Australia’s Yarra Energy Foundation analyses a year in the life of a community battery storage system (original) (raw)

The system operates on the electricity market via retailer Acacia Energy.

According to Yarra, the community BESS’ revenue came mainly from energy arbitrage (AU$8,158) throughout the year with a smaller portion coming from Citipower’s bidirectional community battery trial tariff (AU$1,046).

This tariff enables a battery to earn income by charging and discharging at times that support the network. Citipower owns and operates the electricity distribution system in the city’s Central Business District and launched the trial in July 2022.

Revenue was negatively impacted by 11% system downtime caused by equipment and software issues, while a power spike problem hindered participation in the frequency control ancillary services (FCAS) markets.

Over the 12 months, the battery charged 81MWh and discharged 64MWh, with an average roundtrip efficiency of 79%. Below is a breakdown of the community battery’s performance over the financial year.

Image: Yarra Energy Foundation.

It is worth noting that Stace Tzamtzidis, solar, storage and EV regional director at energy management solutions provider GridBeyond Australia, said that a community BESS in the country could earn up to AU$250,000 year in an article for Energy-Storage.news last year.

According to Tzamtzidis, a 1MW community-owned battery enrolled in the Frequency Control Ancillary Services (FCAS) programme could generate AU$250,000/year in revenues for its community owners.

Hardware failures and system outages

Despite the start of operations from July to December 2023 performing relatively smoothly, the community BESS was soon hit with several issues Yarra had to solve.

Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) updates to the interface with Acacia’s dispatch system caused an unplanned outage in December 2023. This was quickly fixed before a larger issue, caused by a battery module failure, hit the system.

This battery failure impacted the power supply to the 4G router and caused the system to go offline. After resolving these issues on 12 January, the system stayed offline for an additional nine days as the dispatch command responsibility shifted from Mill Software to Acacia Energy, Yarra said. As a result, the system remained unavailable until 21 January 2024.

The community BESS was also impacted by a transmission line outage on 13 February, which led to wholesale electricity prices skyrocketing to the market cap, standing at around AU$16,600/MWh for 120 minutes.

Yarra explained that during this period, the community battery continued to charge normally because AEMO provided delayed spot price signals to Acacia’s dispatch engine. As a direct result of charging during this peak price event, the system incurred a cost of AU$320 that day.

The community battery returned to steady operations throughout April to June 2024 operating without any major disruption.

Ausgrid switches on new community BESS in Sydney, New South Wales

The report comes as Ausgrid has switched on a new 200kW/284kWh community BESS in Cammeray, a suburb of Sydney, the capital of New South Wales.

The community battery is owned by Australian network company Ausgrid and becomes the latest in its portfolio in Sydney. The organisation launched its ninth community battery in Bondi, an eastern suburb of Sydney, in August last year.

According to the Australian government, the community battery will serve around 350 local citizens and provide approximately AU$200 in savings a year.

Australia has some of the highest residential solar penetration rates worldwide, with over four million rooftop installations. The country also leads the world in per capita solar production, with research from think tank Ember indicating that 2023’s average was around 1,810kWh.

Despite various incentive schemes, home batteries have not matched this substantial solar PV uptake. However, larger community batteries have grown in popularity, combining multiple residential areas to pool household renewable energy generation through rooftop solar PV.