Five regional New South Wales communities have been chosen for a compact energy storage trial, with Essential Energy recently installing pole-mounted batteries across its network.
Essential Energy has partnered with Origin Energy to roll out the trial that seeks to understand how to best use batteries for communities to get the most out of their rooftop solar while supporting them through the energy transition.
Essential Energy crew installing a pole-mounted battery
The batteries can store the excess rooftop solar generated during the day and release it when energy demand is high and solar systems are no longer generating, such as when the sun goes down.
The trial provides the opportunity for residents to locally generate, store and use renewable energy in their neighbourhood without having to invest in a home battery.
Essential Energy’s Chief Operating Officer, Luke Jenner says that seven pole-mounted batteries are being connected to the electricity grid in each community to service nearby homes.
“The benefits of localised energy storage for the community is that the energy can be stored where it's generated, adjacent to customer homes, and then it can be used by those homes in the evening without having to be transported long distances. So effectively, we can store that energy where it's generated and where it's used,” Luke says.
Rooftop solar has transformed how the electricity network is used. There is now a two-way flow of electricity to the grid; sending and receiving. The use of batteries allows Essential Energy to manage peak demand periods and voltage on our network, especially as solar generation increases. Batteries are key part of supporting customers and the network through the energy transition.
“The communities were chosen for the trial because they are locations where there is an excess of solar energy throughout the day, and we can use the batteries to store that energy and then reuse it later on.”
The trial will see the installation of 35 batteries on power poles in five towns in regional NSW: Armidale, Port Macquarie, Dubbo, Bathurst, and Wagga Wagga.
Essential Energy will install and maintain the batteries with Origin Energy orchestrating them through its Virtual Power Plant and offering storage-as-a-service for customers, including non-Origin customers, within the trial area. The trial will be open to customers with or without solar systems.
Find out more about the Pole-Mounted Battery trial.
The shift from fossil fuel electricity generation to renewable energy generation.
Essential Energy’s role in the energy transition
Delivering safe and reliable electricity for our communities is at the core of what we do, and as the energy sector transitions from coal-fired power towards renewable energy generation, we too are transforming.
Through innovation and technology, we are actively supporting the energy transition through enabling the connections of renewable energy on the network.
The poles and wires that line our streets deliver the energy that powers the homes, hospitals, schools and businesses that form our communities. But they can also allow for communities to generate, share and store their own electricity.
Building the network of the future will empower communities to be a part of the transition and can drive economic growth in regional, remote and rural New South Wales.
We are trialling and implementing ways to connect communities to share energy for a better tomorrow and developing the skills and training so our people can inspire and enable the network of the future.
Together we can build a brighter future for regional, rural and remote New South Wales.
We are empowering the energy transition.
Read more about the energy transition and benefits for regional, rural and remote communities.
There was a strong interest in the program with 490 groups progressing to the voting phase, and almost 170,000 votes received. This year 80 community groups were supported across 20 zones.
We were thrilled to see many diverse groups receive funding, including 32 groups located within small communities who received either first, second or third place funding.
View the Champions for each zone, including the Small Communities category.
The Community Choices program is back to support community groups with funding increased to $250,000 this year.
Community groups, charities, community halls and not-for-profit organisations will be able to nominate to participate in the program, with a total of $250,000 to be shared with eligible groups in 20 zones across our network area.
- 1st prize $5,000
- 2nd prize $3,500
- 3rd prize $2,750
- $1,250 for one group located in a small community with populations less than 10,000.
Dates to keep in mind
- Nominations open: 9am, Wednesday 31 May 2023
- Nominations close: 5pm, Monday 26 June 2023
- Voting opens: Midday, Monday 3 July 2023
- Voting closes: 5pm Monday 17 July 2023
Information is available on our website: Community Choices (essentialenergy.com.au).
The types of eligible organisations include: sporting clubs, community associations, animal shelters, surf lifesaving clubs, country women’s associations and men’s sheds. Winners in each zone will be determined by the number of votes received during the voting period, with voters able to vote for multiple groups.
Designing the future of energy together
Essential Energy has submitted its 2024-29 Regulatory Proposal to the Australian Energy Regulator (AER), following a two-year program of customer and stakeholder engagement.
The Proposal outlines how Essential Energy will operate and maintain NSW’s largest electricity distribution network from 1 July 2024 to 30 June 2029 and includes plans to tackle key customer and stakeholder concerns, including realising the benefits of the energy transition and increasing community and network resilience.
Essential Energy engaged over 400 people in a multi-phased program of customer and stakeholder engagement, which commenced in July 2021.
From 1 July 2024 key investments include:
- $317 million in community and network resilience to weather extremes, including strategic deployment of fireproof (composite) power poles, microgrids and stand-alone power systems.
- $171 million in new technologies to support customers to access more renewable energy and increasing electrification such as increase uptake of electric vehicles (EVs), solar and batteries.
The Essential Energy 2024-29 Regulatory Proposal, Fact Sheet and Customer Overview documents are all available on our website
Essential Energy has received global recognition as a finalist in the 2022 Going Digital Awards in Grid, for the development of an Intelligent Digital Design System (IDDS) for substation projects, which involved automating existing manual processes, developing an agile design approach and and multiple system integrations.
You can read more about this here.
Essential Energy is pleased to be part of the NSW Government’s pilot on the Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) statements. First published by the international Financial Stability Board in 2017, the TCFD framework is designed to improve climate-related disclosures by organisations, giving stakeholders greater visibility of their approach to climate change.
You can read more about this here.
In an Australian-first, Essential Energy is trialling a hydrogen-powered Stand Alone Power System (SAPS) to power the historic Cutlers Cottage located in the Myall Lakes National Park on the mid-north coast of NSW.
You can read about this here.
Essential Energy is continually working closely with key groups to identify how renewable energy can support sustainable business. Recently we have partnered with The Agricultural Renewable Energy Acceleration Initiative (AREA), NSW Farmers and Norco to find new ways for dairy farmers to manage energy costs and reliability. You can read about this here.
Essential Energy's tariff trials are up and running.
The tariff trials are designed to help Essential Energy understand how electricity consumption is impacting network costs and how Essential Energy can send the right price signals to customers in the future.
Essential Energy is encouraging households and small businesses to use more energy between the hours of 10am and 3pm when there is more energy generated from new sources like solar.
An educational campaign in the areas of Broken Hill, Bungendore, Sutton and Queanbeyan has just begun. This will test that if by information alone, households will change their behaviour and shift energy use.
Soon Essential Energy will be rolling out the new tariffs with some retail partners.
