A new home battery designed and engineered “from the ground up” in Australia has launched on the local market, offering 14kWh of storage, back-up power and patented energy management smarts its makers claim are among the best in class.
The company is Sydney-based Empower Energy and the battery is the ElektroBank: a lithium ion phosphate system with around 14kWh of usable power, 5kW of backup power, an integrated inverter and electric vehicle charging capability – all for $11,500 (including tax, but before installation costs).
But the big selling point is what Empower describes on its technical data sheet as “software so intelligent it’s patented,” which can be programmed to optimise solar, storage, EV charging and hot water heating for “maximum savings and efficiency.”
Empower CEO and founder, Ezra Beeman, says the battery optimisation algorithm patent – held by the company since 2014 – takes into consideration local tariff and generation mix, weather and personal consumption patterns.
“Our system learns load patterns,” he told Renew Economy in an interview late last week.
“Let’s say Tim, for example, goes to yoga on Wednesday afternoons, the system will learn that during that period, it can be trading more in the market.”
Beeman says the system can also be reprogrammed remotely and run its own intelligence, so in the event of electricity market policy changes, no manual overhaul of the system is required.
On a more micro-level, the ElektroBank unit utilises field-programmable gate array (FPGAs), which is a type of computer chip used in several other industries such as stock traders.
These arrays are seen as advantageous due to their infinitely reprogrammable nature, high processing power and fast response time.
“[The technology] allows the system to work so quickly and flexibly,” says Beeman.
“We have all the intellectual property, we aren’t susceptible to any interference,” he adds.
Local roots
Empower is also keen to stress its Australian energy market pedigree, which includes Beeman’s background as a former energy pricing and strategy specialist with NSW distribution network company Ausgrid.
Although currently based in California, Beeman says the ElektroBank has been designed with Australia’s market and climate in mind, in particular its ability to operate “at full throttle” with no curtailment up to temperatures of 45°C.
“Only Tesla can do that,” said Beeman, in reference to the competitor’s Powerwall 2 unit, which markets for A$11,900 (including GST, not including delivery or installation).
“[And] our system is all in one; we aren’t buying someone else’s inverters, we own everything from the capacitors to the resistors.”
The only part of the unit which isn’t developed by Empower are the lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery cells, which the company purchases from Chinese technology giant CATL.
James Foster is Empower’s chief technology officer, responsible for the overall technical architecture and development and certification of the battery hardware.
Michael Jensen is the company’s senior software engineer, responsible for the development of the end-to-end software stack.
Rebate uncertainty
Beeman says there had been “loads of interest” in their battery unit since the announcement of the federal Labor Government’s battery rebate scheme, before the election in March, but that orders have “since slowed down.”
“There’s a lot of uncertainty,” he told Renew Economy, noting that [at the time of the interview] it was still unknown whether or not the NSW state government battery rebate would get stacked with the federal offer.
This week, it has been revealed that the two rebate amounts will not be stackable for NSW battery buyers, but rather that the state would assume the federal offering of a roughly 30% up-front discount and tip all of the funding from its own scheme into offering a larger virtual power plant incentive.
All things being equal, Empower claims that if coupled with an Amber-style product, its battery could save consumers on the Ausgrid network around $A1,900 a year, leading to total savings of around $A13,000 over the lifetime of the product.
The company currently has around 200 batteries installed, including early pilot installations, with another 1,000 units ready to roll out in July, when the federal battery rebate kicks in.
“A great place to grow the market”
Beeman says he first saw the potential of home battery storage systems and virtual power plants (VPPs) during his days working for Ausgrid between 2005 and 2009.
“Australia is a great place to grow the market, some of the best solar penetration, coupled with one of the best, [most] progressive and successful markets for storage in the world.”
After Australia, Beeman says Empower has plans to expand into the US market. The company is backed by Pacific Equity Partners and Brookfield.
