With so much solar and wind energy at Leonards Hill, we have been investigating a community battery that could capture and make the most of our energy.
With the addition of solar at the energy park, we’ll experience periods where we generate more than the grid can take, resulting in a loss of power known as ‘curtailment losses’. Installing a battery energy storage system (or BESS) could recover this energy and allow us to feed back into the grid when needed. A battery could also provide grid and market services while helping our community become more resilient to blackouts. If we proceed with battery storage, technical specs and make will be determined with expert advice.
For more information, you can read our Planning Permit in the Downloads section.
Hepburn Energy partnered with the Central Victorian Greenhouse Alliance (CVGA), Hepburn Shire Council and Orkestra to look at the potential of community-scale batteries in our region. The project, called Community Sparks, was funded by the State Government’s Neighbourhood Battery Initiative.
This project assessed community-scale batteries’ technical and financial feasibility, explored potential sites and created resources to help community members engage with this technology.
You can take a look at our findings in the Community-Scale Batteries Booklet or find out more on the Hepburn Z-NET page here.
Watch our explainer animation here!
Is the potential capacity of a future battery at the Energy Park.