Energex and Origin to roll out 35 neighbourhood batteries in solar soaked regional city

Queensland government-owned network company Energex will partner with major gen-tailer Origin Energy to install 35 neighbourhood batteries across Ipswich, one of the state’s top 10 rooftop solar postcodes.

The $10 million initiative will soak up excess solar energy generated by Ipswich’s nearly 10,000 solar households, with the capacity to store the equivalent of nearly 600 rooftop PV systems during the day.

The batteries, which will include 30 power pole-mounted and 5 ground-level systems, will then deploy the stored solar electricity during peak evening periods, helping to lower the cost of energy in the region.

The rollout will kick off in the Ipswich suburbs of Goodna, Booval, and Redbank Plains, with the first of the neighbourhood batteries to be installed in coming weeks.

Energex will install, own and maintain the battery systems, while they will be operated by Origin in the wholesale energy market.

Queensland energy minister Mick de Brenni says the battery scheme, a part of the Palaszczuk Labor government’s Energy and Jobs Plan, will tap local businesses for the supply o f the energy storage systems.

“We’re also enabling local businesses to power ahead by manufacturing these batteries in Southeast Queensland at Pixii in Darra and EcoJoule in Loganholme,” de Brenni said.

Origin’s executive general manager of future energy, Anthony Lucas, says its role in the project is to explore different ways to create and share the benefits of neighbourhood batteries with customers.

“The development of smart, connected, low carbon solutions like neighbourhood batteries are central to Origin’s ambition to lead the energy transition through cleaner energy and customer solutions,” Lucas said.

Neighbourhood batteries, some times known as community batteries, have become a popular feature of energy policy platforms, as governments look for ways to manage the huge amounts of distributed solar coming onto Australian grids via home and business rooftops.

Western Australia, another state with publicly-owned power utilities, has also been actively trialing shared batteries on its main grid and regional network as a way to better manage areas with high rooftop solar penetration – and to free up new rooftop PV hosting capacity where it has hit a ceiling.

In Victoria, Powercor, CitiPower and United Energy are looking at incentivising the installation of non-distributor owned community batteries, to soak up excess solar on certain parts of the network and store it for use during times of peak demand.

But not everyone is convinced that community batteries are the way forward and have questioned their ownership structure. A recent study found a number of barriers to their success, including problems with economics, and division of services and revenue and complicated ownership models.