Subsidies will be available to residents of South Australia who want to purchase home battery systems from next month, while Sonnen looks set to open up a manufacturing and shipping centre in the state.
The Australian state of Victoria has been given a “taste of what’s possible” with the launch of utility Origin Energy’s first virtual power plant (VPP) project to date.
Three more vast projects pairing battery energy storage with utility-scale renewable energy installations are in the pipeline in New South Wales, Australia, through developer CWP Renewables.
A modestly-sized grid-scale battery will be installed at a natural gas plant in Queensland, Australia, boosting the efficiency of the existing power station and providing emergency backup, as well as helping integrate local renewable energy.
Cheap solar electricity will be traded between neighbouring residents in apartment blocks in Western Australia, enabling peer-to-peer trading of electricity in a project supported by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA).
Redox flow energy storage systems, earmarked by Navigant Research to be one of the fastest growing electrochemical storage technology sets over the next decade, are being deployed in recent or upcoming projects by Cellcube Energy Storage Systems and Redflow.
Australia’s energy and environment minister has hailed the country’s accelerating residential energy storage sales as a report has emerged from Chief Scientist Dr Alan Finkel which says the “financial equation is straightforward” for adding batteries to home PV systems.
Australia’s ‘peak national body’ representing transmission and distribution organisations in both electricity and gas, Energy Networks Australia (ENA), has pushed for a more consistent approach to grid connections of solar PV and battery storage by issuing a set of guidelines.
A ‘green energy hub’ including a huge 120MW wind farm and up to 100MW of battery energy storage in Queensland, Australia, by French developer Neoen has received planning approvals from local government.
Australia’s National Energy Guarantee (NEG), which has been waived through for a final decision in August, would significantly harm the country’s large-scale renewables pipeline, with just 1.5GW expected to be completed by 2025 despite the current 16GW pipeline, according to the head of the country’s solar and storage council.
