TasNetworks – Community Battery Development
- $3.34m Funded by ARENA
- $4.58m Total project cost
Summary
The Project is deploying 6 front-of-the-meter batteries in the Tasmanian distribution network, ranging in size from 150kW to 250kW and will improve solar hosting capacity, provide peak demand management, and participate in the energy market.
Need
Community batteries are a promising solution to enable the storage of distributed renewable energy for later use, reduce distribution network constraints, and put downward pressure on electricity prices.
The October 2022 Federal Budget provided $171 million for ARENA to deliver the Community Batteries for Household Solar Budget Measure (Budget Measure) to deploy 342 community batteries across Australia.
Action
The Project will be located in public locations such as parks, verges and near homes, close to existing kiosks and pole-mounted transformers to provide network support services through voltage management and peak demand management, to defer network augmentation and to enable further distributed solar installations through increased solar hosting capacity.
TasNetworks will develop and implement battery capacity lease agreements with a battery operator and market partners in conjunction with designing and implementing a community battery distribution network trial tariff.
Watch: TasNetworks – A Community Battery Explained
Outcome
This project aims to achieve the following outcomes.
Improve the economics and barrier reduction of community battery projects by:
- Exploring and introducing battery related tariffs
- Standardising network connections for batteries
- Designing a viable community battery business model
- Confirming batteries as a mechanism to address network constraints
Build industry capacity to deploy community batteries at scale by:
- Growing local capability in installing, commissioning and maintaining
- Building capacity for operators
- Sharing knowledge and educating the local electrical industry
Support the budget measure by:
- Putting downward pressure on electricity costs
- Contributing to lowering emissions
- Providing a net benefit to the electricity network
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