Power to the people: Evolutionary market pressures from residential PV battery investments in Australia

• Published in: Energy policy Vol. 134; p. 110977
• Main Authors: Say, Kelvin, John, Michele, Dargaville, Roger
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Kidlington Elsevier Ltd 01.11.2019; Elsevier Science Ltd
• Subjects: Adoption of innovations; Battery storage; Computer simulation; Costs; Customer satisfaction; Customers; Decentralization; Distributed energy resources; Distribution management; Economic models; Electricity; Energy policy; Exports; Households; Housing market; Imports; International trade; Investment; Investments; Markets; Natural selection; Networks; Photovoltaic cells; Photovoltaics; Policy making; Power; Profiles; Renewable energy; Renewable energy transitions; Simulation; Solar power; Tariffs; Techno-economic modelling; Utilities; Values; Australia; Techno-economic modelling; Battery storage; PV; Distributed energy resources; Renewable energy transitions; Photovoltaics
• ISSN: 0301-4215; 1873-6777
• DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2019.110977

Falling costs of solar PV and battery technologies are continuously changing the customer relationship with their electricity network. By managing their own self-generation, customers are able to place natural selection pressure on utilities to evolve. The devised techno-economic simulation model projects residential PV and battery investment decisions over 20 years in Perth, Australia to quantify the potential market impacts from policy and customer investment conditions. Using real-world demand and insolation profiles from 261 households, this research evaluates how cumulative customer PV and battery investments changes the network and market operating conditions, while under the influence of various feed-in tariff values. The results indicate that high feed-in tariff policy costs in the short-term, make it economically challenging to prevent or restrain significant residential PV-battery adoption in the longer-term. Moreover, continuous increases in residential PV-battery system installations eventually lead to annual net-exports substantially exceeding net-imports on the distribution network. This significant shift in network operation provides an opportunity for policymakers to utilise behind-the-meter PV-battery investments and decentralised energy markets to meet wider renewable energy and decarbonisation goals. •Customer PV-battery systems place significant selection pressure on markets to evolve.•High FiTs discourage battery adoption but are expensive policy options.•It is economically challenging to prevent or restrain customer PV-battery adoption.•Customer battery investments lead to additional increases in PV capacity.