West Australia puts community batteries at top of new energy roadmap, Giles Parkinson, Renew Economy, 5 April 2020.
The West Australia Labor government has unveiled a new energy roadmap that puts community battery storage at the top of its proposals to embrace a wholesale switch to distributed energy sources such as rooftop solar panels, household and community batteries, electric vehicles and microgrids
Distributed Energy Roadmap – nearly a year in the making – was unveiled on the weekend by state energy minister Bill Johnston, and it forms a key part of its Energy Transformation Taskforce, charged with dealing with the switch from coal and then other fossil fuels, to a grid dominated by renewables and storage.
Western Australia currently has one in three households with rooftop solar generating 45% of demand at times and predictions are that installations will reach one in two in coming years. The Distributed Energy Roadmap presents a staged plan to manage and efficiently integrate the distributed power.
A standout of the 36 actions is a community batteries proposal, with batteries proposed for ten towns and communities by the end of 2020.
Under those schemes, solar households could choose to access either 6kWh or 8kWh of virtual storage, at a cost of $1.60 or $1.90 per day respectively, to store the excess power from their solar PV systems.
This allows those homes to draw electricity back from the PowerBank during the afternoon and evening peak – when their solar systems stop generating – without having stump up thousands of dollars for their own behind-the-meter battery storage system.
This was welcomed by the Clean Energy Council, which described the initiatives as “nation leading” and said community storage such as Powerbanks can be used to manage the grid and reduce grid costs.