07/06/2023
Community Batteries
You might be aware that the federal Government is committed to establish 400 community batteries over the whole of Australia. The funding for these is administered by ARENA (Australian Renewable Energy Agency) and there are several funding streams.
One of the streams is targeted at Energy Producers such as Essential Energy. We have put in an Expression of Interest with Essential Energy to be part of a project if they choose to install one in Comboyne.
The other stream targets Community Groups like ours. We are working with the Port Macquarie Energy Forever Group to get a combined application up. The process is quite complicated and onerous, and not very user friendly for a small organisation like ours. We are also advocating to Port Macquarie /Hastings Council to grant us some land around the sewerage works to install a community battery. At this point we are focusing on letting the relevant people and agencies know our intentions. The more people are on our list the bigger our voice.
If you would like to read up what other organisations have achieved here are some links.
lyrenewableyack.org.au/watts-happening/yack01-community-battery/
i.energy/narrabri-community-battery
By establishing a community battery in Narrabri, the community can be directly engaged in the benefits of storage in the grid. Our excess solar generation can be stored for aggregation and marketing at times when the grid needs the electricity the most - at night!
