Community solar, which enables several households to benefit from a single solar array, has become increasingly popular in certain markets over the past few years – especially for people living in apartments and condominiums.
Now community energy storage is also becoming a thing and Tesla is about to help deploy Europe’s largest community battery project to date.
Blueprint, the developers of a new housing development in Nottingham called ‘Trent Basin’, announced that they chose Tesla Powerpacks to store energy for the community solar+battery project.
The installation will have a capacity of 2 MWh and it will both store energy from the local 375 kW community solar array and provide grid services.
Blueprint’s chief executive Nick Ebbs commented on the announcement (via Solar Power Portal):
“The way we generate and distribute energy in the UK is inefficient and carbon intensive. It doesn’t have to be like this. With new technologies, especially in renewable energy and storage it is possible to do better,”
It will not only result in a more efficient use of energy in Trent Basin’s houses, but it should also result in lower energy costs for the homeowners.
The solar and battery project will also include ground source heat pumps and it is supported by a £6 million ($7.8 million USD) of grant funding from two energy programs run by Innovate UK.
Tesla had some success with those midsize energy storage projects in the UK. A real estate management company recently announced that they are deploying Powerpacks in commercial buildings in the UK and last year, they did a 5-Powerpack project with Camborne Energy Storage in Somerset.
During Tesla’s annual shareholder meeting earlier this month, Musk said that while they have mainly been talking about their large Powerpack projects with electric utilities, like Tesla’s giant solar + Powerpacks project powering Kauai, commercial projects are adding up and becoming a significant market for Tesla Energy.
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