About this episode
Australia has installed more than half a million home batteries under the federal rebate in a little over a year. Every one had to be capable of joining a virtual power plant, which lets many batteries work together to support the grid. Joining is optional but most owners have not.
At the same time, around a third of households rent or live in apartments and usually cannot install solar or a battery. Davood and Alan are working on these two problems from opposite ends. They talk about why households are wary of handing over their battery, what it takes to connect many brands of equipment, the rules that keep plug-in batteries out of Australian homes, and how their business models work.
About the guests
Dr Davood Dehestani is the founder of Smartizer, based in Macquarie Park, New South Wales. Davood’s background is in power electronics, artificial intelligence and battery systems. Smartizer makes a 4 kWh modular battery with a built-in inverter, designed for renters and apartment dwellers. In Australia it will connect through a low-cost shelf unit until plug-in batteries are allowed.
Alan Yu runs HighFlow Energy and is a director of ConnectVPP. HighFlow uses households’ existing solar and batteries in a virtual power plant to fund a monthly bill-free electricity allowance. ConnectVPP is the platform underneath it, which other retailers and battery makers can also use. Alan spent about 15 years in banking and finance, including at Commonwealth Bank and Westpac, before moving into renewable energy.
”If we're not able to fully utilise those batteries, we're actually wasting the investment the nation has already put in place.
Alan Yu
We cover
- How Davood and Alan got here, and what Smartizer, HighFlow and ConnectVPP do
- What a virtual power plant is, in plain terms
- Why so few home batteries are in a virtual power plant
- Why households are wary of handing over control of their battery
- The renters and apartment dwellers locked out of solar and batteries
- Paying households for local network support, and the UK example
- Integrating many inverter brands, and the limits of manufacturers’ clouds
- Plug-in batteries: where the rules stand, and the 5 kWh rebate floor
- Bill-free allowances, payback for renters, and consumer protections
