Lessons learnt from the Public Housing Solar and Battery Trial

2024

The Public Housing Solar and Battery Trial saw the installation of rooftop solar panels and battery energy storage systems (BESS) at 15 public housing homes in Alice Springs. Working with a range of partners, it looked at the barriers and solutions to integrating renewables into public housing, aiming to inform future solar projects of this kind across the NT and Australia.

Type: Report Future Grid publication   Format: PDF

Invest­ing in rooftop solar sys­tems can make a real dif­fer­ence in the lives of pub­lic hous­ing ten­ants, who ben­e­fit from low­er pow­er bills, while gen­er­at­ing clean energy. 

This tri­al pro­vid­ed an oppor­tu­ni­ty for ten­ants, Ter­ri­to­ry Fam­i­lies, Hous­ing and Com­mu­ni­ties (TFHC), Pow­er and Water Cor­po­ra­tion (Pow­er and Water), Jacana Ener­gy and local con­trac­tors to all work togeth­er to test how this tech­nol­o­gy works in prac­tice and iden­ti­fy any prob­lems. The tri­al also helped demon­strate how solar ben­e­fits can be gained from var­i­ous meter­ing types, includ­ing pre­pay­ment and post pay­ment meters. 

This report lays out a sum­ma­ry of the approach tak­en, what worked well, and lessons learned along the way. The tri­al was led by Alice Springs Future Grid, with Ekisti­ca as the Project Manager. 

Anec­do­tal feed­back sug­gest­ed sav­ings of 50 – 75% each week for the par­tic­i­pants. Those on pre­paid meters also said that they were no longer hav­ing to top up their cred­it as often as before the new sys­tem was installed. 

And the gen­er­al sen­ti­ment among all par­tic­i­pants sur­veyed was pos­i­tive, with all par­tic­i­pants pleased with their new solar and bat­tery sys­tem and with how the instal­la­tion had been managed.