If you imagine the solar and battery transition slowly unfolding across Australia, you’d probably picture swanky freestanding homes, buzzy townhouse developments, or switched on commercial business with impressively sized roofs.
Less likely, would be the humble neighbourhood convenience store, servo, or restaurant. And it’s easy to understand why. Restaurant operators and convenience store owners have plenty to worry about.
The lower disposable incomes of their potential patrons, the higher cost of ingredients and goods, we’re all too familiar with the economic headwinds these businesses face. And so the realities of energy cost savings from solar and batteries require analysis, thought, and an affirmative choice – it’s easy to see why it can be a lower priority.
But what if the companies that already own the branded fridges installed in servos, or the leasing companies that lease the coffee machine or cooking range to the proprietors of your local bistro were to fund the installation of appliance level batteries?
An appliance level battery may be a new concept to many. It’s not the big, sleek, wall-mounted box the height and width of a fridge we’ve become familiar with, soaking up excess energy from solar not immediately used by a home’s main circuit, keeping that value for the owner (or shared with the controller, if part of an orchestrated Virtual Power Plant). An appliance level battery sits between the wall plug and a specific appliance, or an array of appliances.
In function they’re similar to a computer UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) that protects from sudden, unexpected power loss, that allows the computer to be gracefully shut down, saving data, preventing catastrophic failure – or to continue working seamlessly until power returns.
An appliance-level battery can protect from black/brownout or a power surge. But it also has a superpower, it can act as a sponge for renewable energy. And protect from spikes in energy prices.
Readers of this piece will be familiar with the solar duck curve and the common ways to take advantage of the opportunities it presents, home solar batteries, load shifting and demand response.
But for the owner of a corner store, a solar and battery system may not be possible due to the store’s location (commonly shaded by neighboring buildings, or without a suitable roof), ownership (many are leaseholds), and unknowns about the long-term certainty of the business.
Cue a novel solution, the brand-wrapped, advertising-coated bank of fridges in the store. These are not owned by the store’s operator, but are most often owned by a large food and beverage conglomerate, who lease the units to the store. These units are installed, maintained, and (if needed) replaced by them – but the power to operate these units are paid for by the shop owner on their electricity bill.
Positive developments in corporate responsibility, targets and measurement means the energy consumed by these fridge units are part of the fridge owners reporting on energy consumed, and (if any) resulting emissions from the generation of that energy. This counts towards their emissions volume, and drags against any targets they’ve set.
In order to reduce the volume of these emissions, an adoption of appliance-level batteries that sit between the fridge and the store’s power points can allow a measurement, and reduction, of the power being used.
Currently, without measurement, the only acceptable method for calculation may be to use the average emissions intensity from the state grid, multiplied by the power used (which may also be an estimate, rather than a measure).
Appliance-level batteries, bought and installed by the unit owners as part of their capital costs, may then be monitored and orchestrated by a third-party who will optimise when they are charged and discharged. In aggregate, just like home batteries across Australia, this network can be a powerful force on the grid to support the adoption of variable renewable generation.
In micro, a store owner can choose to use this data to assist their own emissions reduction, but this is optional and they could instead carry on as normal – with the bonus potential for lower energy bills if exposed to demand charges (depending on their electricity tariff).
But in the macro, the fridge owner can reap significant return on their investment in terms of their carbon reporting, and progress towards reduction goals.
And, these batteries can stack, like small bricks that can form an edifice, to become a powerful tool in accelerating renewables deployment, and grid stability and security.
Installation of these batteries can potentially be as simple as plug and play, without the need for electrical works.
While not a silver bullet to grid firming and the growing pains of the renewable transition, they can form a significant part of the basket of solutions that will help us further down the transition path.
One example of such an appliance-level battery solution is ELIoT Energy, which is targeting fridge fleets owned by the large beverage companies, who are motivated by the prospect of emissions reduction, and potentially won’t baulk at a capital cost a fraction of their existing fridge unit spend. A low friction tool in the battery rollout toolbox.
You can learn more about ELIoT, and appliance level batteries, in this episode of Transmission, a podcast on the Australian energy transition.
