ARENA Funds Australia’s First Community-Led Electrification Trial

ARENA Funds Australia’s First Community-Led Electrification Trial

Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA), and its partners Brighte, Rewiring Australia and Endeavour Energy, are set to electricity 500 households in New South Wales, in a new project announced recently announced by the organization. ARENA is providing $5.4 million in funding for the “Electrify 2515 Community Pilot” to support the electrification of 500 homes in the north Illawarra 2515 area, providing insights on how Australia could benefit from an electrified future.

ARENA CEO Darren Miller said this project would also contribute to home electrification to grid stability while also reducing energy costs for consumers. He added, “Flexible demand at a residential level is expected to be critical as homes electrify. By undertaking electrification in a managed way, we can reduce the need to upgrade our electricity network and reduce costs for all electricity consumers.”

The main objective of the pilot is to accelerate the energy transition in homes to understand the impact on consumers and the network. This will be done by installing efficient electric appliances and other consumer energy resources (CER) including heat pump space and water heaters, home batteries, and rooftop solar that will be optimised by a home energy management system (HEMS).

By studying the installation journey closely, the pilot will generate insights into consumer behaviour and decision-making when purchasing and using CER to better understand how to scale and commercialise home electrification.

Brighte Founder and CEO Katherine McConnell said the pilot aimed to create the electric future in a real community today. “This project will allow us to learn locally so we can scale nationally, generating critical insights for consumers, tradespeople, industry and policymakers on how to rapidly and effectively scale electrification across Australia.

“We’re excited about the role we can play to demonstrate the power of homes brought to their full potential, lighting a pathway for every Australian community to electrify more easily and fast-forward to a smart, electric future.”

One of the bigger barriers to the commercialisation and widespread adoption CER is upfront cost. The funding provided by ARENA will help to support the purchase of CER for pilot participants taking part in the research program led by Rewiring Australia.

The Electrify 2515 Community Pilot will test the impacts of electrification within a community and within the constraints of Endeavour Energy’s local electricity network. This is expected to allow the sharing of valuable insights on the impacts of residential electrification.

ARENA Strategic Priority: Optimise the Transition to Renewable Electricity

Australia’s electricity system is rapidly evolving. Solar and wind are now the cheapest sources of new bulk electricity supply, and significant numbers of Australian households and businesses continue to install rooftop solar and other distributed energy technologies. Grid-scale innovations are also driving the transition, including increased use of grid-scale batteries.

New demand loads for green metals, manufacturing and fuel production, coupled with the electrification of transport and broader industry. Will create unprecedented demand for renewable energy over the next decade. We need to ensure the grid is equipped to support this additional demand and high penetration of renewables.

Further technical and commercial innovation, as well as market reforms, will be critical to ensure the electricity system can transition efficiently, reliably and cost-effectively.

ARENA is currently focused on supporting projects in this priority area that help deliver the following objectives:

• Unlock new flexible demand
• Improve the economics of energy storage
• Optimise large-scale integration of renewable electricity