For Alice Clanachan, driving a car is a luxury she – and the planet – can do without.
Nine years ago, the art curator moved to Adelaide from Melbourne and committed to living as car-free as she could, relinquishing the idea of owning a vehicle.
She uses public transport to travel to work, to the shops and to the CBD, and she keeps her occasional use of ride-sharing services to a minimum.
"I've tried to employ different strategies in my life to really support clean transport options," Ms Clanachan said.
"I catch the train to Bedford Park – to Flinders Uni – every day, I catch the tram regularly into the city, I catch the bus quite a lot, I also ride my bike.
Ms Clanachan has also taken steps to reduce her carbon footprint in other ways, including subscribing to a "zero-waste" lifestyle through rigorous recycling, and recently investing in rooftop solar and a heat-pump hot water system.
A home battery was on her wishlist, but a decision by the South Australian government to scrap a subsidy scheme has dented that ambition.
Subsidy axed as prices rise
As part of last week's state budget, the new government revealed it would be discontinuing its predecessor's Home Battery Scheme – which offered $2,000 incentives to home owners willing to invest – because of poor uptake.
"The [previous] government had promised 40,000 batteries by now — they got less than 20,000," Energy Minister Tom Koutsantonis said last week.
Ms Clanachan accepted that the battery scheme was "not as popular as it could have been".
But she says it is worth persisting with at a time of high cost of living pressures and rising gas prices, which will be the subject of a meeting today between federal Energy Minister Chris Bowen and his state counterparts.
"Perhaps it's almost been axed at the point in time in which it would have been a bit more popular," Ms Clanachan said.
"Batteries are expensive, even with subsidies, and so it probably takes a while [for consumers] to think about how much … they might get out of such a big financial decision.
"The general kind of consensus has been do the solar first, batteries might get cheaper, think about that a bit later.
"For me, that's exactly what I did.
"I got rooftop solar last year, paid that off now and was thinking a battery might be good for the future, because I am generating a lot of electricity during the day that I'm not using at home."
Greens MP Robert Simms subscribes to that logic, telling ABC Radio Adelaide's Stacey Lee and Nikolai Beilharz that discontinuing the subsidy is "really short-sighted".
"We're in the middle of a climate emergency and … the cost of living is spiralling at the moment, skyrocketing out of control," he said.
"We've got huge electricity prices and home battery storage is a really good way for people to be able to reduce some of those cost-of-living pressures.
"If people aren't taking up the program and it makes sense from a public policy perspective, wouldn't you then say, 'What can we do to increase the uptake?'"
Retaining scheme 'reckless': Premier
Premier Peter Malinauskas hit back at suggestions the scrapping of the battery scheme and other green initiatives, including an electric vehicle charging subsidy, showed a lack of environmental concern.
"They were dismal failures," he told ABC Radio Adelaide earlier this week.
"Don't take my word for it — look at the market, look at the lack of take-up.
"Why would anyone do that? That would be reckless."
Instead, Mr Malinauskas spruiked the government's plan for a $593-million hydrogen power plant, electrolyser and storage facility in the Upper Spencer Gulf region.
"We've got a very substantial policy to increase local generation, with our clean, green hydrogen production facility which is world-leading," he said.
But a hydrogen hub that is not yet under construction and is four years from completion is not going to help Ms Clanachan's home-grown environmental battle.
"I would love the option of using an [electrical vehicle] on the weekends, but I think for now that's not an option for me," she said.
