As rooftop solar continues to boom in Australia, a new report suggests household battery storage could soon follow suit, with uptake predicted to have tripled in 2017, and costs of the key technology expected to halve in less than seven years.
The report, published by the Climate Council on Thursday, puts estimates on home battery installations for 2017 at more than 20,000, a three-fold increase on 2016 numbers of 6,750 new installations.
The 2017 installations will amount to a combined energy storage capacity of more than 170MWh, the report says – bigger than South Australia’s Tesla-Neoen Big Battery battery.
The impressive increase in uptake, says the report, marks a “love affair” with clean energy and battery storage that is only just beginning for Australian households, as they discover how it can reduce their exposure to expensive grid supplied power even further, when added to their rooftop solar.
The report, titled Fully Charged: Renewables and storage powering Australia, notes that as the relationship between consumers and energy supply changes – a change that is being fast-tracked by soaring prices at the socket – the public’s knowledge of energy storage is also increasing.
It cites its own September 2017 poll that found that 74 per cent of people surveyed across Australia expect household batteries to be commonplace in homes in the next decade.
The key motivation for this uptake of battery storage, according to more than half of respondents, was to further enable their rooftop solar to “reduce power bills.”
As we reported here on One Step Off The Grid on Wednesday, battery storage is also increasingly becoming “the norm” in new-build houses, with major home developers like Metricon, Stockland and Porter Davis offering solar and storage packages among their ranges of off-the plan homes.
The report also notes that home battery uptake will be boosted by network and government-based efforts to use the behind-the-meter energy storage resources to help shift peak to later in the evening or even into the early morning.
This “virtual power plant” effect is something that is currently being tested already in various places across the National Electricity Market, including by AGL Energy in Adelaide, the CSIRO in Brisbane, and most recently – and the biggest example – by Tesla and the SA government, with a 250MW VPP linking 50,000 household solar and battery storage systems.
This VPP effect, says the Climate Council report, “will become significant as battery uptake increases, helping the rest of the grid to manage peak demand well into the evening.”
On costs, the report says that prices for lithium-ion batteries have fallen by 80 per cent since 2010, and are expected to halve again by 2025, putting them on a price trajectory, or “learning rate” not dissimilar to that taken by solar PV (see tables below).
Sophie is editor of One Step Off The Grid and deputy editor of its sister site, Renew Economy. Sophie has been writing about clean energy for more than a decade.
This post was published on February 15, 2018 7:39 am
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I haven't seen battery prices come down that much in 24mths. Costs aren't tumbling down at all, but coming down slowly. People are excited about batteries until they hear the price!
I think we are all waiting on Tesla. Unfortunately they have made a product so popular they can't build enough of them. I would imagine even if their production costs dropped they won't be lowering the price of the Powerwall until they can meet the demand. I would imagine around 2020 once they have their Gigafactory completed they will have a 14-18kWh Powerwall 3 with solar inverter included for about $5k AUD
Look, they may come down to those sort of prices, but by 2020..........umm, don't know. The current PW2 may come down to $5k in about 3yrs, but that will be for battery only.
The same sort of batteries cells used for home storage are used for motor vehicles and large scale energy storage, there is just no where near enough manufacturing capacity to cope with demand. From what I have seen , lithium battery suppliers set their prices to compete with deep cycle battery offerings: factoring in DOD differences , cost of usable kWh is very similar between lithium and lead
I have 41 panes on my roof.Why? To save on high energy costs.The reason people install batteries is for the same reason even though they are not worth it. We should have the cheapest energy on the plant with all the coal we have.I could have saved the 18K I spent on solar and done some renovations that I could enjoy in my retirement.The whole energy thing is rubbish.China increases it's pollution buy Australia's total every year.
So do you consider your money wasted on your solar investment?
Not when they were paying a ridicules 0.60cents kwh. Not even now with such a ridiculously high peak power price.
And tell me what is the wattage of your panels each?
185 & 250
What's the split up of those?
21 & 20
And why should you worry about the coal related health problems of current a future Australians, enjoy your retirement.
Well you would have got your money back thanks to the 60cent FIT and after the last 5KW you should be saving plenty. You could go ahead with that reno.
Yep we have a lot of coal, but it can't be burnt, we have gone over the carbon budget and besides coal ain't cheap anymore. But that's not the whole story of stupidly high power prices, the networks have gone cap in hand to the government for more money, then there is privatisation of the power. Greed is the reason power keeps gong up.
Coal was never cheap my friend. An ETS or Carbon Price is only part of properly pricing Coal , Gas & Oil. The destruction of land, water and air from Coal etc is not priced in our energy bills but we do pick up the cost indirectly via public subsidies. Once Coal is properly priced it is it is FINISHED pronto. The "whole energy thing is rubbish"....it sure is when Fossil Fuel emissions are still going up and up and up.
One elephant in the room is the gross inequity of charging very low power users the same as the guzzlers for the poles and wires. A sliding scale standing charge would be much fairer.
At the rates I pay and receive, connection to the grid costs 11 hrs of FIT. This month, my average daily power purchase is 2.6 kWh. As the days grow shorter, that will rise, and jump when I get air con for heating, but the gas bill will almost vanish.
The 5kW solar system generates around 30kWk per day.
Because the inverter is such a big element in the cost of a system, additional panels are far less costly than a battery, and connection to the grid gives security of supply through extended grey weather. Most of June, it is completely overcast and drizzly. A battery to cover even 8 kWh per day for a month would cost???? For power guzzlers, vast $.
My power is now prepaid to the end of June, and there is still $115 credit in the account. Last payment to the power Co was made November 13, 2017.
Clearly, a higher level of use would both decrease the export and increase the cost, but it looks like a 5 kW system, optimally installed, would completely cover daily usage of about 18 kWh, for a capital cost of less than $8,000.
Possibly much less.
I have no idea where one would find a better investment.
The cost of loan repayments is completely covered by the reduction in the power bill. Adding a battery sufficient to cover a long period of overcast would utterly destroy the value of the investment.
I agree Hettie - I have 4kW split to pick up morning and evening as I have a 22deg pitched roof, peak N-S. For my daughter's house we put in 6.5kW on an almost flat roof - she now pays almost nothing for power, and should go into credit once I install a HW power controller. Next will be thermal storage for cooling for both our and her places - sleeping in high 20s, low 30s is not pleasant even under a fan. A Queenslander is hard to insulate and seal - too many doors and windows, including the beloved louvres that make it so pleasant for the 8mths a year when we don't need heating or cooling.
I would have liked to put a few panels on a west facing section of roof, but it was just too small to accommodate them.
20 panels, 4 degrees west of solar north, at 24 deg pitch. Armidale NSW, where the altitude gives us cold winters and mild summers, tho getting hotter every year.
Construction suitable for this climate means major internsl thermal mass, exposed concrete floor, and decent insulation, double glazing, external shading of east and west windows, augmented by deciduous vines.
37 outside, 25 inside. Overnight big drop. 15 is a hot night. Mostly around 10. Open house cools down well.
In winter, overnight minimum minus 8, inside 16. June is miserable, heating 24/7 but the rest of the winter mostly lovely golden sunny days. No need for heating until 17.30 hrs. Sustainable building is the best way to reduce power bills.
...and haven't you done well since going Solar young Hettie!
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