Noosaville Community Battery Project

About the project

As a resident in the local area, we would like to invite you to an information session regarding the project. You will be able to meet the project team and experts to ask any questions you may have about the community battery. If you were at home at the time, one of our friendly door knockers would have told you about the meeting.

When: Wednesday 6th December

Where: Noosaville State School Hall. Enter at Sea Eagle Drive

Time: 4:30pm to 5:30pm

At the meeting you will find out about:

• what is a community battery

• transitioning to a renewable energy grid

• what can community batteries do

• why does Noosa Council want to own a community battery

• what the site selection process was

• the technology of the community battery

• the community engagement process

And most importantly there will be plenty of time for you to ask your questions.

If you can’t make it to the meeting but would like to talk with us, please contact us here.

The annotated map below shows the catchment area for the proposed community battery. Low voltage (240/415 volt) underground cables are shown as red lines. Pillars where houses take their electricity connections are shown as green circles.

There are 74 houses in the catchment area for electricity fed from the Energex padmount transformer in McGregor Park. There is a very high penetration of solar on rooftops, 58 have solar (78%). One house just has a solar water heater on its roof. tachment

Site selection process

Noosaville was one of the eligible locations for the Community Batteries for Household Solar program. We needed to identify areas of the Energex network in Noosaville where there is an excess of daytime solar generation to soak up, and where the stored solar energy can be consumed at night, so this put the focus on residential areas.

Suitable land must be available, meeting criteria such as visual amenity, noise, vegetation disturbance, proximity to houses and roads, slope, flooding, ease of access, fire, ownership of the land, native title, impact on use of the area, and ease of connection to Energex network.

Areas of high solar density which also serve a larger number of households are preferred.

We viewed data and maps, did drivebys and visited 12 catchment areas looking for suitable sites. We also checked Energex monitoring of transformers and saw there indeed was lots of excess solar being generated which could be stored and used at night.

We scored potential sites against 19 criteria and this site scored as highly ranked. An agreement to connect to the Energex network needs to be secured.

The site

The annotated map below shows the approximate position of the community battery. It will have a footprint of about 1m x 4m and will consist of 4 separate cabinets, one is a control cabinet and the other 3 are the battery units. Noosa Council Parks staff have recently removed 3 dead trees near the proposed site.

A Community Advisory Group - Noosaville (CAG-N) will be formed to provide insights, ideas, feedback and advice from the local community’s perspective to the project team about the proposed community battery project. The group will

• work directly with the project team to ensure the local community’s perspectives, aspirations and priorities are understood and considered in the project team’s decision-making

• provide input to the project team about the proposed community battery installation. Such input is likely to include:

  • Communication and seeking input from the local community 

  • Final placement of the proposed community battery and connected hardware on the approved site

  • Visual elements/aesthetics

  •  Advice on preferred community benefit from potential surplus funds for the wider Noosa Community

We encourage Expressions of Interest to join the CAG-N from local residents. Please apply using the pre-filled email template here. Applications will close at 5pm on Friday 15 December 2023, and successful applicants will be notified by Monday 18 December. The first meeting is planned to be in the week beginning 15 January 2024.

You can read the Terms Of Reference for the Community Advisory Group here.

Register to receive email updates or revisit this page to follow progress of the project.

22 November 2023

Residents in the immediate area of the proposed location for the Community Battery met onsite and heard from Councillor Brian Stockwell, Annie Nolan (Noosa Council Carbon Reduction Officer), Geoff Acton (Zero Emissions Noosa), Darren Nankivell (Pixii - battery manufacturer) and Vivien Griffin (Zero Emissions Noosa). Residents had plenty of opportunity to ask lots of well-informed questions and enjoy a slice of pizza.

Energex and Ergon are connecting community batteries to the local electricity network in 12 different communities across Queensland, funded from the same Community Batteries for Household Solar program as our Noosaville one. You can read about their program here, and they also have an introductory presentation. They also have a trial running of 30 pole top and 5 ground mounted batteries in the Ipswich area. The Pixii manufactured battery we have chosen is also being used in the Energex programs.

Ausgrid is a network operator in New South Wales like Energex. They have been awarded grants like ours to deliver 6 community batteries. You can read about their journey here, and the video below shows the launch of the first Community Battery as part of the program. Ausgrid chose the same battery manufacturer, Pixii, we we have.

Artwork

A number of community batteries that have been installed feature striking artwork. No decisions have been made on this for the Noosaville Community Battery.

Links

• Noosa Council Community Battery Project webpage

• Yarra Energy Foundation website

• Zero Emissions Noosa website

This project received grant funding from the Australian Government.
This webpage by Zero Emissions Noosa on behalf of the project team.
More information about the project on the Noosa Council website