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The Clean Energy Council is supportive of election commitment by the ACT Labor Government to deliver a 250 MW battery network.
Utility-scale batteries help to smooth the output of wind and solar and can also provide critical system services, including swift response to frequency changes on the energy system.
“It’s great to see a strong commitment by ACT Labor to match its leadership in supporting new renewable energy generation with a big vision for energy storage capability,” said Clean Energy Council Chief Executive, Kane Thornton.
The proposal builds on the two large-scale batteries announced last month as part of the ACT Government’s reverse auction scheme.
“Battery storage can ensure that energy users have access to clean, low-cost renewable electricity 24/7, and government support can accelerate the deployment as the cost of storage comes down,” said Thornton.
The community battery model, like the Big Canberra Battery plan, is emerging as a smart and efficient way to deploy storage.
Energy storage currently accounts for around 6 per cent of Australia’s renewable energy workforce (excluding Western Australia and the Northern Territory), as revealed in the Clean Energy At Work report.
Significantly, this election commitment by the ACT Labor Government points to new business models unlocked by the deployment of community-scale batteries including PowerBanks, peer-to-peer trading and power-sharing.
