How do I sell home batteries to my past solar customers?

To sell home batteries to past solar customers, score your install list before you contact anyone: drop every address that has already claimed the federal battery discount (one per premises), call hybrid-inverter customers first, and email or text only where consent still holds. On a 500-customer example list, the top 90 records produce nearly half the installs.

Rules of thumb for selling batteries to your past solar customers

Selling batteries to past solar customers works best when six rules decide who you contact, in what order and by which channel. Each is sourced or comes from the worked example below.

• Exclude anyone who already has a program battery. The Clean Energy Regulator allows only one solar battery to claim STCs per premises (per NMI for grid-connected homes).
• Hybrid inverters first. The WA Government fact sheet (September 2025) calls hybrid inverters the most efficient type for adding a battery to an existing system; non-hybrid systems need an AC-coupled battery and a gateway.
• Expect the top of the list to carry the campaign. In the worked example, Tier A is 22.5% of eligible records and delivers 48% of mid-band installs.
• Do not email or text on a years-old purchase alone. The ACMA says inferred consent “does not cover sending messages after someone has just bought something from your business”.
• Wash call lists within 30 days. The Do Not Call Register exemption needs a wash in the last 30 days, and express consent with no set period expires after three months.
• Book installs before 1 January 2027 where the customer is ready. DCCEEW sets the STC factor at 6.8 for May to December 2026 and 5.7 for January to June 2027, about 16% fewer certificates per kWh.

FAQ: selling batteries to existing solar customers

Can a past solar customer get the battery discount on an old system?

Yes, if the battery and the inverter it connects to qualify. The Clean Energy Regulator says the existing solar PV system does not need to be on the CEC approved list but must meet state electrical safety rules, and the battery’s inverter must be VPP-capable.

Should I contact customers who installed solar after 1 July 2025?

Score them low unless something has changed. They bought while the discount was available and chose solar only, so contact them with a new reason, such as a higher bill or a new EV, rather than repeating the original offer.

Can I text my whole past-customer list about batteries?

Not on the strength of the sale alone. The ACMA says inferred consent does not cover messages sent just because someone has bought something, and its November 2026 SpinTel penalty involved emails to former customers. Text only those with express consent or a live relationship.

Does an AC-coupled battery make a worse offer than a hybrid one?

It is a different offer, not a worse one. The WA Government fact sheet says AC-coupled systems are slightly less efficient and have limits as backup power, but let non-hybrid owners keep a newer inverter; it advises getting multiple quotes on each option.

How many past customers will actually buy a battery?

No public benchmark exists for battery upsell rates on an installer’s own list. The worked example on this page uses labelled bands and lands at 7 to 49 installs from 400 eligible records, which is why scoring and order matter more than the headline rate.

The Past-Customer Battery Fit Score: how to rank your install list

The Past-Customer Battery Fit Score is a 0-10 rating built from three fields most installers already hold: inverter type, install date (which captures system age and the 1 July 2025 program start) and system size.

Export every completed install with address, NMI, inverter model, array size, install date and recorded consent, score each record, then sort high to low. The points are LeadsNow’s suggested weighting, not a measured model.

Tier the sorted list: 9-10 points is Tier A, 6-8 is Tier B, 0-5 is Tier C. Only hybrid-inverter records can reach Tier A. Inverter type carries most weight because it decides the job type. The guide to getting more solar battery leads in Australia covers the market-wide headroom by state; this score is only about the customers you already installed.

Worked example: scoring a 500-customer solar install list

A 500-customer solar install list, scored and worked in tier order, yields about 22 battery installs at mid-band assumptions, with the range running from 7 to 49.

The list is illustrative: of 500 past customers, 60 already have a battery and 40 have dead contact details, leaving 400. No public benchmark exists for battery upsell rates on an installer’s own list, so every rate is a labelled assumption to replace with yours.

Assumption bands (reached / booked / sold): Tier A low 45% / 25% / 35%, high 75% / 55% / 60%; Tier B low 40% / 15% / 30%, high 70% / 35% / 50%; Tier C low 35% / 6% / 20%, high 65% / 18% / 40%. The point of the table is the order, not the totals: if your team can only make 150 calls this month, spending them on Tier A first finds about twice as many installs per record as the list average (8.3 records per install against 17.9).

Which past solar customers can you legally contact about a battery?

Past solar customers can be called or messaged about a battery only where consent exists, and in Australia a sale years ago does not automatically give it.

The ACMA’s Spam Act guidance allows inferred consent where there is a “provable, ongoing relationship” and the marketing is directly related to it, and says it does not cover messages sent after someone has just bought something. On 4 November 2026 the ACMA announced that SpinTel paid a $653,400 penalty for over 32,000 marketing emails to former customers, some of whom had left up to 13 years earlier; the regulator said a previous business relationship “did not automatically provide consent”.

Sort each record into one of three consent paths:

1. Express consent on file (a ticked box at quote or sale): email and SMS are fine, with your business named and a working unsubscribe.
2. A live relationship such as a monitoring service, maintenance plan or recent service visit: inferred consent may hold for a battery message tied to that system.
3. Neither: phone, after washing the number against the Do Not Call Register. The register says call consent can be inferred from business relationships and ends the moment someone says no. The rules for AI calls to existing customers are the same as for human calls.

This is general information, not legal advice: if consent records are thin, ask a lawyer before a large send.

What to say to a past solar customer about a battery

A past solar customer responds to a battery offer built around their own system, so open with their inverter and install date, not the rebate headline.

• Tier A: “Your 2022 hybrid inverter can take a battery without replacing anything. Can we book a 20-minute site check?”
• Tier B: name the two routes for non-hybrid inverters, an AC-coupled battery with a gateway or a hybrid inverter swap; the site check decides which.
• Tier C: lead with the inverter. If it is near the end of its warranty, the offer is a new hybrid inverter and battery in one job.

Timing is real but modest: the discount is set by the STC factor on the install date, so a battery with 13.5 kWh usable capacity installed in December 2026 earns about 13.5 x 6.8 = 91.8 certificates, against 13.5 x 5.7 = 77.0 in January 2027 (the REC Registry calculator gives the exact claimable number). From 1 May 2026 the factor also tapers above 14 kWh: 60% of the factor for each kWh from 14 to 28, and 15% from 28 to 50, per DCCEEW. Quote the certificate count, not a dollar promise, because STC prices move.

OpenSolar’s installer blog (2 August 2026) notes homeowners want to know how a battery will affect their bills and its payback; with past customers you hold the system data to answer before the visit. When quotes stall, the stalled solar quote diagnosis picks up where this page stops.

How to run a past-customer battery campaign, step by step

A past-customer battery campaign takes about four weeks for a 500-record list: one week to clean and score, then three weeks working tiers in order.

1. Day one: export completed installs and flag any address where you, or the customer, know a battery has been fitted since 1 July 2025.
2. Days 2-5: fill missing inverter models from paperwork, score every record, log its consent path and wash phone numbers.
3. Week 2: call and message Tier A. Every call aims at a booked site assessment.
4. Weeks 3-4: Tier B, then Tier C, re-attempting unreached Tier A.
5. Finish state: every eligible record is booked, declined, or parked with a recontact date.

Doing this yourself costs office time more than money: at the mid band, 400 records means about 217 conversations plus the unanswered attempts behind them, which at an assumed 12 minutes per conversation including failed attempts is about 43 hours of calling for one person. The done-for-you alternative: LeadsNow runs database reactivation with AI calling, SMS and DM follow-up, and its own Colliers-era reactivation work booked appointments from 4.4% of contacts on average and 8.9% at peak (LeadsNow’s record, no window or sample disclosed, not an industry benchmark). Installers with a small list and spare office time should run it in-house.

Sources

1. DCCEEW: Cheaper Home Batteries Program (updated 9 June 2026).
2. Clean Energy Regulator: solar batteries (updated 29 October 2026).
3. WA Government: customers with existing solar systems (September 2025).
4. ACMA: avoid sending spam.
5. ACMA: SpinTel pays $653K penalty for spamming former customers (4 November 2026).
6. Do Not Call Register: using the register.
7. OpenSolar: How installers can convert battery demand into sales (2 August 2026).