Batteries are being been heralded as part of the answer to escalating energy needs, but challenges in their implementation are posing a major hurdle to developers.  The Australian Energy Regulator says that from July, 2023 residential customers on standard retail plans will experience price increases of between 20.8 per cent to 23.9 per cent without controlled load* depending on their region.  Australia’s climate means that wind and solar energy have huge potential to alleviate this energy crisis by creating relatively clean renewable energy. But the problem is storing it.  Go big or keep it small? From huge scale batteries such as the 500mW battery energy storage system announced this week by AGL and Someva Renewables at Pottinger Energy Park in NSW or the world’s first “big battery” at Hornsdale Power Reserve in South Australia, to individual household batteries and microgrids, energy storage is a hot topic. However, takeup by developers, particularly in the residential space, is patchy.  With Australia targeting 82 per cent renewables by 2030, however, developers need to get on board now.  Dr Marnie Shaw is a research leader in the Battery Storage and Grid Integration Program at the Australian National University in Canberra, focusing on the grid management tools needed to transition to renewable electricity.   “The biggest challenges we face are financial viability, cost and value sharing, and managing partnerships,” she says. ▲ Mulpha’s Essentia development is the first large-scale residential development to have fully integrated solar and battery storage solutions for residents. Developers have dabbled in renewable energy generation for years, such as Sekisui House investing in net-zero homes with battery storage, or working with Flow Systems on its The Orchards project to generate its own exclusive power via an embedded power and gas network.  This is where greenfield developers especially may have the upper hand. “A big advantage for greenfield developments is that space requirements can be included in the planning process,” Shaw says. “The challenge is again managing and sharing the upfront costs, managing and sharing the financial benefits and managing multiple partnerships. “For example, although a community battery may make sense because sharing a battery requires less battery per household, it may be complicated to return direct financial benefits to households from a community battery since we pay our electricity bills through a retailer who may or may not be involved.” Practical implementation Mulpha Group is one of the developers that has looked closely at battery storage for its developments.  Its Essentia townhomes in Sydney’s Norwest include 5kW of solar on every home and the option for residents to upgrade to include a 10kW battery.  “This was easy to implement as it was taken up by individuals and with high takeup as buyers liked the idea of being as self-sufficient as possible,” Mulpha Developments senior development manager Jan van der Bergh says. ▲ Home batteries are expensive, ranging from $7000 to $18,000 plus installation costs. Prohibitively expensive batteries force developers and technology providers to be a bit more creative. “[We] made a precinct-wide battery offer to all residents in Norwest to install solar and battery with a low green finance option,” van der Bergh says.  “This eliminated the upfront capital cost and buyers were able to pay off the battery through their energy savings.” Virtual Power Plans (VPPs) are also intended to fill the gaps and even reduce the expense of battery storage provisions, often providing subsidised battery costs and allowing users to connect to a network of batteries, and using software to manage usage and provide power to the main grid on demand.  “The battery assessment landed on specifying Sonnen,” van der Bergh says.  “This was because it was able to improve the payback of a battery, due to Sonnen offering a VPP energy tariff where the firm took control of the battery, discharging to the grid, and where the spot price was high and could benefit from greater feed in tariffs.” But there also other ways of sharing stored power, including microgrids—siloed systems, which on one hand can be vulnerable due to their lack of connection to mains power but on the other beneficial for remote communities or those affected by disaster such as floods and bushfires. ▲ The number of homes and businesses with solar batteries reached 180,000 in 2023, according to solar energy company SunWiz. Embedded networks are smaller private networks attached to the end of a larger network through a single connection point, where power is shared and any excess is sent to the main grid.  “The largest opportunity we believe is through VPPs, which will require for there to be better communication between grid, rooftop solar, individual batteries and EVs,” van der Bergh says.  Bidirectional charging, which allows electric vehicles to share as well as take power from the grid, shows huge promise, van de Bergh says. “EVs are becoming more  prevalent and with that comes cars with large mobile batteries, which allows owners to charge them up during the day from the rooftop solar and then discharge to the home at night.  “But bidirectional charging units need to come down in price (currently around $10,000) and for EV manufacturers to allow charging and discharging of batteries into homes, which may have a battery degradation and therefore affect warranties. “At Norwest Quarter, we have provisioned every parking space for the apartments, of which there are 283, to be capable of installing an EV charger now or in the future. We envision in the future leveraging bidirectional charging to provide a massive EV battery within our basement.” Challenges and benefits As with any new technology not currently mainstream or systematically integrated into the main grid, battery storage has its challenges.  “[There is a] high capital cost and complex and sometime theoretical monetisation benefits, which are hard to convey to buyers—such as benefiting from providing grid stability services.” ▲ The Electric Vehicle Council estimates there are about 130,000 EVs on Australia ’ s roads. ANU’s Shaw says that although it might be a slower process than some might like, battery storage is on governmental agendas, and commercially viable batteries are on the horizon. “The federal government’s Community Batteries for Household Solar program begins to roll out hundreds of community batteries around Australia over the next few years.  “The goal of this program is to maximise learnings and to work out what neighbourhood battery models are viable and best fit with what communities want and expect.”  But there is room in the market for both large-scale and community or individual home-sized batteries.  “Grid-scale batteries help manage supply and demand as well as grid reliability on the transmission scale,” she says.  “Neighbourhood/microgrid-scale storage helps us manage our changing suburbs, with more and more rooftop solar being installed, growing numbers of electric vehicles and the electrification of our houses as we move away from gas heating and cooking.  “Both types of storage will help us move to net zero as quickly as possible, hopefully avoiding the worst impacts of climate change.” *Separately metered tariffs used for appliances. 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