Little solar town getting started
Perth’s newest village - White Gum Valley - will soon generate and sell its own electricity from a precinct of solar homes.
The $3 million “citizens’ utility” will see eighty new homes at the site of the old Kim Beazley Primary School decked out with solar panels and solar batteries.
The infrastructure will be paid for by the precinct's body corporate, which will then take on the role of a quasi-utility, with the ability to sell the electricity back to owners, tenants and the grid.
The project will be operated in partnership between Curtin University, Western Power, LandCorp, the City of Fremantle and solar equipment supplier Solar Balance.
Under the planned scheme, when a person buys one of the homes, part of the sale agreement will require them to buy electricity from the body corporate, or strata.
Tenants will have to do the same.
“So the strata companies are acting as a utility, buying solar, battery infrastructure on behalf of the owners of the dwellings and then selling them on to tenants and owner occupiers,” Jemma Green from Curtin University's Sustainability Institute has told ABC reporters.
“But they can also sell it at a discount to attract tenants to the market place, so it means the roof space can be commoditised and provide an extra revenue stream to the owners.
The one, two and three-bedroom apartments and townhouses will use a range of low-energy technologies, and are set to use about 50 per cent less water than typical Perth dwellings.
The experts estimate that the system will reduce reliance on the grid by 70 to 80 per cent, though grid power will be needed in winter months.
“Similarly, the solar panels will try and provide the house with electricity,” Ms Green said.
“If there's no demand there, they'll fill up the battery, and if the battery's full and there's no demand from the house, they'll try and sell it to the precinct, and if there's no buyers there they'll sell it to the grid.
“It allows for the benefits to flow back to the owner, who will be buying the solar in the batteries in the first place.
“And I think, we're going to see a new breed of utilities emerging as a result of this innovation. So it's very exciting.”
Two electric cars will be made available on a rental basis to generate more income for the strata and owners as well.