This article discusses the growing energy storage market in Australia. It notes that while energy storage technologies are currently too expensive to be widely adopted, costs are expected to fall significantly in the coming years as new products enter the market. Energy storage could allow solar customers to store excess solar energy for later use, reducing electricity bills. The CEO of the Energy Storage Council expects mainstream adoption of domestic energy storage in Australia as early as 2018, much sooner than many predict. Standards will need to adapt to new battery technologies to ensure safety and reliability as the market develops.

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COVER STORY
Assault of the battery
E
nergy storage has been hailed
by many as a game-changer for
the power industry – touted to
do to the energy market what Web 2.0
did to media consumption. And while
the technologies on the market today
aren’t sufficiently advanced to make it an
economically viable option for most, it may
only a matter of time before the energy
market landscape changes forever.
John Grimes is chief executive of the
Energy Storage Council (ESC) and the
Australian Solar Council (ASC) and has
seen a dramatic increase in focus on the
energy storage issue over the past three
years. While the market in Australia remains
embryonic, John has seen a particularly
strong pull towards on-grid energy storage
in conjunction with solar, and a steep overall
rise in market awareness and consumer
interest in the emergent technologies.
“One of the big spin-offs of the billions of
dollars that has been ploughed into electric
vehicle research in places like China and
the US has been energy dense, compact
and relatively inexpensive batteries. Most
developers are using lithium-ion technology
– the same as in mobile phones, laptops and
many power tools – so people are pretty
familiar with that kind of battery. These have
been scaled up to be used in domestic or
small business applications.
“There are a range of products available
now that look like anything from a mini
bar fridge through to a full height fridge
that will store anywhere between 1kWh to
10kWh of electricity,” John says.
This gives solar customers the ability to
store energy acquired in peak generation
times that would otherwise be exported,
for little or no return, back to the grid. They
can then use this energy when it is needed
and reduce tariffs paid to utilities, or avoid
them altogether.
“People are increasingly looking for
energy storage sufficient to capture energy
production mid-afternoon and use it when
they get home in the evening. So it’s about
time shifting from when the energy is
produced to when the customer actually
needs the energy in their house.”
The problem with the storage solutions
currently on the market is that prices are
prohibitively high if any economic gains are
to be made by the process.
“Today there are solutions available to
buy that will cost you the equivalent of
about 30c/kWh. That’s still a bit high for
most of us because grid electricity sells
for around 25-28c/kWh on average. But
in some parts of regional Australia people
are paying energy rates upwards of 42c/
kWh so in those cases it’s already a viable
money saving solution,” John says.
However, technologies are evolving
rapidly and several new products that
could significantly reduce storage costs are
poised for imminent release.
“I’m aware of three companies that are
coming to market this year with solutions
that will be significantly cheaper. Once
you have a battery storage solution that
delivers you energy at a cost less than you
can buy it from the grid it starts to get
really interesting and will open up a lot of
market applications.”
Tesla’s Powerwall unit, due to hit the
market towards the end of the year, is already
available for pre-order and is reportedly
experiencing overwhelming demand. The
sleek, wall-mounted Powerwall units will
be available in 7kWh and 10kWh sizes with
the ability to ‘stack’ up to nine units to fulfil a
range of energy requirements.
German company Daimler AG is
also primed to enter the market with
Mercedes-Benz branded, scalable lithium-
ion batteries. And Panasonic is currently
conducting Australian tests on an 8kWh
unit the company estimates will double a
household’s self-consumption.
“According to research done by the
Rocky Mountain Institute, places like
The way we provide and
consume energy is destined to
undergo a paradigm shift – and
maybe much sooner than we
think. Jacob Harris explains.
This article has been reproduced with permission from ELECTRICAL Connection magazine, SPRING 2015.
Connection Magazines does not endorse any manufacturer, product or service nor does it provide any assurances of product or service performance.
ELECTRICAL Connection

2. w w w.e l e c t r i c a l c o n n e c t i o n .c o m . a u 2 3
Hawaii will see mainstream adoption of
the technology as early as 2018. Australian
conditions are actually very similar – our
energy prices are some of the highest in
the world – so it’s not unreasonable to
assume Australia will be operating on a
similar time frame,” John says.
“That will shock many people because
there seems to be a pervading view that
energy storage is still five to 10 years away,
but that’s just not the case. I joined the solar
industry in 2008 when there were 22MW
of installed solar in Australia now there’s
4GW. So rapid change is something we’ve
seen before in the industry and I think the
conditions are similar for energy storage as
they were for solar.”
As is often the case with rapidly
developing technologies, Australian
standards – that were written around lead
acid batteries – are going to have to play
some pretty serious catch up. To this end,
Standards Australia recently announced
that it is forming a working group to
update the standards in relation to energy
storage. The ESC will be part of that process
and sit on the committee.
“We want long term, safe, reliable,
high quality energy storage solutions for
Australia. We don’t want to see systems
that are half baked come into the market
and cause injury or damage. It would
be really bad for an industry like energy
storage so making sure that what we do
at this early stage is world’s best practice is
what we should be aspiring to.
“We also need to engage in a positive way
with utilities. We need to understand the
technical issues that they face and how the
application of energy storage can help them
deliver against their mandate. We don’t want
to set up a situation where it’s us or them,
where the utilities block out energy storage
because they’re fearful that it’s actually
taking market share away from them. So
engaging in a positive way with the utilities
and the regulators is really important for our
industry and that’s the other primary focus
of our work at the moment.”
Such is the opportunity presented
by power storage technology, Electrical
Connection will continue to investigate the
storage sector and profile any advances to
the technology on offer.
> Energy Storage Council
www.energystorage.org.au
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This article has been reproduced with permission from ELECTRICAL Connection magazine, SPRING 2015.
Connection Magazines does not endorse any manufacturer, product or service nor does it provide any assurances of product or service performance.
ELECTRICAL Connection