Sixty public schools in New South Wales are set to play host to Australia’s largest school-based trial of solar, battery storage, and Virtual Power Plant (VPP) technology.
The New South Wales government announced earlier this week that Stage 1 of the Smart Energy Schools Pilot Project had gotten underway, which will see a number of local schools across two stages receive solar and battery energy storage systems.
The goal of the new project is to determine if school-based solar and battery systems can help reduce demand on the electricity system associated with air conditioning, and whether solar and battery storage can be used to avoid costly upgrades to the electricity grid.
Schools included in the second stage of the project were chosen because of their suitability to combine solar and battery systems as part of a larger Virtual Power Plant.
“We now have 60 schools testing the most effective ways to harness and deploy renewable energy back to the electricity grid,” said Sarah Mitchell, NSW minister for education.
“We have over eight million square metres of NSW public schools roof spaces and we are looking at how we can utilise this space to reduce electricity costs and improve the environment.”
Stage 1 schools will also see new air conditioning units installed with smart controls and paired with smart energy systems so as to reduce electricity use, particularly during peak periods.
The VPP trial is expected to get underway in July, after the installation of the necessary solar, batteries, and VPP systems is concluded in the next few weeks.
It is expected that, once the second stage of the trial gets underway, there will be around 4,600 solar panels installed on school roofs paired with 3,200kWh of battery storage.
During the second stage of the trial, teachers and students will also be able to access an online portal to see how much energy is being used, generated, and stored at the schools. It is hoped that the online portal will prove valuable to teachers and students in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) classes.
Mitchell was joined by Member for Penrith Stuart Ayres at the Kingswood Public School earlier this week to inspect the new solar and battery system.
“We now have more than 130 solar panels and a large battery energy system with 78 kilowatt hours of storage capacity here at Kingswood Public School,” said Ayres.
“Lowering energy costs means we invest more funds in better educational outcomes. I look forward to seeing the trial progress, delivering educational outcomes, along with energy savings.”
