NSW Climate and Energy Action A little more than one year ago, Australia rolled out a program to heavily subsidize home batteries, part of a larger effort to make use of the huge volumes of solar energy that were going to waste. On Friday, officials announced that more than 500,000 batteries had been installed under the plan, helping to slash wholesale power prices roughly in half. Energy Minister Chris Bowen said that Australia now has more home batteries than the United States, which has a population 12 times larger. “This is a story of global significance that Australian households have achieved,” Bowen said in a press conference . Australia is the world leader in rooftop solar, with panels installed on more than one in three households, the highest rate of adoption globally. But abundant solar power has created a new dilemma as the grid faces a surge of electricity from connected rooftop arrays. Power prices plunge . Centralized power plants are forced offline, threatening grid stability .…