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Parliamentary Questions


Question Without Notice No. 638 asked in the Legislative Assembly on 9 September 2020 by Mr R.R. Whitby

Parliament: 40 Session: 1

VIRTUAL POWER PLANT PILOT

638. Mr R.R. WHITBY to the Minister for Energy:

I refer to the McGowan government's $5.5 billion state recovery plan that includes significant investments in solar power projects. Can the minister explain what this government's virtual power plant pilot means to schools, including Baldivis Secondary College?

Mr W.J. JOHNSTON replied:

I appreciate the question from the member, who is constantly requesting additional renewable energy infrastructure in his electorate. I am pleased that I have been able, with the McGowan government, as part of the $5.5 billion recovery program, to deliver and provide Baldivis Secondary College with a virtual power plant.

The energy system is changing rapidly, and the government of Western Australia is getting ready for that change. One of those changes is that energy is now being created across the network, rather than just in individual, large-scale power stations. We need to harness energy that is produced from these distributed resources, and one way to do that is through a virtual power plant. What Synergy and the Department of Education is doing is to provide a trial for 10 schools across the south west interconnected system, including the Baldivis senior high school, the Kalgoorlie–Boulder Community High School and a range of others. They are harnessing the solar panels and batteries so that these distributed energy resources can be harnessed together to provide services to the system and not just lower cost power to the schools. The benefit to the schools is that they can save on their electricity bill, the benefit to Synergy is that it is part of its new future as a distributed energy resource manager, and the benefit to the community is that we are allowing a higher intake of renewable energy, driving out carbon emissions and making real opportunities for our future.

I just want to let you know, Mr Speaker, that 34 per cent of the installed capacity in the south west system is now renewable energy; in 2019–20, 21 per cent of SWIS generation was from renewable sources. At the moment, one house in every three has solar panels, and we expect that to rise in the next 10 years to one house in two. We are responding to that. We have rolled out community batteries across the south west system, and that will continue into the future. We are delivering standalone power systems to the edge of grid, and now we are doing virtual power plants on schools. This will also allow school students to learn about the technology that is being installed. Synergy will work with those schools to ensure that there is a STEM component so that science, technology, engineering and mathematics can be supported at those schools so that students understand the benefits that they are getting from the renewable energy and get themselves ready for jobs in the future.

I want to finish by saying that it is not just the south west of the state; there are also 500 houses from the Department of Communities that will be included in a virtual power plant trial by Synergy as part of the recovery from COVID. It is not just the south west of the state. Horizon Power is also rolling out community batteries, standalone power systems and microgrids across regional Western Australia to make sure that the benefits of renewable energy are shared right across our community.

This is an exciting time, because Western Australia is at the leading edge of the development of these technologies. Many of these technologies are not being delivered to us from other parts of the world, but rather being produced here in Western Australia by skilled Western Australian workers. The technologies that are being developed are unique to Western Australia and can now be sold around the world to benefit all of us here in WA.