{"id":49083,"date":"2021-04-06T08:06:44","date_gmt":"2021-04-05T21:36:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/?p=49083"},"modified":"2021-04-06T08:06:44","modified_gmt":"2021-04-05T21:36:44","slug":"community-solar-batteries-mb1944","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/community-solar-batteries-mb1944\/","title":{"rendered":"Community Batteries: Power To The People"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Image: McKell Institute (Note: the DC stands for “Distribution Centre” not “Direct Current”)<\/p><\/div>\n

There’s been a lot of chatter about community batteries recently – here’s a brief overview of what they are, how they work and some of their benefits.<\/p>\n

Home battery storage<\/a> is still costly<\/a> and likely will still be for some time. An alternative is the community battery concept, which can provide cheaper access to energy storage while providing many benefits – including to non-solar owners.<\/p>\n

What Is A Community Battery?<\/h2>\n

A community battery is essentially a large shared battery installed in a neighbourhood enabling local solar power system owners to virtually store their surplus electricity for use when their solar panels aren’t meeting household energy demand. A portion of the battery’s capacity may also be set aside for other purposes.<\/p>\n

Community batteries<\/a> have been around for a while. Among the first was a trial by WA’s Western Power\/Synergy involving a 420kWh Tesla Powerpack battery system<\/a> connected to the grid in the Mandurah suburb of Meadow Springs that kicked off in 2018.<\/p>\n

Since that initial trial, a bunch more batteries have been installed under the program. Each participating customer is allotted 8kWh of virtual storage at a cost of $1 to $1.90 per day depending on the location. In addition to that cost, the participants also forego the feed-in tariff for whatever they are storing. But assuming sufficient utilisation, it’s still cheaper than buying a battery system. A drawback is a lack of backup power if there’s mains grid supply interruption.<\/p>\n

The experience in Western Australia has been pretty positive overall and community batteries are starting to pop up elsewhere across Australia. While already financially viable, costs should continue to decrease and functionality and flexibility will improve as uptake increases to cater to the individual needs of customers. For example, allotted storage may be flexible to meet individual requirements.<\/p>\n

Benefits Of Community Batteries<\/h2>\n

In addition to reducing the cost of storing solar energy, some of the other benefits include:<\/p>\n