All Energy Australia 2026: What it means for your electricity bills

At the end of October, many businesses, experts, and thought leaders from the Australian energy industry got together in Melbourne to display their wares and discuss how the energy sector is planning to move forward in both the short and longer term.

Organisers reported that around 5.000 more people attended All Energy Australia 2026 than the previous year’s event, with 22,000 attendees joining some 500 exhibitors and numerous industry-leading experts speaking at sessions covering energy management, grid and network, EV tech and infrastructure, and more.

Here’s our summary of the main themes that were covered and what they could mean for households.

Batteries took centre stage

It’s probably no surprise that batteries continue to be a major focus of the industry, from home units to grid-scale installations.

On the home front, more than 550,000 residential battery systems have been installed in the 15 months since the federal Cheaper Home Batteries program began. Half a million additional home batteries in little over a year is some sort of movement. While installation growth has levelled off after the initial rush, suppliers see plenty of room left, particularly outside Melbourne and Sydney.

At the grid scale, nine large battery projects totalling 2.3 GW / 7.1 GWh came online in the first half of 2026. That already beats everything added in all of 2025. A further 13 projects reached financial close. You can read more about this in our recent post Are large-scale renewable energy projects bringing down the cost of electricity?

Batteries have been described as a “silver bullet” for the power market, largely because so much surplus daytime solar that would otherwise be wasted is able to be used. More efficient use of solar energy is seen as a key to cheaper electricity for everyone. For households, making better use of this energy could mean more opportunities for cheap electricity.

Rising demand, and a lot to build

Energy security and demand growth also continued to be hot topics. Global issues, from a pandemic to wars and regional tensions – with a grounded container vessel blocking the Suez Canal along the way – have been sharpening our collective focus on energy security over the past five or six years.

The Australian Energy Market Operator reports a record 80.9 GW of new generation and storage in the pipeline. With ageing coal plants retiring, and electricity use forecast to climb by more than 40% over the next decade, getting that capacity built on time is crucial.

One positive is that money is available to invest, however, investors want clear policy, predictable approvals and confidence that the connecting infrastructure will be delivered. While there was a lot of talk about these things at the event, how policymakers and regulators manage the path forward will make all the difference.

There are always challenges

There are a handful of things that were discussed that might still be some way from resolution, but will be pretty significant once they are worked out and ticked off, including:

The “plumbing” challenge: Australia has no shortage of clean energy ambition or projects, but faces hurdles in the social, political, and financial “plumbing” required to build transmission and generation capacity.

Bigger solar incentives for business: The Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme cap has been lifted from 100 kW to 1 MW. That could cut the upfront cost of mid-sized commercial systems by about 20%.

Ambitious targets: The National Electricity Market is aiming for 82% renewables by 2030, and Western Australia has committed to 75% by 2031 on its main grid.

Renter equity: The 31% of Australian households that rent are currently locked out of rooftop solar and home battery savings. Federal and state energy ministers are actively exploring safe pathways for plug-in solar and battery options to help address this gap.

Data centres: The rapid growth of data centres is adding to electricity demand and putting more pressure on grid infrastructure, which makes planning and network investment even more important.

Smarter homes, smarter grids

There was more discussion than ever before about how rooftop solar, home batteries, electric vehicles and smart devices are reshaping the system.

The event featured a number of major product debuts, particularly integrated home energy systems, including Anker’s SOLIX XE, an all-in-one, modular residential solar and battery storage platform.

With Australia building one of the most complex distributed grids globally, innovations in the grid sector highlighted software and hardware that treat consumer batteries as aggregate grid resources.

Home Energy Management Systems (HEMS) that natively integrate EV charging, vehicle-to-everything (V2X) readiness, and smart household tariffs, look more and more like the way of the future is already here.

For households, this is where choices about when and how you use energy start to matter as much as how much you use (a fact GloBird Energy has been particularly conscious of for some time, which is where the concept of FOUR4FREE originated from). GloBird’s ZEROHERO battery plan is another example of this approach and was recognised by WeMoney with its Most Innovative Plan 2026 award.

What it means for you

The takeaway from most who attended or were otherwise involved in All Energy Australia 2026 is generally optimistic.

More storage, more renewable generation and supportive policy all point towards a grid that makes better use of cheap solar, and that’s good news for households over the long run. The more of the building blocks that are put in place, and how seamlessly they fit together, will determine how much lower your bills will be. Over time, these changes could help make cheap electricity more accessible to Australian households.

One thing that’s true now and will remain the case well into the future, though, is that whether you’ve got solar, a battery or neither, it pays to have an energy plan that suits how you actually use power. If a plan doesn’t work for you, you should be looking to change.

Check out GloBird’s battery plans or the full range of our available products … or just get an instant quote in 30 seconds!