Artist’s concept drawings of how VSUN’s residential flow battery could look. Image: VSUN.
The government of Victoria, Australia, has opened a round of funding for ‘neighbourhood-scale’ battery storage, while in Western Australia a vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) will be deployed at a mining site.
Both are projects aimed at demonstrating the capabilities of distributed energy storage.
Multiple value streams
Neighbourhood batteries are essentially sized to benefit whole communities and enable them to benefit from rooftop solar in their area without having to invest in a battery system or each household.
Meanwhile they are smaller than utility-scale batteries, making them easier to site, as well as potentially quicker to construct and cheaper.
Through its Neighbourhood Battery Initiative grant programme, the Victorian state government is offering…