Essential Energy has officially launched its inaugural rollout of padmount community batteries that will share financial benefits with neighbouring residents.

The electricity distributor has installed 192 kilowatt(kW)/530 kilowatt-hour(kWh) batteries in three regional NSW communities – Maloneys Beach, Goulburn and Leeton.

While the project is jointly funded through the Australian Government’s Community Batteries for Household Solar program, Essential Energy wanted to take it a step further by market testing the concept of an annual rebate.

According to Essential Energy’s Head of Commercial Development, Andrew Hillsdon, it’s another way for the organisation to advocate for a faster and fairer energy transition.

“Battery storage at all levels is needed – from network-scale to community-based like the ones we’ve installed in Maloneys Beach, Goulburn and Leeton. With rooftop solar generation increasing across our network, we need to capture and store the excess energy so it can be used to support the network when it is needed. It’s a key component to managing the power system as more localised renewable generation comes into the grid,” Andrew explains.

“But it is equally important to explore additional ways to share benefits with customers neighbouring the batteries. The use of batteries across our network provides an innovative way to make new energy solutions available, harness rooftop solar and support regional NSW through the energy transition.”

Senior Engineer Peter Anderson and Project Manager Bradley Smith with the Maloneys Beach community.

Battery neighbours like Maloneys Beach resident, Janet MacMillan are supportive of the approach if it will help progress the rollout of energy solutions for the benefit of regional, rural and remote communities.

“Regional areas, more so than the cities, need resilience. They need to be able to combat whatever nature decides to throw at them, and I think batteries are the way to go, whether it be individual households or community batteries,” Janet says.

“To have solar and not be able to use it or put it into the grid, it’s useless, but if you can help a neighbour to keep their fridge or freezer going, that’s what I think we should be looking at.”

This project is just one of several energy storage solutions that Essential Energy is market testing to expedite the infrastructure needed to support the balance of energy generation and usage within communities.

The current regulatory framework that governs the energy industry prevents network distributors from leasing the excess capacity of batteries to third parties to deploy in the competitive market without an approved waiver from the Australian Energy Regulator.

Essential Energy continues to advocate for framework flexibility to allow for energy storage to be connected to the network as quickly and cost-effectively as possible for the overall benefit of all customers.