer belts.
The household economics speak for themselves; people who worry most about the cost-of-living crisis are voting for solar with their wallets.
It’s not a far-fetched idea either. Sydney already generates more than 10 per cent of its energy needs from rooftop solar. The infrastructure is working, the technology is solid and the benefits are actually tangible.
This is a way to future-proof our city instead of being forced to react when catastrophe strikes, bending to the whims of global disruptions.
Since 2020, metropolitan Sydney has experienced 12 significant natural disaster events. Everything from bushfires to storms and floods. Thousands of households, enabled by government incentives, responded by investing in solar and batteries; and it’s these same households that are now much more insulated from fuel price surges.
The financial benefits are substantial, but they are not equitably shared. Across Sydney only 30 per cent of households have access to rooftop solar, with renters, apartment owners and small businesses facing significant barriers.
The federal government is taking steps to address this, backing in solar use with initiatives like the Community Batteries for Household Solar program, which has deployed 400 community batteries nationwide, providing storage capacity for households that can’t install their own systems, and the Cheaper Home Batteries program, which has just enabled installation of 300,000 batteries and is expected to help more than 2 million Australians install a battery by 2030.
New South Wales alone now has more than 100,000 electric vehicles on its roads, helping save an estimated 121 million litres of petrol each year – drivers who don’t have to worry about the cost of petrol at the pump, and leaving fuel for others who need it.
We have an opportunity to better protect our city and its residents from cost-of-living pressures, global uncertainty and climate-related disasters. In fact, we’ve had the opportunity for years.
Now, in the midst of a crisis that reminds us just how vulnerable fossil fuel dependence makes us, is precisely the time to double down.
While immediate policy levers to support people hit hard by fuel disruption must be made, the smart medium to long-term response is to invest in electrifying Sydney.
Because the same investments that protect households from blackouts in natural disasters also protect them from fuel shocks.
Sydney’s potential to generate three-quarters of its own energy is far more than an environmental aspiration. It’s an economic imperative and a resilience strategy that will pay dividends every single day, no matter what crisis comes next.
How many of the raw materials necessary for accelerated roll out exist in Oz? How many people have the skills to implement the strategy? How much of the fabrication could be done in NSW or Australia? It’s a vital agenda but treasurers who know nothing better than neoliberal economics and RBA monetary policy, and gas-captured politicians, aren’t capable of stepping up.