Australian owners of Tesla batteries could miss out on lucrative revenue streams as the US energy giant restricts the devices’ ability to interact locally with third parties and authorities remain hesitant to set and enforce rules.
A growing number of products, from air conditioners to water heaters to solar panels, can be controlled remotely, and consumers can sign agreements that reward them for altering energy use during peak load periods, including feeding electricity back into the grid.
In many US states, Tesla is required to enable so-called battery interoperability. However, the company disables that capability on its main storage product — the $15,000 Powerwall 2 battery — that it sells to Australians, industry insiders say.
They say federal and state governments should impose U.S. mandates on Tesla and other battery suppliers according to an international standard (IEEE1547-2018 Clause 10) to maximize future benefits to consumers and the grid, and companies that restrict utilities should be excluded from rebates. like the New South Wales subsidy program of up to $2,400 per battery.
“Batteries that do not deliver their peak performance through a non-cloud-based, open standards-based control gateway easily become trapped in a particular business model to the detriment of their owners,” said Dean Spaccavento, CEO of Reposit Power.
The battery problem is only partially mitigated by third-party providers offering certain services for so-called virtual power plants that allow some external participation. – But Tesla is also making the key decisions here.
“Tesla battery owners who are part of virtual power plants have their batteries controlled by Tesla on behalf of third parties like Amber. Third parties are subject to Tesla’s business and operating conditions and are not always in the best interest of the battery owner,” Spaccavento added.
Governments should specify and enforce a local control interface for any installed batteries as part of their rebate programs, he said. Spaccavento said his company does not include Tesla batteries in its services because of the U.S. company’s stance.
Guardian Australia has requested comment from Tesla.
The Australian Energy Market Operator has highlighted the potential for coordinated storage of consumer energy resources (CERs) in Their network plan was published last week.
From 200 megawatts today, this storage will increase to 37 gigawatts by 2049-50, or two-thirds of all storage in the national electricity market. Without “effective orchestration of consumer batteries,” the grid would need about $4.1 billion in additional investment, according to Aemo’s integrated system plan.
“Because all the batteries (Tesla) sells here are connected to their cloud, it’s literally a remote software command that could turn the capability back on,” one industry veteran said.
If the battery is only “cloud controlled,” devices that could be orchestrated will “fight each other” to the financial detriment of their owners and negate their potential benefits to grid stability and other services, the veteran said. Authorities have had eight years to come up with appropriate standards.
An Aemo spokesperson said CER coordination and control was “fundamental to a lower-cost transition” and “can only be achieved with effective interoperability” of assets such as home batteries.
In Australia, Tesla is under no obligation to allow local third-party access, as is the case in the United States, they said. “A number of processes are underway” to review technical standards, access issues and consumer protections, they added.
A spokesman for the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission said it was up to governments to impose interoperability or access obligations on battery suppliers.
“Any restrictions on access or interoperability of products would only raise concerns under the Competition and Consumer Act, where such restrictions lead to a substantial lessening of competition,” they said.
Richie Merzian, acting chief executive of the Smart Energy Council, said: “Consumer energy in Australia has long been viewed by energy retailers as a problem to be managed rather than an opportunity to be seized.”
“As a result, Australia has adopted a large number of consumer energy products, but there has been little attention, regulation or resources given to this,” Merzian said. “The gradual incorporation of interoperability capabilities into the Australian product mix will bring huge new benefits that people could only have dreamed of just a few years ago.”
Con Hristodoulidis, policy director for the Clean Energy Council, said standards for consumer resource interoperability would depend on a final report from the federal government.
“It is important that households have the ability to make the right choice of home batteries and have greater flexibility to select service providers without incurring higher software and hardware costs in doing so,” he said.
Federal Energy Minister Chris Bowen said: “Consumer energy resources, including things like home batteries, will play an important role in Australia’s energy transformation to 82% renewables by 2030.”
He said state and energy ministers were committed to reforming the National Consumer Energy Resources Roadmap to enable consumers to export more solar power to the grid and deliver nationally consistent standards in key areas, including vehicle-to-grid technologies.
A spokesperson for the NSW energy department said they were working with industry stakeholders, including battery manufacturers, and were “continuing to finalise the details of the peak demand reduction plan to ensure it delivers the best possible outcomes for all participants”.
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This story was modified on July 7, 2024, to reflect that industry participants are calling for a mandate for battery suppliers to conform to Clause 10 of IEEE1547-2018, an international standard, rather than the AS4777 connection standard.
