One way to reduce coal & gas power could be for homeowners to join a virtual power plant

Battery management system, Reposit Power"s phone app. (One Step off the Grid)

The Australian Capital Territory already has a virtual power plant made up off consenting homeowners to share the stored solar power from their home batteries at times of peak electricity demand. This helps level out the peaks and troughs in supply and they get paid a premium rate for this shared power of A$1/kWh.

In a different way, Energy Queensland is also managing distributed renewable energy to form a virtual power plant.

Now the South Australian and the Victorian governments are providing financial support for home battery storage and virtual power plants.

The South Australia Liberal government is getting ready to finally roll out its Home Battery Scheme after confirming $180 million has been allocated for the promised installation of small-scale battery storage in 40,000 homes, as well as large-scale batteries and demand management schemes, including virtual power plants. Individual grants to up to $6,000 will be granted to help with the purchase of the batteries.

Origin Energy has revealed plans to establish what it says will be Victoria’s largest virtual power plant – a $20 million cloud-based platform that will tap around 5MW of the battery-stored solar power of up to 650 customers during periods of peak power demand.

In addition, as a result of increased interest in batteries, the German battery storage giant Sonnen has announced plans to manufacture up to 10,000 battery storage units a year at the old Holden car manufacturing site in Adelaide, confirming that there is a future for manufacturing in a state with high renewables.

Postscripts:
- Canberra Virtual Power Plant awarded top engineering honours. Reposit Power, September 19 2018.
- Ausgrid seeks to expand virtual power plant to cut back on network costs. RenewEconomy, May 22 2019.