Distributed Storage

A surge of community battery trials in Australia is seeking to make better use of the country’s vast distributed solar resource. But the results so far have battered expectations. pv magazine Australia’s Natalie Filatoff and Bella Peacock explore the motivations, challenges, and outlook for sharing and monetising solar rooftop riches.

Network operator Essential Energy has installed its first grid-scale battery energy storage system on the New South Wales electricity network as part of a “critical” trial designed to allow more renewable energy into the grid and drive better network utilisation.

Rooftop solar stronghold Western Australia has been offered a glimpse of its energy future with the market operator having activated its first virtual power plant to prevent household blackouts after heatwave conditions sparked concern for the state’s main energy grid.

The federal government has opened industry consultations seeking to inform the country’s first national battery strategy with the goal of developing a globally competitive domestic battery manufacturing ecosystem in Australia.

Queensland government-owned network provider Energex will partner with Australia’s largest energy retailer Origin Energy to deploy 35 neighbourhood batteries across the city of Ipswich as part of an $10 million (USD 7.1 million) initiative designed to better manage the increasing penetration of rooftop solar PV in the region.

A new code for retailers of ‘new energy tech’ products including rooftop solar, battery energy storage systems, electrical vehicle chargers and other emerging energy products and services has been introduced to raise consumer protection standards in Australia.

Australian energy software provider Evergen will take its solar and battery optimisation technology to Japan after teaming with Japanese companies Sharing Energy and Sassor on a pilot project to explore how to best commercialise distributed energy resources, including rooftop solar and residential battery energy storage systems, in Japan.

Queensland zinc-bromine flow battery maker, Redflow, has announced its batteries have successfully been integrated with Chinese brand Deye’s hybrid inverters. Redflow says the integration “provides a range of new capabilities previously unavailable to the Australian market.”

Esysunhome (ESYSH), a new energy storage company in China, has developed a 5.12 kWh lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery system with a 7.9 kW inverter. It says six modules can be combined for up to 30.72 kWh of energy storage capacity.

California-based Yoshino Technology has developed portable batteries using solid-state Li-NCM cell technology. The four variants come with power outputs of 330 W, 660 W, 2,000 W, and 4,000 W.