ARENA to support Australian microgrids with brand-new funding

• The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) has released an AU$ 50 million (US$ 36 million) programme to support microgrid pilot projects and also enhance the reliability of electrical energy supply across regional Australia.

Called the Regional Australia Microgrid Pilots Program (RAMPP), the six-year initiative will certainly demonstrate remedies to technological, regulative or commercial barriers to the deployment of microgrid modern technologies.

ARENA promoted the possibility of microgrids to assist remote neighborhoods change to renewables and lower discharges as well as energy prices. The agency is anticipating applications to demonstrate grid-connected microgrids, standalone power systems and remote separated microgrids.

"Whether it's maintaining electricity supply throughout and after emergencies such as bushfires and floods, or boosting the dependability and also security of power supply in remote areas, this program will display the varied benefits microgrids use local Australia," said ARENA CEO Darren Miller.

Microgrids are small electrical power systems that can collaborate regional power sources such as solar, battery storage and other distributed infrastructure to give trustworthy power.

ARENA's previous assistance for microgrids has actually seen it supply AU$ 4.5 million for a microgrid at Lord Howe Island, New South Wales, that features a 1.3 MWp solar array and a 1MW/ 3.7 MWh battery power storage space system (BESS), and also was finished by EPC service provider Photon Energy earlier this month.

The agency additionally gave funding for a microgrid that powers the Agnew Gold Mine in Western Australia. Enabling the mine to satisfy greater than 50% of its energy need with renewables, the project consists of a 4MW solar project, 18MW wind farm, 13 MW/ 4MWh BESS as well as a 16MW gas engine power station.

It was exposed earlier this year that a microgrid deployed at Onslow, Western Australia, enabled the remote community to be powered by 100% renewables for 80 minutes thanks to making use of a distributed power source system, which makes use of anticipating analytics to increase the amount of renewable energy utilized in the microgrid.