Australians are yet to be convinced about the virtues of enrolling their solar and home batteries into virtual power plants (VPPs), even as new data shows that joining up can save them more on power bills.
A new study by the Energy Consumers Association’s (ECA) has found that Australians are keen to learn more about VPPs when they are in the process of researching a battery, but once they’re battery owners, they are much less keen to lose control of their asset.
The battery boom, created by the Cheaper Home Batteries rebate, led to almost half a million storage units installed in homes around the country by the end of July, and all of these batteries are VPP compatible.
But the EPA report, Why households adopt batteries and why many aren’t joining a VPP, confirms that households are not buying into the subsidy’s side-quest, to drive participation in orchestrated consumer energy resources.
A recent Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) inquiry found VPP participation at slightly higher than the ECA numbers, at 24 per cent.
