Council consults on Power Melbourne

The City of Melbourne and two other neighbouring councils have identified 16 proposed locations for new neighbourhood batteries that will help deliver more renewable energy to inner-city locals, with consultation kicking off this month.

The council, along with the Cities of Port Phillip and Yarra, has been working with experts from the Yarra Energy Foundation to identify potential locations for future neighbourhood batteries.

The three councils have collectively identified 16 possible sites to house new Tesla batteries, which are around the size of a small car. In partnership with federal and state governments, the council has already announced that batteries will be installed at Boyd Community Hub in Southbank and Library at the Dock in Docklands as part of its Power Melbourne program.

The council is now exploring five further sites in Kensington, North Melbourne, Carlton, East Melbourne and South Yarra in partnership with the Yarra Energy Foundation, and community consultation is now under way in person and online.

Locals can attend pop-up sessions at the following locations …

North Melbourne

North Melbourne Community Centre – Wednesday, July 19: 3.30pm to 5.30pm

South Yarra

Fawkner Park Seniors Centre/Tennis Centre – Saturday, July 22: 10.30am to 12.30pm

Carlton

Kathleen Syme Library – Friday, July 28: 11am to 2pm

East Melbourne

Visitor centre outside Kere Kere cafe, Fitzroy Gardens – Saturday, July 29: 10am to 12pm

The council said that it wanted to hear from the communities in and around these areas to understand how they feel about potentially having a neighbourhood battery in their area, the kinds of benefits they want to see, and ideas for specific locations.

Different battery models, which each come with different benefits and challenges, include …

• Solar sponge: Prioritises solar uptake and emissions reduction. This helps support the uptake and sharing of local renewable energy. 
• Financially focused: Operated to release energy to the grid when it is most profitable. This can help reduce energy costs for the community and deliver benefits to the wider energy system.
• Network services-based: Prioritises providing resilience to the network, which will help avoid the need for costly network upgrades, reducing network charges for all energy users
• Community services-based: May include a diversity of services, depending on the objective, such as enhanced energy security, electric vehicle charging, and community resilience.

For more information or to have your say online visit Participate Melbourne. Consultation closes on August 6.