The Australian battery storage market continues to attract the world’s biggest product developers, with LG Chem set to use the Australian market as the launching pad of its next generation battery storage units next week.
LG Chem is already well established in the Australian market, and is believed to account for close to half of new on-grid battery storage installations in the country in the last six months. Major rivals such as Tesla and Enphase and others are still either yet to launch or deliver significant supplies to the local market.
LG Chem’s next generation battery storage products are expected to provide a range of sizes and options for consumers, including a modular capacity, and have been redesigned internally and externally.
The South Korean company – like other battery storage developers – has identified Australia as a prime market because of it high number of solar installations – now at around 5GW of rooftop solar on more than 1.5 million households and businesses – it’s excellent solar resources and its high electricity prices.
LG Chem said in March that it had supplied 600 of its 6.4kWh Residential Energy Storage Unit (RESU6.4EX) to its main local distributors in the Australian market last July.
It said then that it expects to see a five-fold increase on this number in 2016, supplying more than 3000 units for the year, and an even greater rate of growth in 2017, when most of the country’s remaining premium solar feed in tariffs are ratcheted down.
Giles Parkinson is founder and editor of One Step Off The Grid, and also edits and founded Renew Economy and The Driven. He has been a journalist for 35 years and is a former business and deputy editor of the Australian Financial Review.
