Chris Bowen, the Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy and Fiona Phillips, local Gilmore Federal Member, met with representatives of the MBRA today at Maloneys Beach where Fiona Phillips announced that if Labor is successful in the Federal Election, it is part of their policy to supply a community battery to Maloneys Beach. The MBRA has been advocating for a community battery. This process started in a meeting with Fiona Phillips after the bushfires in 2020. Fiona Phillips said "In the thick of the fires, communities along the South Coast like Maloneys Beach, had power outages leaving them without essential appliances and communication lines to find out the latest news in a fast-changing and dangerous environment.
"Community batteries are a way to not only build energy resilience when power goes down, but also help households cut their power bills and emissions.
"Australia leads the world in solar - one in four houses have solar panels on their roofs - but only one in 60 has a battery.
"And while over 1740 households in Maloney’s beach and surrounding suburbs have solar, less than 2% of those households have a battery.
"The upfront cost of household batteries are just too high for most families, community batteries are a way to open the benefits of stored renewable energy to solar households, as well as renters and apartments dwellers who may not be able to install rooftop solar.
