People power: Why your suburb might soon have a battery like this one

with plans to replace the legacy monoliths. But Australians are leading the world in one corner of the clean energy revolution: rooftop solar panels.

One part of the solution has been the introduction of two-way pricing, which starts as an opt-in scheme this year, aiming to encourage solar households to use more of their own solar power during the day by charging a small fee for exporting solar to the grid from 10am to 3pm and lifting the reward for exports made between 4pm and 9pm.Some solar advocacy groups criticise Ausgrid’s move, saying it amounts to a penalty that could discourage solar uptake .

Ausgrid, which runs the power poles and wires across swathes of central Sydney, the Central Coast and the Hunter Valley, is focusing on the deployment of a different type of battery, one that sits in the middle ground between grid-scale and small-scale, known as the “community battery”. “That’s important because we don’t think that the benefits of batteries should only be for homeowners with the capital available for them to make their own purchase.”

ARENA associate director of business development Leon Chanter says the level of interest from applicants for the $120 million first round of grant funding was surprisingly high.While community batteries are not yet commercial, Chanter says the funding is expected to push the technology forward. Local opposition to new energy projects needed to modernise the grid, particularly transmission lines, has become one of the greatest obstacles for Australia’s shift to cleaner power. According to Ausgrid, surveys indicate community batteries are considered lower-impact, and they have a relatively high level of support: 75 per cent of respondents say they would be comfortable having them included in their distribution networks.

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