The federal government’s Cheaper Home Batteries Program is being hailed as a clean energy win, cutting installation costs and driving more than a thousand new batteries into homes every day. But Reposit Power co-founder and CEO Dean Spaccavento calls it “a colossal wasted opportunity.” He says while the scheme is “excellent in its scope,” weak regulation, vague technical standards, and poor oversight mean only a tiny fraction of those batteries will ever help stabilise the grid. After more than a decade pushing to make household energy “punch at weight” with big utilities, Spaccavento argues Australia risks missing a critical moment to build a truly distributed, consumer-powered energy system.