Page 4377 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 25 October 2017
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the integration of renewable energy into the electricity grid. Battery storage is poised to become the next major consumer-driven development of energy technology, according to Alan Finkel, Australia’s Chief Scientist.
One and a half million Australian households have invested in rooftop solar on their homes. According to the Australia Institute, 80 per cent of those households are considering buying batteries. A Climate Council energy storage poll of Australians in August 2017 revealed that 9.1 per cent of ACT residents already owned a battery system, which is the highest in Australia. The ACT is already leading the nation by encouraging the take-up of battery storage and solar technology, which is part of the ACT’s transition to renewables and in line with meeting our 100 per cent renewable energy target by 2020.
In 2016 the ACT government awarded three grants of $200,000 each for Canberra households and businesses to install battery storage systems across the ACT. Following a successful pilot program in 2016 we announced that, under the next generation renewables program, we would invest $25 million for battery storage systems to Canberra households and businesses, making it one of the largest rollouts of battery storage in the world. However, there are further opportunities for the ACT government to harness the uptake of household solar and battery systems, not only through the continuation of installation grants but also by looking at reforming the way in which these systems operate in the market.
While it is great that so many Canberrans are taking up household batteries, these batteries are known as “behind the meter”. This means that they help to store power for household use. But that is it. As the Australia Institute put it, they are essentially a micro-grid of one household. At the National Energy Summit in Sydney recently the CEO of Canberra-based company Reposit, Luke Osborne, said:
So with these batteries we are getting what I call energy hermits … batteries that are not associated with a retail plan so that all of this energy is not available to help the grid.
It is really unfortunate that our current ACT energy retailers—ActewAGL and Origin—have not responded as retailers in other states have to accommodate battery systems in their energy plans so that they can benefit the wider grid. As the Reposit CEO said, retailers are not moving fast enough to offer new plans.
In other jurisdictions some minor energy retailers are providing plans which enable household battery storage to participate in the market. They are doing this by partnering with innovative companies like Reposit. The Reposit power meter and software communicates with the grid and the solar producer-consumer. It sells energy back to the grid at times of high demand and high prices, and credits this to the consumer in what it calls grid credits, thereby supporting grid stability and offering consumers incentives for their participation in the electricity market. I hope that, as a result of highlighting these issues in this motion today, we can get our energy retailers in the ACT to start harnessing these types of technologies.
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