The first non-network owned battery to be delivered under the federal government’s Community Batteries for Household Solar program has been launched in the seaside town of Flinders, on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula.
The 120kW/360kWh battery is fully owned by the Mornington Peninsula Shire Council, having won $500,000 in federal funding following a campaign led by the Flinders Zero Carbon Community Inc (FZCC).
The FZCC says it has been working towards a community battery for years, delivering community forums and facilitating a feasibility study carried out by Yarra Energy Foundation in 2022.
The three-hour battery, which was supplied by Norwegian outfit Pixii, will be used to soak up locally generated solar, help stabilise the local grid, create new capacity for more local rooftop solar, and potentially generate some income for a community fund.
The launch was attended by the federal assistant minister for climate and energy, Josh Wilson, who reminded the crowd of more than 80 that the Flinders battery is one of the first true community batteries to be launched under the scheme.
“It is wholly owned by the Shire rather than one of the energy network distributors,” the FZCC’s Jon Pearce wrote in a news update on Tuesday.
“Quite an achievement for us in Flinders!”
Federal Labor’s Community Batteries for Household Solar program aims to underwrite the deployment of 420 network connected batteries to maximise the local use of cheap solar, reduce pressure on solar-heavy grids and pave the way for more rooftop PV.
The scheme is divided into a few parts, with the federal energy department in charge of awarding funds for 58 of the discounted batteries and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (Arena) tasked with allocating the remaining 370 grants. Arena’s first round of funding, launched in April, set aside $60 million for projects proposed by network companies (DNSPs) and the another $60 million for non-network applicants. The division of the funding followed the controversial move by the Australian Energy Regulator in early 2023 to give electricity network companies access to the Community Batteries scheme via a waiver to ring fencing rules. Critics of the move argue that networks, with their monopoly positions, have a major advantage over non-network companies and could come to dominate the design and and ownership of community batteries funded through the scheme. Distribution network service providers (DNSPs) meanwhile argue that they are in an ideal position to roll out shared battery storage to the parts of the grid where they are most needed and will be most effective in bringing down power costs for all. For the federal government, the community battery election promise has been about the democratisation of solar – ensuring its benefits can be extended to those who cannot install it.
“The rollout of community batteries is vital to making sure that everyone can share the benefits of renewable energy by storing rooftop solar energy during the day and dispatching at night where it’s needed,” said federal energy minister Chris Bowen in a statement on Tuesday.
“The rain isn’t constantly falling, yet we always have water on tap because it’s stored for when we need it – and batteries like the one in Flinders will do the same thing for reliable renewable energy.”
Artwork for the battery was completed by Glenn Shaw, a Bunurong (Victoria) and Plangermairreenner (Tasmania) Aboriginal man who was born on Flinders Island, Tasmania, in 1958, and started painting as a teenager.
The artwork on the battery is titled ‘Bush Currant’ and depicts the plant which grows in coastal zones around Australia as well as two campsites where those collecting the seeds were camping, two waterholes and springs which represent the Bunurong connection to water, and the remaining seven circles depicting the seven seasons of the Kulin Nation.
