Australian energy storage company RedEarth wants to open up value in batteries by guiding its customers to where the revenue is to be found
There is a lot of fancy talk about what batteries can do, if you listen to engineers who are excited about their potential to provide services to the grid and firm generation from utility-scale wind and solar plants. At home, however, it’s best to keep things simple – charge a battery on solar during the day and use that energy at night.
That’s the start of a solid relationship with a battery, says RedEarth Energy Storage chief technology officer Chris Winter. If they want to take it further, owners will need to twig to the importance of aligning consumption and technology with the right retail offering.
Let’s say a household is signed up to a deal that gives them wholesale pricing, he says, citing retailer Amber (the only one offering such an arrangement, to EcoGeneration’s knowledge). “Wholesale pricing protects you from the downside but also gives you the opportunity to feed into the grid when the price is quite high, so you can energy-trade and make some money like that,” Winter says. “And when there is negative pricing you can get paid to charge your car.”
