Charging ahead with energy storage in Australia

Energy Storage is emerging as an essential element in driving the change to a cleaner energy future. It is key to areas such as on-grid and off-grid energy management, micro grids for remote and mining communities, as well as electric vehicles and advanced systems for managing the energy of buildings.

With only three weeks until the Australian Energy Storage Conference & Exhibition opens in Sydney, the two day exhibition, conference and workshops address energy storage solutions at all levels, and features more than 78 experts from all over Australia and the world.

The energy storage sector is an innovative industry that is growing exponentially and at the Australian Energy Storage Conference delegates will be meeting some of the industries top influencers. Delegates will meet face-to-face, some of the sectors most important companies and gain information on existing projects and what innovative changes mean for future projects.

Among those speaking at the conference is Tim Poor, VP of Sales and Business Management at Aquion Energy. Tim will address long duration storage and solar, and asking, is it a perfect match? In his presentation, Tim will present operational data from two, megawatt-hour scale real world installations to examine whether long duration energy storage is delivering on its promise to unlock greater value for solar and end users that are looking to minimize their reliance on traditional forms of power generation.

Another speaker, Sanjeev Choudhary, Senior Director, SunEdison Advanced Solutions, will be discussing applications of behind the meter (BTM) energy storage in the session titled,  Studies of Customer Sited Battery Storage and Solutions for Australia. With its high PV penetration, weak grid in some areas, and relatively low feed-in-tariffs, energy storage could be the key to enabling greater deployment of renewable energy in Australia.

However, viability of customer-sited storage solutions in Australian markets, as elsewhere, will depend upon many factors. Sanjeev, drawing from SunEdison’s experiences deploying renewable energy + storage systems behind the meter and in front of the meter in the United States, will examine the factors contributing to and holding back the viability of potential energy storage applications in the Australian market.

Chris Amos is the Network & Customer Technology Manager at Ausgrid and is speaking on day two at the conference. Chris is responsible for setting the strategic direction for Ausgrid’s existing fleet of regulated meters, and also managing Ausgrid’s load control system.

His session will focus on the potential impacts of energy storage on the electricity industry. Chris ascertains that, “energy storage has the potential to radically alter the economics of electricity production and distribution, moving away from a classically centralised model, to a complex dispersed model.

Distribution businesses face the task of potentially managing a transition period to a world of micro-grids that facilitates local production and distribution with less dependence on remote generation”. Chris continues, “this session speculates what a network might look like with vast amounts of distributed energy storage, local networks become effectively meshed micro-transmission networks connecting local load and generation, and the sub-transmission network becomes a lightly loaded system to trickle charge a substantial embedded battery base”.

Chris concludes, “It is too early to say what major policy or regulatory changes will be required to manage this transition. However it is worth considering how retail and wholesale competition might change in this environment and how network business might be regulated”.

The Australian Energy Storage Conference and Exhibition is to be held on the 3 and 4 of June, at the Australian Technology Park in Sydney. Conference program and registration is available on the show website www.australianenergystorage.com.au