Full speed ahead on battery program

There are about 850,000 solar installations on the roofs of Queensland homes and businesses connected to our networks and they’re all generating electricity.

We will need lots of storage to take up all the extra daytime renewable energy that isn’t being used.

That’s why batteries are necessary.

Energy Queensland now has 50 local network-connected batteries under way or in the planning stages – including this one above at Gordonvale where construction started in early August.

These batteries are 4MW / 8MWhour batteries.

These batteries can store excess renewable energy produced by solar PV systems during the day and discharge it in the evening when electricity demand is typically higher, smoothing out the electricity demand curve.

We also have Neighbourhood Batteries – these are batteries owned by the network and usually connected on the LV located within residential suburbs and neighbourhoods.? The capacity would be shared with a retailer to potentially provide offers back to the community or their customers.

Energy Queensland – through Energex – is collaborating with Origin on a project to install pole and ground mount low voltage connected batteries on the Energex network.

The project is proposing to initially install approximately 30 pole-mounted and five ground mounted low voltage neighbourhood batteries.

The pole mounted batteries are 30kW / 60kWh in capacity. The ground-level batteries are 90kW / 180kWh.

These locations were selected due to the high solar penetration and potential for network benefit by avoiding or deferring traditional network investment.

Neighbourhood batteries can perform the same function as Community Batteries (see below), however the difference is the ownership and asset management model.

Then, there's the Community batteries projects. These are energy storage units based in local neighbourhoods.

EQL is currently connecting 90kW / 180kWh community batteries to the low voltage electricity network in 12 different communities across Queensland.

This project is being funded through the Australian Government’s Community Batteries for Household Solar Program.

Energy Queensland also got the go-ahead to build another 69 community batteries across Queensland under the Federal Government’s Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) program.

Of these 69 batteries, there will be 12 ground and 8 pole-mounted batteries connected to the low voltage network across Morayfield, Scarborough and Bribie Island, totalling about 1480 kW and 2720 kWh respectively.

It's an exciting time to work in the electricity industry.

Your Future = Energy Queensland

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