Are solar battery-powered homes the future?

A hybrid energy trial will be conducted by Ergon Energy from September in 33 Regional Queensland homes, to determine whether solar battery-powered homes could be the way of the future.

Queensland is known for receiving large amounts of sunshine, so it’s no surprise more than 400,000 homes in Queensland already have solar on their roofs. However, Ergon Energy explains that the next big shift is finding the best ways to combine this technology with batteries for home storage.

Dubbed the Hybrid Energy Service, the trail will assess how the energy provider can best deliver a cost effective option to its customers in the future.

The trial will be run over 12 months in the regions of Townsville, Cannonvale and Toowoomba in households that consume large amounts of energy per quarter and have four or more bedrooms. To help reduce the cost of energy for these households, the participants will receive a 4.9kW SunPower PV array and a 12kWh/5kW Sunverge battery storage and control system.

Energy Minister Mark Bailey said Labor was committed to one million solar rooftops by 2020 and described the solar battery project as heartening.

“Queensland is already one of the world’s highest per capital users of solar energy with more than 400,000 residential solar rooftops and the next big shift is combining this with batteries for home storage."

Minister Assisting the Premier on North Queensland Coralee O’Rourke said the trial could see more solar batteries rolled out across regional Queensland.

Ergon Energy is contributing $2.2 million for the trial, while the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) will put forward $400,000 to explore a new approach for providing solar PV and battery storage systems to residential customers.

So will solar battery powered homes be the way of the future? Watch this space...

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