The Australian Renewable Energy Agency, has provisionally approved up to 143 million Australian dollars for 370 community batteries across the country. Does this suggest a new line of thinking is evolving? Cairns Post published a thought piece probing growing support for community batteries, and uncovered some impressive evidence.
Why Support For Community Batteries Matters Now
The Cairns Post article published on July 5, 2024 makes the following striking points:
- Australian home solar contributes 11% of Australia’s electricity generation.
- However, a ‘considerable amount’ of this is wasted, says Cairns Post.
- Community batteries could fill the gap between households and utilities.
The logic behind this builds on two basic principles. The first of these is we need to shift from coal, oil, and natural gas, to renewable wind and solar. While the second fact is renewables need support from peaking natural gas plants and batteries.
To date, these batteries have been either small kilowatt-scale home batteries, or vast gigawatt-scale battery farms. But there’s a limit to home batteries because these are expensive. In practice, home solar is unable to pass on much of the energy it generates this way.
Taking the Middle Road to Community Storage
Gigawatt-scale grid storage is a complex project, with growing resistance from communities who don’t want it in their back yard. They also don’t see any direct benefit from it that they can relate to personally.
It can be easier to garner local support for community batteries that residents can identify with and own. These have shared collective capacity, and can help support several hundred local households that help charge them.
Community batteries therefore have great potential for harnessing lost home solar energy quickly and efficiently. They will pay for themselves over time by selling electricity to grids at peak-time rates.
This strategy could provide an effective way to plug the gap between home solar and gigawatt-scale battery farms. But perhaps most importantly, community batteries can scale up and down, while they showcase their benefits to local residents.
More Information
More Community Batteries Coming On Line
Australian Community Batteries Taking Off
