Western Australia Gov Keeps Adding More Tesla Big Batteries For Sustainable Energy

Featured image: WesternPower

The sixth community Tesla battery was installed in a suburb of Perth, Western Australia, whose goal is to improve the power supply of parts of the Western Power system without adding additional poles and wires, as well as offering virtual home energy storage

The installation of the latest community PowerBank, in this case, a 464kWh Tesla battery energy storage system, was unveiled at Salamanca Reserve in the bayside southern-Perth suburb of Port Kennedy, on Friday, One Step of the Grid reports.

This installation is the second in a Perth metropolitan region, and the sixth all up under the Labor McGowan government’s Distributed Energy Resources Roadmap, including in Meadow Springs, Falcon, Ellenbrook, Kalgoorlie and, most recently, Busselton.

According to Western Power, the total number of community-level batteries installed on its network is 13, but only the above six test the product for the PowerBank community with Western Power and Synergy.

The government said that the batteries connected to the network over the past few years have become “significantly” cheaper and have been a more reasonable approach to network modification than most traditional solutions. This is especially true for the suburbs, which are in the top 20 suburbs in Western Australia in terms of the amount of solar energy absorbed in residential areas, with every third household producing its own renewable energy.

“Port Kennedy’s new community battery will provide immediate benefits for the network by balancing demand, maintaining power quality to local homes and businesses, and allowing more homes in the area to install solar panels,” said W.A. energy minister Bill Johnston in comments on Friday.

“Western Power continues to identify other high-solar penetration areas to install more community batteries and I look forward to announcing these locations later this year,” he said.

Source: WesternPower

“The extra potential that community batteries unlock for customers is another reason why we are supporting further rollouts across the network and why we’re encouraging energy storage trials, like the PowerBank model.”

Western Australia premier Mark McGowan said his government’s recent Electricity Industry Amendment Bill 2019, and its Distributed Energy Resources Roadmap, had boosted the speed of the battery rollout.

“Community batteries like this one in Port Kennedy is a great example of how our legislative changes have been applied in practical and meaningful ways to help local Western Australians and businesses all over WA,” he said.

“Western Australia is fortunate as we can harness the sun as a renewable energy source, so it’s no surprise that we’re leading the nation in network storage solutions as well.”