Do plug-in solar panels make cheaper, better homes?

Résumé détaillé

WA’s housing, transport, greening and energy reforms must work together to deliver lower living costs and fair access to clean electricity. Plug-in solar can be a part of this, but not the main part.

Western Australia’s move to legalise plug-in solar and batteries poses a question bigger than what connects to a power point: can apartment and townhouse living offer affordability, comfort and participation in the clean energy transition?

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The Cook government’s announcement to consult on safety standards and a legalisation pathway is a beginning for plug-in solar, not permission to plug generating equipment into ordinary sockets. But extending cheaper electricity to people without a suitable roof belongs at the centre of housing policy, not whether plug-in solar works.

The question for housing policy is how portable self-supply fits alongside better buildings, shared energy and accessible neighbourhoods.

Our recent article Perth’s urban sprawl hits the wall argued for higher density, greener, transit-oriented regeneration (in short Transit Oriented Developments or TODs). These would benefit from plug-in solar but need much more for them to become the next housing innovation. The next step in housing is how to deliver homes, like TODs, that people can afford to live in as well as be able to buy.

In the Perth and Peel regions a minimum 47 per cent infill target provides a foundation for TODs. But development within existing urban areas does not necessarily deliver diverse housing, walkability, comfortable buildings or inexpensive electricity.

The reported net infill rate reached approximately 39 per cent in 2024, while single dwellings comprised 64 per cent of infill development. These figures measure different things: net additions after demolitions and the composition of infill construction.

Neither makes detached housing inherently undesirable. They show why an infill percentage cannot substitute for a neighbourhood strategy.

Ask instead: how many additional homes are delivered, what do they cost to occupy, and can residents reach services without driving every time?

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