The federal Labor party has committed to funding a community battery in Maloneys Beach as part of a plan to build 400 community batteries across the country if they were elected.
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Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Chris Bowen, and Gilmore MP Fiona Phillips met with members of the Maloneys Beach Resident's Association on Thursday, March 10.
Local residents told the politicians about their experiences during the Black Summer bushfires, and the struggles in the aftermath.
"In the thick of the fires, communities along the South Coast like Maloneys Beach had power outages, leaving them without essential appliances and communication lines to find out the latest news in a fast-changing and dangerous environment," a Labor spokesperson said.
"Community batteries are a way to not only build energy resilience when power goes down, but also help households cut their power bills and emissions.
"Australia leads the world in solar - one in four houses have solar panels on their roofs - but only one in 60 has a battery.
"And while more than 1740 households in Maloneys Beach and surrounding suburbs have solar, less than two per cent of those households have a battery.
"The upfront cost of household batteries are just too high for most families - community batteries are a way to open the benefits of stored renewable energy to solar households, as well as renters and apartment dwellers who may not be able to install rooftop solar."
Mr Bowen said the Maloneys Beach Residents Association had successfully asked for a battery.
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"It's a town with only one road in and out, and only one set of power lines in and out, so if they're cut off, the whole town is cut off," he said.
"There's been strong interested from a lot of communities, but Fiona (Phillips) pointed out the association had asked for one in Maloneys Beach, so that's the announcement we're making today.
"If other communities put requests in, we can work through them."
The community battery would be "about the size of a car", and would be located in a public area.
"It can be in the local park, and anybody with solar panels can feed energy in during the day and take energy out at night," Mr Bowen said.
"If you don't have solar panels, you can sign up for a couple extra dollars a week and access the energy in the evening.
"Personal batteries are quite rare because they're expensive, so a community battery gives all the benefits without the costs.
"There's a lot of solar power that goes into the grid during the day, but it doesn't pump in during the night, that's when the coal-fired stations are used.
"This batter helps with the storage of energy during the day, and decreases the usage of coal power during the evening.
"Community batteries aren't the answer to climate change, but they're part of the answer."