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Bloomberg
A revolution in south Australia is wresting power from utility-owned grids and putting it inside batteries
installed inside the homes of electricity consumers.
Billed as the world’s biggest “virtual power plant,†AGL Energy Ltd. is installing 1,000 batteries in and around Adelaide at a cost of about A$20 million ($15 million), according to a statement on Friday. The 5-megawatt array, which combines lithium-ion storage, internet routing gear and software to detect energy-consumption patterns, shows how utilities are remaking the way power is generated and transmitted.
“Australia is on the cusp of a battery storage revolution as technology costs continue to fall,†said Ivor Frischknecht, chief executive officer of the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, or ARENA, which will provide A$5 million to the project. This virtual power plant moves away from centralized power stations linked to national grid that utilities have deployed for a century. Energy newcomers such as Apple Inc. and EnerNOC Inc. in the U.S., along with legacy power providers including RWE AG and E.ON SE in Germany, are scrambling for ways to squeeze more out of the intermittent power flows that come from solar panels. They’re combining battery and information technologies to help manage when electricity is delivered.
AGL’s plant will be able to store 7 megawatt-hours of energy with equivalent output of 5 megawatts. It will rolled out in three phases over about 18 months. The company is offering its customers a “heavily discounted†battery system for their homes, according to the statement.