What Australia’s battery inspection data actually found.

The 30-second take

• The finding: of 1,278 home battery installations inspected between July 2025 and April 2026, more than 60% were classified substandard and 1.2% unsafe.
• “Substandard” and “unsafe” are two separate categories, and conflating them is the most common misreading. The overwhelming majority of the 60% were not immediately dangerous.
• These were inspections under a rebate program, which shapes what the sample is — and that matters for how far the figure can be pushed.
• What it does support: installer selection is a material risk decision on a battery purchase, not a formality.
• What it does not support: a claim that 60% of all Australian battery installs are dangerous. Nobody has that number, including us.

1. The finding, stated precisely

Between July 2025 and April 2026, 1,278 home battery installations were inspected under the Cheaper Home Batteries Program. More than 60% were classified as substandard. A further 1.2% were classified as unsafe — the category the regulator reserves for installations posing an imminent risk, including severe electric shock.

Those are the numbers, and they are the only numbers on this page. Everything below is either an explanation of what the categories mean or a plain statement of what the data cannot tell you.

“More than 60% substandard. 1.2% unsafe. Two findings, not one — and the difference between them is most of the story.”

2. “Substandard” does not mean “dangerous”

This is where nearly every retelling of the statistic goes wrong, in both directions. Some readers hear “60% substandard” and picture 60% of homes at risk of fire. Others hear that most of the failures were paperwork and dismiss the whole thing.

Neither is right. Substandard is a compliance classification: the installation did not meet the required standard. That covers a wide band — from documentation and labelling defects at one end, through workmanship that will not survive to the end of the warranty period, to genuine safety deficiencies at the other.

The unsafe category is separate and much smaller at 1.2%. That is the one describing installations posing an imminent risk.

Both figures matter, for different reasons. The 1.2% is the acute risk. The 60% is the durability and warranty risk — the installations that will work on the day of commissioning and cause problems in year four, when the system is out of the installer’s mind and possibly out of their business.

3. Why a rebate program is where this surfaced

It is not a coincidence that the data comes from the battery rebate scheme. A subsidy creates a demand spike, and demand spikes pull capacity into a trade faster than competence accumulates in it.

Battery installation is not solar installation. It carries higher voltages, different isolation requirements, more switchboard work, and a commissioning step that has to be done properly rather than plausibly. An electrician who has installed panels for a decade is not automatically fluent in it, and the market did not wait for everyone to catch up before the rebate arrived.

The practical consequence for a buyer is that “how many of these have you installed” has become a much better question than “how long have you been in business”. The second one used to be a decent proxy for the first. During a demand spike it stops being one.

4. What this data does not tell you

This section exists because the statistic is usually quoted without it, and a number quoted past its evidence eventually gets the whole argument dismissed.

• It is not a census of Australian battery installs. It reports on 1,278 inspected installations. Whether inspections were random, targeted, or weighted toward particular installers or regions changes how far the rate generalises — and that is not something we can determine from the published finding.
• It does not say 60% of installations are unsafe. The unsafe figure is separately reported at 1.2%. Anyone citing the 60% as a danger rate is citing it wrongly, and we would rather say so than benefit from the confusion.
• It does not rank brands. Nothing in the finding attributes failures to particular battery manufacturers. This is an installation-quality finding, not a product-quality one.
• It does not name good and bad installers. There is no public list, which is precisely why the buyer is left doing the filtering.
• It is a snapshot, not a trend. One window, July 2025 to April 2026. Whether the rate is improving as the trade matures is a question the data does not answer.

What survives all of those caveats is still substantial: on a large body of inspected installations, the majority did not meet the standard. That is enough to make installer selection a material risk decision. It is not enough to support a stronger claim, and we do not make one.

5. What follows from it if you are buying

The useful response is not alarm. It is treating installer selection as a decision with real consequences rather than an administrative step after the product choice.

Most homeowners research batteries hard and installers barely at all — comparing chemistry, warranty terms and capacity across three brands, then taking whichever company quoted the brand they settled on. The inspection data says that is the wrong way round. The product is largely a solved problem; the installation is where the variance lives.

• Ask how many batteries — not systems — they have installed. Solar volume is not battery volume, and this is the single most informative question you can ask.
• Ask who does the work. In-house electricians or subcontractors, and if subcontracted, who carries the workmanship warranty.
• Get the workmanship warranty in writing, separately from the product warranty. The manufacturer’s warranty survives the installer going out of business. The installation warranty does not.
• Ask what commissioning involves and what you will be shown at handover. A proper commissioning has a procedure and a record.
• Check the exact model on the approved list rather than accepting that the brand qualifies.
• Be suspicious of a quote that is materially cheaper with nothing excluded. Somewhere the difference is coming out, and switchboard work is the usual place.

6. Your rights do not depend on the warranty document

One thing worth knowing before you sign anything: Australian Consumer Law guarantees sit over the top of whatever a written warranty says, and they cannot be contracted out of. Services must be provided with due care and skill, and goods must be of acceptable quality.

That is a genuine backstop, and it is not a substitute for choosing well. Enforcing a consumer guarantee against a company that has stopped trading is a poor use of a year of your life, and a battery installed badly in a house you live in is a problem long before any dispute is resolved.

Our guide to reading a solar quote line by line covers what should appear on the page before you sign, and the guide to choosing an installer covers how to compare three companies rather than three prices.

Read next

• How to choose a solar installer
• How to read a solar quote line by line
• What a workmanship warranty actually covers
• What happens if your installer goes out of business

Sources

• uts.edu.au — CER battery inspection findings, April 2026
• dcceew.gov.au — Cheaper Home Batteries Program
• cleanenergycouncil.org.au — find an accredited installer
• accc.gov.au — consumer guarantees