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Community Power Networks
Community Power Networks
Benefiting the whole community
CPN header city image
A Community Power Network is designed to make clean energy work harder for your neighbourhood and put you at the centre of the benefits.  By coordinating how shared batteries store and use energy, we unlock smarter ways to reduce costs, support more solar, and help everyone in the community benefit—whether they have rooftop panels or not.

Ausgrid Community Power Network trial waiver consultation

The AER is currently considering Ausgrid's application and will hold a series of stakeholder consultation workshops:

  • Monday 25 August 10am - 12:00pm Networks and network advocacy groups
  • Tuesday 26 August 10am -1 2:00pm Retailers, aggregators and advocacy groups
  • Wednesday 27 August 10 am - 12:00pm Government, consumer advocates and consumers.

To find out how to make a submission or register for a workshop please visit the AER Website.

How it works and what are the benefits?

A Community Power Network is designed to make clean energy work harder for your neighbourhood and put you at the centre of the benefits. By coordinating how energy is generated, stored and shared, we unlock smarter ways to reduce costs, support more solar, and make sure everyone in the community benefits — whether you have rooftop panels or not.

How can a Community Power Network benefit you?

CPN customer benefits graphic

It's all managed behind the scenes, so you can keep using electricity as normal - while your community gets cleaner, cheaper and more reliable power.

  • Turning local solar into shared value
    If you or your neighbours produce more solar than the system can use yourself, the Community Power Network stores it in shared batteries — providing you a feed-in tariff that makes adding extra panels worthwhile. This unlocks unused rooftops and helps locals generate cheap, clean energy for the whole community.
  • Keeping power stable and affordable
    We use batteries to smooth out energy use in your area, helping avoid costly upgrades and keeping prices down. You keep using energy whenever you need it. The batteries also support connecting other smart tech such as electric vehicles and electric loads.
  • Everyone shares in the benefit
    Whether you have solar or not, you still benefit. All revenue and cost savings from the Community Power Network are pooled, and after covering expenses, the rest is fairly shared among all customers in the network each year.

It's smart, local, and built to give more back to you and your community.

Benefits at a glance

Reduce electricity prices
Provide equitable access to benefits for all
Support a faster transition to renewables

Our Pilot

The Community Power Network is focused on providing the lowest possible cost energy to consumers.  We have proposed a pilot program (a trial Community Power Network in Botany-Mascot, and Charmhaven) which is being considered by the Australian Energy Regulator and estimates a dividend pool of $22.9m will be generated across its 5-year duration, all of which will be shared back with customers. This equates to an estimate of roughly $100-$150 off the annual electricity bill for a typical household. 

What's next? 

There will be information sessions and engagement with community and other stakeholders to plan the best locations for assets and build partnerships with those required to make the pilot successful.

This information does not form part of Ausgrid's pilot submission and has therefore not been reviewed by the AER.

You can contact Ausgrid on 13 13 65 for more information and to provide feedback.

Community Power Network Timeline

See our fact sheets for more information

Residential and Small Business Fact Sheet

Commercial Business Fact Sheet

Frequently Asked Questions

  • How does this model save customers money?

    There are a few ways this model saves customers money:

    1. The batteries enable higher feed-in tariffs, so you can get a better return on the excess solar energy your system produces
    2. The batteries make money selling the excess solar energy at higher prices during the evening peak, helping turn your energy into extra income. By using a smaller, cheaper network to generate and consume power locally, this enables a lower network tariff
    3. The above benefits will be greater than the cost to run the Community Power Network and the difference is what then gets shared with customers via a dividend. Ausgrid are guaranteeing the pilot and will pay the difference if the program runs at a loss 
  • How and when do benefits get shared with the community

    Feed in tariffs will give additional rates immediately. The dividend pool will be distributed annually, either via your retailer or a simple electronic payment.

    If the dividend pool is negative, no dividend will be paid out. Any losses will be offset against revenue in future years (i.e. there won’t ever be a negative dividend). Ausgrid is underwriting the pilot and if there is no net-positive dividend over all the years then Ausgrid will fund this, not customers.

  • How do we get reliability of electricity supply with solar on rainy days?

    The Community Power Network is still connected to the grid and continues to draw power when required under normal conditions. The batteries provide further reliability, being able to store solar or grid power to meet peaks. The batteries will provide the community with 2-4 hours of power without any grid availability.

  • Does the Community Power Network mean we will have fewer/no outages?
    • The batteries installed as part of the Community Power Network pilot will to provide the local grid 2-4 hours’ worth of full power each day
    • Using this to power the community during black outs requires some further work 
    • With these technicalities solved, the Community Power Network will be able to isolate itself from the grid during a major outage and continue to operate as a limited microgrid
    • This would result in the network more robust and reduce the number and duration of power outages
  • How does the Community Power Network contribute to environmental sustainability and reduce carbon emissions?

    The pilot creates a local market for surplus solar that is more attractive than current markets. It’s expected to add 70MW of solar power, cutting over 421,054 tonnes of CO2. By using local batteries and networks, it reduces the need for large scale transmission lines, which reduces community impacts in rural and regional areas.

  • I live/my business is in an embedded network – how does the pilot affect me?

    The Community Power Network will interact with the operator of your embedded network. They will be able to obtain higher feed-in tariffs for any surplus solar as per individual customers and will also have rights to a share in the dividend pool.

    We will continue to investigate how we can ensure customers within embedded networks can benefit from the Community Power Network.

  • How is this different to a Community Battery?

    In the future, a Community Battery capacity will be leased out to retailers who trade energy to maximise profits which they can use to provide better offers to customers. The Community Power Network batteries are run by Ausgrid to promote more local solar and flatten grid demands with all generation and energy profits going back to local customers.

    The Community Power Network will have a large number of smaller batteries spread across each suburb, all orchestrated to work together to meaningfully support the grid and local solar market. Whereas Community Batteries are larger but spread across the network so they serve pockets of customers in the surrounding area, but these are not linked together.

    Community Batteries (and other commercially or privately owned batteries) could be made to work within a Community Power Network as one of the many batteries being orchestrated.