Home solar batteries plan to start for summer, to protect against blackouts
A TAXPAYER-BACKED scheme to bolt batteries on to home solar systems is expected to begin rolling out before summer in a move aimed at helping stave off forced blackouts.
A SCHEME backed by taxpayers to bolt batteries on to home solar systems is expected to begin rolling out before summer, in a move aimed at staving off forced blackouts.
Amid expert warnings that South Australia faces a one-in-10 chance of load shedding this summer, and a breakdown in the national grid at the weekend, SA Energy and Mining Minister Dan van Holst Pellekaan has told The Advertiser that home storage would be a crucial factor in keeping the lights on.
Premier Steven Marshall went to the election with a $100 million means-tested grants scheme, which was to deliver batteries for 40,000 SA homes to attach to their rooftop solar systems.
Mr van Holst Pellekaan said households which took up the batteries would be safeguarded from blackouts, while also leaving more energy in the grid for others to use.
The Government is yet to release details of how households can gain access to the battery scheme, and Mr van Holst Pellekaan declined to estimate how many units would be in place by this summer.
Labor spokesman and former energy minister Tom Koutsantonis said Mr van Holst Pellekaan must rule out selling the emergency diesel generators which he purchased while in government, as analysis showed they could be critical to power security for years to come.
Mr van Holst Pellekaan said the Australian Energy Market Operator’s prediction of an 11 per cent load-shedding risk in SA was “unacceptable”, and more batteries would lessen the risk. “We hope to get a significant number of household batteries out this summer,” he said. “Late summer is typically a higher risk for us, where we tend to have extended heatwaves.
“Homes with the batteries and solar are then protected but, by taking a significant chunk of demand off the system, that reduces the pressure for others.
“It will be first steps this summer, and bigger steps next summer. We will have started to mitigate the problem this summer.”
Mr van Holst Pellekaan said the Government had been waiting for key information, including the AEMO blackout risk update report that was released on Friday, and “will now move fairly swiftly to making a decision about what we do with those (diesel) generators”.
“We will be extremely cautious about the decision that we make with them,” he said.
Mr Koutsantonis said he believed “this summer we are going to find out that Labor buying those generators was the best decision the state has ever made”.
“It looks like it is going to be a horrific summer, with the drought,” Mr Koutsantonis said. “Without our generators … South Australians could be going without power.”
The emergency generators were put in place after forced blackouts shut off 90,000 SA homes in February 2017.
They were not required last summer, amid broader market reform.
SA was cut off from the rest of the national grid on Saturday after storm activity in Queensland led to interconnectors shutting down, including our state’s link to Victoria.
Failure of the SA to Victoria connection was a critical factor in the 2016 statewide blackout.
AEMO said it was working closely with electricity providers to “investigate the root cause” of Saturday’s failures and “has taken steps to protect the network” in the meantime.
Mr van Holst Pellekaan said the event showed the need for SA to build a new link with NSW as insurance when the Victorian link failed, and lower consumer prices.
A decision on construction of the NSW link is due next year, with completion anticipated in 2022.