Belmont apartments to get neighbourhood battery

A NEW community housing area in Belmont will benefit from a neighbourhood battery that will help lower power bills.

The battery, with a total capacity of 2,736kWh, will be installed at the Housing Choices Australia apartment complex.

As well as reducing bills, it will get more renewable energy on to rooftops and provide back-up power during extreme weather events.

Geelong MP Christine Couzens announced on Wednesday last week that the Belmont apartments would get a neighbouthood battery and highlighted the benefits of the initiative.

“I’m excited to say that community housing residents in Belmont will directly benefit from the lower bills and reliability provided by the new neighbourhood battery,” she said.

“Neighbourhood batteries can soak up cheap, renewable energy from rooftop solar during the day and feed it back into the homes or organisations they are connected to at night, when power usage is high.”

Belmont is one of 65 new battery locations in Victoria, announced as part of round two of the $42 million Neighbourhood Battery Program.

Neighbourhood batteries can also be paired with solar to provide back-up power to buildings, acting as community hubs for people to access power during prolonged outages.

The Victorian government says these batteries will help Victoria reach its target of at least 2.6 GW of energy storage by the end of the decade and 6.3 GW by 2035.