ON DEMAND ENERGY
POWOW: Unlocking the solar battery market DURING THE SMART ENERGY CONFERENCE in May several presenters spruiked the imminent rise in uptake of residential battery storage as the future of the solar industry. With electricity prices rising and feed in tariffs declining, that future is coming quicker than we thought. Alex Georgiou calls this Solar 2.0 – a world where solar providers can offer whole home panel, battery, and virtual power plant solutions for less than customers are currently paying for grid electricity. Powow is a new, disruptive player aiming to unlock that future for solar companies across Australia. The Powow offer involves a storage battery system purchase made easy through plans and options to participate in a virtual power plant to maximise income and savings. Alex is a strong advocate of VPPs given their ability to provide ondemand battery power to support the grid and generate extra savings for participating homeowners. “Virtual power plants are key to unlocking battery sales at scale across Australia because they cut down the payback time while generating community grid benefit,” he said. “If you don’t have a VPP, you’re going to have a hard time selling batteries in the future.” Powow’s VPP offering that operates across the eastern states is built off the back of proprietary software developed in house.
An offer too good to refuse? During his powerful presentation on how to use the Powow PPA and VPP to sell more batteries to Powow’s target market – existing solar panel installers – at the Smart Energy Show in Sydney in May, Alex said “We are helping solar businesses supercharge their business – to go out and confidently sell batteries by bringing everything they need to sell batteries in one place. It’s an industry toolkit to help companies, organisations and businesses increase their battery adoption, and a way we can provide tools to installer companies to be able to roll out home energy systems beyond PV panels. “The Powow VPP can develop into one giant people’s power plant that can knock off the need to build more gas power plants and facilitate shutdown of others.” Homeowners benefit from participating in the Powow VPP, the optional extra that could glean up to $200 annually based on excess power at 45c/kWh additional earning stream in VPP. “There are no upfront fees and homeowners can choose whichever electricity retailer they want, while still being on the Powow VPP and
Powow plans to unlock the home battery storage market
earning $0.45/kWh for any battery power sent back to the grid during VPP events. “Importantly, we can replace coal and gas power with sustainable, renewable energy powered by the people.”
Blackouts A recent consumer electricity survey conducted by the government revealed one in three households had blackouts in the past six months. “We found this surprising, it shows the grid is not as stable as many think, it is not handling demand well enough especially on hot days, so the VPP that we offer can help by delivering power from the ground up,” Alex said. It’s also better for the grid [network] as there is less demand for upgrades to poles and wires for the one event, for example during a surge in use during hot summer days. The VPP is working behind the scenes and reduces peak hour power prices, taking the edge off the spike in costs, he said. The grid is already struggling to handle more daytime solar power as it is overloading the system but with batteries in the VPP you get around this by storing the extra daytime power for later. Energy regulations and rules will increasingly hurt households with just solar panels – things will get worse for them. This year many customers will have a 1 cent feed in tariff. By 2025 they may be charging those who export to the grid when it’s not needed, Alex explained. The rules are changing, and those with batteries will benefit from these changes. “Solar 1.0 is dying and Solar 2.0 is emerging on the back of batteries and VPPs.”
Challenges ahead? “Breaking the perception that batteries are too expensive – that is what’s holding back the industry,” Alex said. “Things will get better for those with batteries, they will be favoured.” www.powow.com.au
“Solar 2.0 is emerging on the back of batteries and VPPs.” 40 WINTER 2022
