A new community solar battery has been unveiled in north Canberra almost 12 months after it was supposed to be installed.

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The Dickson Neighbourhood Battery will store and supply power to about 45 homes, along with two other batteries in Fadden and Casey after a $1.5 million investment from the federal government.

“We had some challenges in finding the right provider to partner with us, so we called for tenders, and that took a bit longer than we originally anticipated,” he said.

“We’ll continue to see what demand is like and work with the provider… make sure that it grows to be fit for purpose.”

The minister said the number of hours of energy the medium-sized battery could store depended on the number of houses using it, before adding it was part of a battery network with “many hours of storage”.

He could not say how many homes the other Canberra batteries could support.

Federal member for Canberra Alicia Payne, ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr, ACT environment minister Suzanne Orr and federal energy minister Chris Bowen at the battery. Picture by Lucy Arundell

“As a local resident, I’m very pleased to see this infrastructure in the inner north, but I’m also pleased that it forms part of a larger roll-out of both large, medium and small batteries right across the ACT,” Mr Barr said.

The Community Batteries for Household Solar program has delivered about 109 of the 400 batteries promised Australia-wide since the scheme was announced in the 2022-23 federal budget.

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