Navigating Community Battery Challenges

In this second episode of our series of interviews with community energy groups installing batteries we speak to Lachlan Hensey, the energy and storage project lead for Yarra Energy Foundation (YEF), one of the few community energy groups in Australia to successfully install a community battery. While most so-called ‘community batteries’ are actually installed by electricity networks, YEF navigated the significant financial, regulatory and system hurdles community groups face to make theirs a reality. He shares how they did it, the challenges they overcame, and why defining the problem the battery is supposed to solve is key to designing a successful project.