Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews yesterday pledged to spend a bunch of bucks on neighbourhood batteries if Labor is returned to power. He also revealed his own rooftop solar status.
In another clean power pitch to punters, Premier Andrews said a re-elected Labor Government will invest $42 million to install 100 neighbourhood batteries across Victoria – so an average of $420,000 a pop.
Labor will initially install batteries in 28 communities across the state; 15 of which will be in metropolitan Melbourne and 13 in regional Victoria (see the list of towns and suburbs here). As for the remaining 72 systems, Labor will work with community groups, councils and Distributed Network Service Providers (DNSPs) to determine where they should wind up.
The batteries will soak up surplus solar electricity produced locally, which is becoming increasingly plentiful during daylight hours given the ongoing popularity of home solar power in Victoria .
“These neighbourhood batteries will store this clean, cheap energy when it is abundant during the day and feed it back into the grid when it’s needed at night – keeping the lights on and power bills down,” said the Premier.
In 2020, Victorian DNSP Powercor received funding from the Victorian Government’s Neighbourhood Battery Initiative to lead a feasibility study into community batteries. The initiative resulted in a report and guide for developing neighbourhood batteries as community assets. The Powerful Neighbours report noted such projects are “highly contextual” – not easily scalable and a model used in one neighbourhood may not be suitable in another.
Other clean power related commitments made by Victorian Labor in recent weeks include bringing back government-owned energy by reviving the State Electricity Commission (SEC).
“Unreliable, privatised coal will be replaced by clean, government-owned, renewable energy,” said the Premier.
Labor also committed to delivering new renewable energy targets for the state – boosted to 65 per cent by 2030, and 95 per cent by 2035.
Dan Andrews’ Rooftop Is Naked
During the press conference yesterday announcing the neighbourhood battery bonanza, the Premier was asked whether he had solar power at home.
He appeared a little caught off guard by this, and his response:
“No I don’t, no I do not. That’s something we may well do in the future.”
Shock, horror! Perhaps a new conspiracy theory will spring up around this.
The Premier assured a reporter particularly interested in pursuing this revelation that if he did install a system, he would *not* be accessing Victoria’s solar panel rebate. Mr. Andrews will need to pony up an extra $1,400 (the current maximum state subsidy) for his solar power system when he gets around to it. That should be feasible on a $464,918 salary package.
Perhaps the Premier has been a little too busy these past few years to get around to arranging quotes for solar. Mr. Andrews, if you’re reading this, we can save you some time and hassle by putting you in touch with some really good solar installers in Melbourne.
Victorians go to the polls on 26 November 2022. As the parties don’t appear to be done on their election promises yet, we’ll have a roundup of who is pledging what in relation to clean power closer to the big day.
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This is fantastic. Capturing rooftop solar’s daytime peaks and using them to cover the peak evening period is the answer to reducing our reliance on fossil fuels!
I hope they acknowledge the risk of Huawei products and dont use them on these batteries. Dan Andrew’s own climate change minister said theyre a massive security risk https://www.afr.com/policy/energy-and-climate/chinese-solar-a-key-risk-to-australia-s-2030-climate-goal-bowen-20220923-p5bkit
Solar batteries are nice but that doesn’t balance out Labour fracking the 12 apostles.
This seems like SQ is campaigning for Victoria’s Labor.
Are Liberals not offering anything in the battery\EV\public transport\solar\whatever else line???
The first battery installed, the Yarra Community Battery cost $800k for a 284kWh battery, that works out at ~$2800 a kWh, or roughly $38k for 13.5kWh (ie a Tesla Powerwall).
Since we know that Tesla Powerwalls never pay their cost back, why does installing a “community battery” at more than double the per kWh rate make sense?
Both political parties have announced policies. Perhaps we can be better informed by exposing us to all policies/commitments that can potentially impact the sector.