South Australia’s principal electricity distributor, SA Power Networks, is about to roll out a portfolio of community batteries across the state as part of a trial that will hopefully presage a full-scale deployment across its network.
Backed by funding from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA), SA Power Networks will roll out eight batteries as part of a trial to build its expertise and understanding of community batteries before it deploys at scale across its wider network.
SA Power Networks is targeting three battery use cases, with two High Voltage (HV) network support batteries, two community resilience batteries, and four electric vehicle (EV) charger support batteries.
The two HV network support batteries will be installed in the towns of Robe and Lameroo in the Murray Mallee region of South Australia. SA Power Networks will install a 2MW/2MWh battery in each town where the network is already pushing at capacity and will be installed on existing substation sites.
Two much smaller 0.1MW/0.25MWh systems will be installed in areas that are vulnerable to widespread and lengthy power outages in regional and remote areas. At least one of these smaller community resilience batteries is set to be installed in the township of Kimba, on the Eyre Highway at the top of Eyre Peninsula.
Announced last week, a couple of days ahead of the wider battery trial announcement, SA Power Networks revealed that the community resilience battery would be at the Kimba District Football and Netball Clubrooms.
The Kimba community resilience battery is one part of a larger effort being undertaken between SA Power Networks and Australian telecommunications giant Telstra to better understand the appropriate back-up power needs of the local community.
“We want to make sure the local community has access to reliable energy, to mitigate the impacts of outages,” said Greg Eyers, SA Power Networks operations manager for the Eyre Peninsula.
“This partnership with Telstra and the District Council of Kimba reflects our shared goal to enhance the resilience of the township, offering peace of mind to the local community.”
The location of the second community resilience battery appears yet to have been announced.
Finally, four batteries will be installed in regional South Australian towns to support and enable the installation of EV fast chargers. Designed to minimise the impact of new EV fast chargers on the network, the batteries will enable the installation of EV charging connections in locations which had previously been cost-prohibitive.
While SA Power Networks said only that they were working with the state government and regional councils to identify “optimal sites” for these batteries, the ABC reported earlier in February that Robe would be the only town to receive both a HV network support battery and an EV charger support battery.
