Local Renewable Energy Zone (LREZ) pilot project sites at Caloundra and Townsville will help the community generate more renewable energy, and store it and share it locally across the poles and wires infrastructure that already exists.
LREZs will be a complete local energy system for communities coordinating generation from rooftop solar installations, electric vehicle charging, customer batteries, hot water, community and network batteries, with the existing network infrastructure to support a renewable energy transition led by customers.
ZEN Inc. Reps. Colin Lambie & Anne Kennedy and Anne Nolan, representing Noosa Council, were invited to a recent forum at Energy Qld. in Brisbane, along with industry and community leaders to provide input into how to maximise the benefits of consumer energy resources like solar and batteries for the LREZ’s.
The Queensland LREZ is a nation-first project to maximise the value of locally produced renewable energy for all customers including renters, vulnerable customers and those who live in unit complexes and do not have access to solar power.
Roof top solar is already a significant contributor to our emissions reductions targets, however there remains untapped potential for roof tops to host even more solar. The LREZ will seek to encourage increased levels of renewable energy generation by homes and businesses, with support from batteries in an efficient way that gets the most benefit from the existing poles and wires infrastructure that already exists.
The pilot project includes a partnership with universities and peak body organisations such as the Smart Energy Council to research key elements of the pilot program to inform customer incentive programs, economic models, customer adoption and behaviour, and technical standards. This vital research will inform the future design and development of LREZs across Queensland.
The LREZ enables communities to lead the way in the renewable energy transition and will bring together customers, retailers, and networks for a co-ordinated collaborative approach to delivering on renewable energy targets supporting not only the local area, but also the Queensland energy system.