How it works
What we’re trying to do, how it works and the benefits it brings.
At Village Power, we’re creating a new kind of power station
At Village Power we’re creating a new kind of local power plant. At the heart of this virtual power plant is a community battery that allows you to store and trade energy from your solar panels without having to install a battery at your own home.
Here’s how it works
01. Rooftop panels convert sunlight to energy
Solar panels on homes and businesses in the area convert sunlight to energy. Excess energy not used by household is exported to the Village Power battery. Typically there is surplus generated in the middle of the day.
02. Excess energy is stored at a community battery bank
Excess energy is stored in a community shared battery. The battery absorbs the excess energy generated the network, which can be dangerous, and makes it available in the evening when it is more useful.
03. Participating homes draw power from energy bank
Participating homes can draw energy from the battery when they need it. So energy generated by sun in the middle of the day can be used when most people are at home in the evenings.
04. Community battery bank sells excess energy to the national grid
At times of peak demand, the spot price of electricity can be very high. The Village Power bank may sell some energy to the national electrcity grid at peak times, helping to reduce the price of power for the network.
Benefits of our model
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One of the biggest drawbacks of solar power is that most of it is generated in the middle of the day when many people are at work and not using much power in their homes – not in the evenings when everyone is home and using heating or air-conditioning, making dinner and watching TV.
The community batteries allows us to ‘time-shift’ solar power by collecting it during the day and making it available when it’s most needed – usually in the evenings when people come home from work or school..
Locally generated solar power, particularly when it’s linked to a commercial-size battery, also may allows us to provide renewable energy to the electricity grid and reduce the need for coal-fired plants to run during peak periods. This will make everyone’ electricity less carbon intensive..
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We expect our system will allow network members to sell their excess solar power for more than their current retail ‘feed-in-tariff’ (the price the retailer has agreed to pay you for your roof-top solar), and to buy renewable energy for less than the cost of Green Power on the regular retail market.
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Buying solar power generated by your neighbours allows renters or residents who can’t install solar panels to buy renewable energy and help with long-term climate change solutions.
The Village Power Network will also help with other ways to lower overall power usage and increase renewable energy use. Initially, we will send text messages to remind you to turn off appliances you don’t need - reducing power at peak time (which is often produced by coal-fired electricity plans). Longer term, we hope to offer automated management of appliances that can do without power for a few minutes, like chargers, hot water heaters, electric vehicles and pumps.
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While we are still very much in the planning stage, our goal is to provide our Village Power Members with more control over their energy decisions. This means that you can trade any excess solar power that you generate or even gift it to others (e.g. low-income consumers or a local school). If you don’t have suitable roof space for solar panels, or you rent, you can buy solar power from your neighbours!
Village Power trading will be managed automatically by one of our partners - and all transactions will be private and secure.
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Sharing power is only one thing that we will be sharing – this project is also about building community.
During establishment, Village Power is a volunteer-run not for profit organisation. We will own and maintain the community battery and manage the partnership and trading system. We are doing this because we believe in the power of community to combat climate change. Any profits from this project will be returned to the community – to schools or playgrounds or parks, or sport-grounds. Whatever the community needs.
While we still have a long way to go in Alphington, Fairfield, Northcote, Ivanhoe and surrounding suburbs, elsewhere in the world this model is already working well. Why not check out the following initiatives:
With your support and involvement, we believe we can make it happen here.
What does our future look like?
Village Power is working to make solar power more financially feasible for our community through better rates for the power, a shared community battery and bulk buying of panels.
We want to work with business and industry, community and all levels of government to install solar power on more residential rooftops, as well as targeting and installing large arrays of panels on industrial and commercial roofs in the area.
Our long-term vision is zero carbon energy powering our community.
Part of a movement - but a bit different
Community energy projects like this are taking off all over Australia – and most of these communities want the same things that we do: carbon free, locally-generated power with financial benefits for the local community.
Most community energy projects in Australia work like this: the community comes together to invest in a new solar or wind farm, and then buy their power back from it. But building a new solar farm in the middle of a city isn’t an option. So we decided to create a system to share the power you – and the rest of your community – already generate on your rooftops.
Most people in Australia live in cities, so we think this new model has the potential to reshape the energy market completely by putting power back into the hands of our urban communities.
