Victorian Premier, Daniel Andrews, has announced a new re-election promise – a $42 million investment plan to install 100 neighbourhood batteries across the state.
The investment will support 25,000 homes to access local renewable energy, tripling the number of homes that have access to a neighbourhood battery.
The Labor Government’s plan will be to initially install batteries in 28 communities across Victoria – 15 in metropolitan Melbourne and 13 in regional Victoria.
Mr Andrews said his government will work with community organisations, local governments and distribution companies to identify the locations for the remaining 72 batteries.
The new battery plan builds on the neighbourhood batteries the State Government has already delivered in Fitzroy North and Yackandandah and those currently being built in Tarneit and Phillip Island.
Neighbourhood batteries will store clean, cheap energy when it is abundant during the day and feed it back into the grid when it’s needed at night.
Increasing storage capacity will mean more households can reap the rewards of returning surplus solar-generated electricity to the grid through feed-in tariffs, and it means more households will have access to cheaper renewable energy – even if they don’t have their own solar panels.
The Victorian Government launched world-leading energy storage targets of 2.6GW of renewable energy storage capacity by 2030 and 6.3GW of storage by 2035 – enough renewable energy to power around half of Victoria’s current homes at their peak energy use.
Earlier in 2022, the government installed the biggest battery in the Southern Hemisphere in Geelong, andinstalled big and neighbourhood batteries across the state and given thousands of rebates to help families buy household batteries for their solar homes.
Victorian Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Action, Lily D’Ambrosio, said, “One hundred batteries in communities across the state will drive down power bills and pave the way for us to reach our world-leading targets – 95 per cent renewable energy by 2035 and net zero emissions by 2045.”
Initial Neighbourhood Batteries
- Ballarat
- Bass Coast
- Baw Baw
- Campaspe
- Cardinia
- Casey
- Darebin
- East Gippsland
- Greater Bendigo
- Greater Dandenong
- Greater Shepparton
- Hume
- Knox
- Macedon Ranges
- Maribyrnong
- Merri-Bek
- Mildura
- Moira
- Monash
- Moonee Valley
- Mornington Peninsula
- Port Phillip Bay
- Wangaratta
- Wellington
- Whittlesea
- Wodonga
- Wyndham
- Yarra Ranges
The State Government has already shared re-election plans to revive the State Electricity Commission (SEC) and powering the state with cleaner, cheaper renewable electricity to drive bills down. The plan is estimated to support 59,000 Victorian jobs.
