Residents of Adelaide’s north are being targeted for Australia’s largest suburban trial of power-storage batteries according to ABC News.
SA Power Networks is eyeing to recruit 100 customers at Salisbury to purchase a heavily subsidised home storage battery as the energy distributor is attempting to avoid a $3M network upgrade. These battery systems can store electricity from solar panels or the grid and can be used at night or when there is a power outage or blackout.
According to Paul Roberts spokesman of SA Power Networks, they will be supplying batteries for half the regular battery prices ranging from $10,000-$20,000 at less than $3,600. A $3M allowance form the Australian Energy Regulator will help fund the trial along with funds from SA Power Networks. He added that if they don’t find some sort of solution, they will need to invest $3M to actually upgrade the network’s capacity to meet the growing needs.
Letters are being sent to 2,500 residents asking them to buy Samsung and Tesla batteries which were chosen by way of a tender process. Eligible customers are required to use a minimum 4,000kWh of annual grid electricity or about 2500kWh every year on solar panels and be connected to one of the powerlines eyed in the trial.
Mr. Roberts said they would need to have a maximum of 3kW of solar panels, with SA Power Networks giving their hand with the funding for those people who need to buy them. SA Power Networks is hoping to install the batteries by June.
Doing this trial is an advantage to the Adelaide residents since they will not pay a cent to use the new batteries and will further learn the advantages of home energy storage.