{"id":441192,"date":"2026-05-29T18:16:03","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T08:16:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=441192"},"modified":"2026-05-29T18:16:06","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T08:16:06","slug":"bowen-diverts-funds-to-keep-battery-scheme-afloat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=441192","title":{"rendered":"Bowen diverts funds to keep battery scheme afloat"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen\u2019s multibillion-dollar Cheaper Home Batteries program was so over budget that the department warned its funding would run dry and the government quietly passed a regulation to take money from a different agency to pay for the green energy scheme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><br>The government in February signed off on rules that told the Clean Energy Regulator to disburse money and essentially fund the green energy subsidy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Internal documents show that after the Climate Change and Energy Department had spent $1.7bn in 2025 and the first two months of 2026, it budgeted $418m more from the Clean Energy Regulator to top up funding until they expected parliament to appropriate more money for them in April.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The government in February signed off on rules that told the Clean Energy Regulator to disburse money and essentially fund the green energy subsidy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":441230,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[273,35,4556],"tags":[12673],"class_list":["post-441192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australia","category-breaking-news","category-renewable-energy","tag-chris-bowen"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=441192"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441192\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":441231,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441192\/revisions\/441231"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/441230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=441192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=441192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=441192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}