Australia’s leading energy retailer Origin Energy has installed a 264 kVA, 368 kWh battery storage unit at their Melbourne headquarters.
Situated on the 10th floor of the building, Australia’s largest installed commercial office battery storage unit will not only be used to manage demand and provide power back-up capacity but also help Origin better understand how the battery can deliver price and reliability benefits for their customers.
With the installation enabling Origin to test a full range of capabilities, Suvarna Govender from Origin’s Business Energy Solutions Innovation team is now focused on assessing the battery’s performance and functionality.
Govender explains that they are actually conducting a trial on behalf of their customers. The Origin team will be studying the performance of the battery unit in terms of how well it runs in parallel with onsite generation and whether it can be effectively controlled by demand side platforms that understand the customer’s usage patterns and intuitively know how to respond.
“We see these connected elements potentially delivering real price and reliability outcomes for our customers,” said Govender.
Origin’s Controls and Systems Engineer, Trent Moreschini, who was responsible for the technical aspects of the installation, said it was probably one of the largest battery installations of its kind in a commercial building. Therefore, the primary focus for the team was to understand and comply with requirements set down within the Building Code.
“Already, through the procurement and installation process, we’ve gathered a host of learnings we can apply to future customer installations,” adds Moreschini.
