Regional parts of Australia are susceptible to bushfire and storm and are thus susceptible to power outages. For many that means lighting a candle, but for the Malmsbury Fire Brigade, that means having to be extra vigilant that said candles don’t become any larger, especially considering the likelihood that they’ve already got bushfires to deal with.
However, outages are now much less of a concern for the Malmsbury Fire Station itself, thanks to a 13.5 kW Tesla Powerwall 2 storing the energy generated from a 10.48 kW solar installation. The Powerwall 2, which costs $30,000, was funded with $5,000 of brigade donations and the rest via a grant from Bank Australia and the Central Victorian Greenhouse Alliance’s Community Solar Bulk Buy program.
“The battery ensures we can operate and respond from the fire station during a power outage and it can also be a hub for the community at the same time,” said Malmsbury Fire Brigade Captain Tony Stephens.
That the fire station is now virtually invulnerable to power outages, Stephens is happy to note that at times of outage and crisis, “affected community members can use it for communication, storage of medicines, food refrigeration and internet in extreme circumstances.”
“We see the results of climate change through more intense and frequent storms and fires,” continued Stephens, “so being able to reduce our carbon footprint and reduce emissions is important or our members and our community.”
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.