The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) has received a significant response under the Community Batteries Funding Program Round 1, with over $3.5 billion of battery deployment projects seeking funding.
ARENA launched Round 1 of the Community Batteries Funding Program in April, aiming to reduce energy bills, emissions, and grid pressure through community battery projects.
With the expression of interest stage now complete, ARENA has received 140 eligible applications from across states and territories, totalling $1.3 billion in grant requests. This is more than ten times the $120 million in funds available in Round 1.
Thirty-one applications have been shortlisted and are invited to submit complete applications, covering all states and territories, with a total grant request of $231 million and project value of $530 million. Fourteen applications under Stream A and 17 under Stream B requested $93 million and $138 million, respectively.
Round 1 will accept applications from various use cases and business models, with shortlisted applicants installing at least five community batteries between 50 kW and 5 MW each and connected to the distribution network.
Community batteries offer energy storage in distribution networks, storing excess solar energy for later use, reducing household electricity costs and easing pressure on the local grid.
According to ARENA CEO Darren Miller, the demand underscores the huge prospects for shared local energy storage.
“In Round 1 of our Community Batteries Funding Program, we experienced tenfold demand in potential requests against the available $120 million. We are pleased to invite 31 applications to the Full Application stage,” Miller said.
“Through these initial projects we hope to see community batteries enable cheaper, cleaner energy storage to communities and provide valuable knowledge that can be shared across Australia to fast track the implementation of these local batteries,” he added.
The Australian Government has allocated $200 million in the 2022-23 Federal Budget to fund the Household Solar budget measure, aiming to deploy 400 community batteries nationwide.
ARENA received $171 million of this funding to deliver at least 342 batteries.
The Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water plans to deliver an initial 58 community batteries under the Business Grants Hub, with batteries already commissioned in Cabarita and Narara as part of the program.
