Community battery adds new note to Project Symphony virtual power plant

A new community battery has been commissioned in southeastern Perth suburb of Harrisdale which will play an integral role in the state’s virtual power plant (VPP) Project Symphony pilot.

Like other grid-side energy storage systems, the 1.34MW Harrisdale battery will store excess power generated by local rooftop solar systems, delivering the power back into the community during peak times at night.

But this particular community battery will also be integrated into the Project Symphony VPP with customer-owned batteries, marking the first time such a pairing has been orchestrated in Western Australia.

Project Symphony – a collaboration between the WA government, state-owned utilities Western Power and Synergy and the Australian Energy Market Operator – seeks to find better ways manage and optimise the state’s huge rooftop solar resource.

Last year, Western Australia became the second state in Australia to enable AEMO to order residential rooftop solar systems to be switched off remotely as an emergency measure to keep the grid stable.

The measure, which follows the lead of South Australia in September of 2020, is considered a tool “of last resort,” for use over short periods on days when abundant rooftop solar generation sent grid demand to critically low levels.

Ultimately, virtual power plants like Project Symphony hope to minimise the need for such drastic measures, and instead harness excess energy from behind-the-meter assets and use it on the network in much the same way as a traditional power station.

The Arena-backed VPP manages the power supply and demand of 900 clean energy resources (CER) assets – mainly solar and home battery storage – across around 500 households and businesses in Perth’s Southern River area.

The community battery now adds a new dimension to the pilot.

“Project Symphony’s new community battery will provide valuable insights into how we can unlock greater economic and environmental benefits … as we continue to transform the energy sector on our way to net zero,” said state energy minister Bill Johnston.

“In the face of a rapidly changing energy industry, customer’s rooftop solar systems, batteries, air conditioning and community batteries orchestrated together can play an important role in enabling the greater connection of renewables and the continued running of a secure and stable electricity system.”