Electric Avenue

Power to the people

Electric Avenue is our name for an exciting group of projects that are helping customers share power in their communities. These projects are rolling out neighbourhood batteries on our low voltage network.

Batteries will be an essential part of our networks in the future as we transition to more renewable energy.

By storing energy locally, batteries perform an important role. They address a mismatch between when renewable energy is abundant (during the day) to when household electricity demand and energy costs are high (late afternoon and evening). To avoid these evening peaks, stored energy is stored and shared when it is needed most.

Batteries keep locally generated solar power local. Local power means electricity is more reliabile and builds greater energy resilience.  In many ways, our Electric Avenue projects provide benefits to everyone in the neighbourhood, whether they have solar panels on their roof or not.

Learn more about neighbourhood batteries

The community battery experience

In this video, we tell the story of how neighbour batteries are located on poles or on the ground.  It also explains how batteries are charged either from local rooftop solar energy or the power sourced from large scale energy generators including solar and wind farms.

The benefits of batteries

This animation tells this story about the role batteries play in making sure extra energy is stored locally so it can be used later when needed.

Battery safety

This animation explains how batteries are designed under strict regulatory standards to be quiet and safe for people and the environment.  It also covers the criteria considered for where they are located. That is, the distance to homes, sight lines for neighbours and site accessibility.

Top 5 benefits of community batteries

1. Share local rooftop solar that is exported into the UE network when households don’t use all the power they generate.
2. Store renewable energy for when it’s needed with batteries charged by either rooftop solar or power sourced from large-scale generators including solar, wind and hydro.
3. Ensure highly reliable power on days when demand is high for example, in summer heat when everyone’s air conditioning is turned on.
4. Generate revenue for communities when the power stored in batteries is also used to participate in the wholesale electricity market.
5. Support energy resilience when structured as part of microgrids or Stand Alone Power Systems in communities.