Over the past year, we continued investing in Consumer Energy Resources (CER) innovation, including network storage and battery innovation to improve our ability to respond to changing network demands and provide new services to customers.

Community batteries are a new service being trialled that allows customers to access and share the benefit of storage without having to install their own battery. During the year we secured $1.5 million grant funding to support the installation of community batteries in Leeton, Goulburn and Maloneys Beach, under the Australian Government’s Community Batteries for Household Solar Program. Preparations are underway, with the batteries expected to be in place by early 2025.

In May 2024, we installed our first two pole-mounted batteries in Clarence Town to help mitigate local network issues and enable increased exports from CER (including rooftop solar systems) in the area. We plan to deploy 35 pole-mounted community batteries as a trial with Origin Energy. The first of these were installed in Wagga Wagga during June 2024, with more batteries planned for Armidale, Port Macquarie, Dubbo and Bathurst later in the year. The trial includes consultation with local government and local communities, before batteries are installed.

Essential Energy enables regional economic development by connecting new industry, housing, generation and commercial ventures to the network. We are proactively engaging with the market and key stakeholders to highlight the opportunities in regional and rural NSW, leverage existing network capacity and develop new projects with large customers.

During the year, 11 new large-scale¹ renewable energy generation facilities were connected to the Essential Energy network. The largest of these, Flyers Creek Wind Farm, near Orange, has a 140MW capacity – enough to power 80,000 homes when operating at full capacity. Nine solar farms with capacities ranging from 4.5 to 5.0MW were connected at locations across the network: Armidale (Petersens Solar Farm), Coleambally, Cootamundra, Dubbo, Mulwala, Narrandera, Narromine (Wahroonga Solar Farm), Nyngan, and Werris Creek (Menz Solar Farm); as well as the 1.5MW Grong Grong Solar Farm.

In total, 57 large-scale renewable facilities are connected to the network (as of 30 June 2024), with a combined capacity of 1.54GW. See Growth in renewables connections over the past year for more details.

Early works are underway to connect Quorn Park, an 80MW solar farm and 20MW battery storage system northwest of Parkes. We are also building a new zone substation to support the Parkes Special Activation Precinct as it grows local businesses and industries.

To further promote the regional economic growth opportunities of renewable energy, during the year we hosted regional development forums to explore the economic benefits of future-proofing energy.

Alongside academics and local government council representatives, we engaged with residents and business owners to discuss the shift to renewable energy generation and the associated economic opportunities. These Future Energy Roadshows shared the positive impact that rooftop solar and localised renewable energy storage is already having on reducing fossil fuel generated power, as well as electricity infrastructure’s role in driving economic benefits for regional communities. The first Roadshow was held in Wagga Wagga in April 2024, followed by Port Macquarie and Dubbo, in May and June, and then Armidale and Bathurst, in July and August.

The South Jerrabomberra High Voltage Supply project continued to progress during 2023–24. It will deliver electricity to the new South Jerrabomberra development area, which will include 1,500 residential lots, a business park, industrial estate, innovation precinct, regional sports complex and new high school. The development will also house a Regional Job Precinct, creating regional economic opportunities and job growth. The project includes a new 132kV Zone Substation and Transmission Line Construction. Commissioning and energisation are planned for early 2025.

Essential Energy is seeking new ways to leverage the existing network for the energy transition and new connections.

We continued to transition the network from 240V to 230V during the year, improving power quality to allow more customers to export renewable energy into the network while maintaining a safe and stable power supply. The roll out of this conversion will continue across the entire network for the next four years.

Enhanced data and analytics capabilities provide a more accurate view of our network capacity to inform operational and strategic decisions and support our customers. A new electrical flow model is helping us to identify capacity constraints and opportunities on the network, increasing our ability to measure, monitor and forecast network performance across the year. This means we can better prepare the network by changing settings on equipment and charging or discharging batteries, as well as improve connection times and the number of connections supported.

We successfully trialled new technology to provide flexibility to the grid during 2023–24. On-load tap changer transformers can change electrical settings to respond to varying levels of rooftop solar generation. If solar output is high, the transformers can be adjusted to ensure power quality and maintain the network within safe performance levels. This technology benefits customers over the long term by enabling more solar to connect into the network and improving solar limitations. After the successful trial, we plan to introduce these transformers as part of our standard operations.