More community batteries are coming on line in Sydney Australia, as a natural side shuffle to solar power. This makes a deal of sense, if you have a solar-battery set at home, and it keeps harvesting energy while you are away. Battery energy storage is key to this process. How else could we stabilize the output, and have it on tap when somebody needs it?
Backdrop to Community Batteries Sharing Energy
Communal batteries are about the size of a medium auto by footprint, and hold as much energy as 25-45 average household batteries. The Australian Government provides this estimate in good faith. We guess they can’t be more precise, because home batteries come in many shapes and sizes.
It makes a deal of sense to have more community batteries like this. In the first instance, participating householders have more energy to share, when the grid is down. This personal energy is also freely available, and that’s a real bargain during peak demand when tariffs are high.
But that’s not the whole story, because there is more to come. A utility grid is a collective service, where all users feel the pain when it goes offline. A neighborhood energy storage unit can serve the greater collective by also helping stabilize the grid, while contributing to lower emissions too.
Keep Them Coming, Says Ausgrid in Sydney
Ausgrid is an electricity distribution company supplying 1.8 million customers in Sydney, Central Coast, and Hunter regions of New South Wales, Australia. The utility welcomes the introduction of more community batteries to its network, because they help lower operating costs. And moreover as they point out, they can connect more rooftop solar and electric vehicle chargers.
Ausgrid already has one collective energy storage unit in Northern Beaches, Sydney. They have identified a second site after extensive community engagement, and obtained support from government to fund it. However, the community will benefit in more than one way. Because Ausgrid will also fund a solar installation at a local community facility, as a gesture of goodwill and teamwork.
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