Featured image: @Ahead_of_Curve / Twitter

In April, 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 microgrid.

As part of this project, installed new community batteries Tesla in ten towns and communities - Canning Vale, Dunsborough, Ellenbrook, Kalgoorlie, Leda, Parmelia, Port Kennedy, Singleton, Two Rocks, and Wanneroo - by the end of the year were proposed. And recently, a 464 kWh Tesla battery system was installed in Wanneroo a northern suburb of Perth.


Source: Startup Daily

The 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.

WA, thanks largely to the disinterest of the previous conservative government, has trailed the rest of the country in the installation of large-scale wind and solar - although it is beginning to catch up, both on its main grid and through miners in off-grid and in private networks.

But the state has been among the leaders in the uptake of rooftop solar, which has been installed by one in three households, meaning the output of rooftop solar is three times as much at certain times than that of the biggest coal generator and accounts for up to 45% of demand.

“A major transformation of Western Australia’s electricity sector is underway,” Stephen Edwell, who chairs the Energy Transformation Taskforce, said in a statement.

“Rooftop solar is a great source of power, but changes are needed to ensure that it helps, rather than hinders the operation of our energy supply system.

“Households and businesses can help make the most of our abundant solar generation by moving some of their electricity use from the evening to the middle of the day.”

Western Australia Gov Keeps Adding More Tesla Big Batteries For Sustainable Energy https://t.co/bSklgYmeAK pic.twitter.com/VqTFLc8A0V

— Tesmanian.com (@Tesmanian_com) June 29, 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 (Tesla Powerpacks) 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.

“Electricity bills for all customers are reduced, even those who don’t own solar. It even works for people who can’t install solar and batteries, like renters in apartments, ”said Darren Gladman, the CEC’s director of distributed energy.

“This is the sort of energy policy all Australian energy customers need. Australian love solar and in coming years we expect rooftop solar to supply more than half of our electricity needs."

 

H/T @Ahead_of_Curve / Twitter

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