Distributed Storage

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.

A government-backed incentive scheme established to accelerate the introduction of distributed solar energy storage in the Australian Capital Territory is to be wound up having achieved its target of subsidising the installation of about 5,000 batteries over the past seven years.

Schneider Electric’s new Schneider Home platform includes a smartphone app to monitor and allocate energy resources.

Major shopping centre landlord, Vicinity Centres, has teamed up with Enel X to potentially deploy up to 50 MWh of cumulative energy storage capacity. The partnership kicks off with two battery fit outs in Victoria and New South Wales, and follows a $73.2 million (USD 50 million) solar rollout across Vicinity’s shopping centres.