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The rebate on a home battery is not attached to the battery. It is attached to whether that model is sitting on a list on the day someone bolts it to your wall.
Most people never find out, because the list barely moves. Then it moves.
One NEOVOLT model went back on the list on 7 October
Update, 8 October 2026. We said the list moves. It moved back.
From 7 October the Clean Energy Council put the base NEOVOLT BW-BAT-9.6P back on the approved list. The manufacturer finally explained why it imported different variants and showed which stock was which, and that was enough. The Clean Energy Regulator confirmed the same day what that means for the rebate.
A BW-BAT-9.6P installed before 15 September earns certificates. So does one installed from 7 October. One installed between 15 September and 6 October does not, and the restoration does not reach back to fix that. Three weeks in the wrong window and the rebate is gone.
The other six, BW-BAT-9.6P I through VI, are still off the list. Their deadline is still 14 December.
So if a quote in front of you names a NEOVOLT, look at the exact model on it. Then ask to see the same model on the battery's nameplate before it goes on your wall. "9.6P" and "9.6P III" look like a typo apart. Right now they are a rebate apart.
Seven models came off the list on 15 September
On 7 September the Clean Energy Council told the industry it would suspend seven NEOVOLT battery models, made by Bytewatt, from 15 September, and it did. From that date those models stopped earning small-scale technology certificates for any installation starting on or after it. Certificates are what the federal battery rebate is made of, so no listing means no rebate.
Two things worth being clear about, because the internet will get both of them wrong.
It is not a recall. The Council said so twice in the same notice, in those words. Nothing has been found wrong with how the batteries work or how safe they are. The problems are on paper: a test certificate that no longer stands up, nameplate labels that do not match the documents the product was approved against, and a manufacturer that cannot say which of its own imported stock is which variant.
And it is not permanent, necessarily. The manufacturer has until 14 December to sort the paperwork out. Fix it and the listing comes back, which is what happened to one of the seven on 7 October. Do not fix it and the models are delisted for good.
Existing NEOVOLT owners do not need to act
Do nothing. Seriously, nothing.
Your rebate was claimed at installation, when the model was listed. It does not get clawed back. Your battery works exactly as well on 16 September as it did on 14 September, because the CEC has not found a fault with it. If you have a NEOVOLT and you are now anxious, the honest answer is that you have been handed a documentation dispute between a manufacturer and a listing body, and it is not your problem to solve.
We do not sell NEOVOLT and never have, so take that for what it is worth. It is still true.
A quoted NEOVOLT needs its install date checked
This is the group that should move, and quickly.
Check the install date, not the quote date, not the deposit date, not the day the pallet lands at the warehouse. The trigger is the day the job starts. A job starting 14 September keeps the rebate. The same job starting 16 September does not, and on a 9.6kWh battery that is a few thousand dollars of difference appearing out of nowhere between one week and the next.
Ring whoever quoted you and ask two questions. Is this the base model or one of the variants. And if the install slips, who wears the rebate.
That second question is the one people forget to ask, and it is the one that matters. Get the answer in writing.
Every battery rebate runs off an approved list
Every battery rebate in this country runs off an approved products list. The federal Cheaper Home Batteries Program requires it outright. In WA, Synergy and Horizon Power each publish their own supported equipment lists, and both are built on top of the CEC list, so a product falling off the top of that stack eventually shows up at the bottom.
None of that is visible from a quote. A quote shows you a brand, a capacity, a price and a rebate figure, and it looks like a fixed thing. It is not a fixed thing. There is a live list underneath it that can change on eight days' notice, which is what happened here, and then changed back for one model three weeks later.
So when you are comparing quotes, the boring question is worth asking: is this model on the approved list today, and when is my install booked. Any decent installer will answer that in about four seconds. If someone gets vague about it, that tells you something separate and useful.
The batteries we quote change over the years as products come and go. The list does not care what we would prefer to sell you. Neither should you.
Get a quote or bring your existing one in and we will tell you whether the date on it is going to cost you.