The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) has announced it is providing support for a project examining shared solar electricity generation and energy storage capacity in the suburbs of metropolitan areas.
Moreland Energy Foundation Limited (MEFL) and its partners in the project, GreenSync and Jemena, will initially examine historical electricity consumption data from medium-density Melbourne suburbs. Then, the project will determine how shared solar power and battery storage systems; i.e. micro-grids, could supply ‘behind the meter’ electricity requirements; plus how networks could adapt to enable more grid-connected solar to be installed.
The project will be one of the first instances inner urban residential neighbourhoods have been examined in this way.
ARENA CEO Ivor Frischknecht says there can be limitations to how many solar panels each household can install with relation to the grid as networks were originally designed to facilitate the flow of power only one way. Issues can arise if too much solar electricity is exported to the grid at any given moment.
“In addition to working with networks to look at ways to better manage the integration of renewable energy and two-way traffic, ARENA is supporting projects like this one to explore the logistical, regulatory and financial challenges involved in adopting micro-grids in existing suburbs,” said Mr. Frischknecht.
“Micro-grids could enable more solar energy to be shared between neighbours at peak times when grid power is most expensive, increasing the value to participating residences.”
Mr. Frischknecht says other benefits of micro-grids include the reduction of peak demand, which could assist network utilities in managing challenging periods of varying power production and overall mains grid activity.
“Pooling solar PV generation and storage across a number of households using a neighbourhood ‘micro-grid’ could address certain challenges and allow residential customers to generate, store and use more of their own solar PV,” he stated.
(ARENA) is providing $112,400 support for the project, the results of which are due in May next year.
Moreland Energy Foundation is an independent not-for-profit organisation, based in the municipality of Moreland in Melbourne’s inner north. Among its services is social enterprise Positive Charge; which has been involved with a number of successful community solar bulk buy programs and commercial-scale projects such as Yarra’s Edge Towers.
