As our community batteries move from a pilot in Yackandandah to a growing fleet, from one battery to seven over the past 18 months, we’re starting to get more questions about what they’re doing and how they’re performing.
It’s easy enough to say community batteries soak up solar, support the evening peak, increase local energy sharing and help manage the cost and risk of electricity supply. But we’re now at the point where we can start to show the work, not just describe the opportunity. Funders are asking for the same thing. As we complete more projects, we need to show how the batteries are operating and what they are doing in practice.
So, this blog looks at early operating data from two Victorian Government-funded community batteries recently installed in Wodonga.
Two batteries, two operating modes
The two Wodonga batteries are both designed to support local energy sharing, but they do it differently.
Baranduda Community Battery
- What it is: A 120 kW / 448 kWh standalone battery at a North East Water site in Baranduda.
- How it works: This is a bi-directional battery. There is no other energy consumption at that meter point, and the battery charges during high solar periods and exports during the evening peak.
Cricket Albury Wodonga Community Power Plant
- What it is: A 99 kW solar PV system coupled with a 100 kW / 482 kWh battery at Cricket Albury Wodonga stadium.
- How it works: This battery is connected with a large on-site solar system. Because daytime network tariffs are high at this site, it mainly charges from on-site solar and exports later when that energy is more useful.
The distinction between the two batteries is important and is represented in the data. Baranduda is a stand alone battery and is well suited to soaking up excess local solar and exporting it later. The Cricket Albury Wodonga battery is what we call a community power plant: solar and battery working together on one site.
They are now both operating in the Wodonga area, giving us a practical test case for how batteries can support our retail offer and increase local energy sharing.
A first look at the data
We’re still setting up the systems behind our new Indigo Power Retail offer. That includes building our customer meter data database and the software dashboards that will let us analyse this properly over time. Data to support our analysis – the analysis in this blog is for all customers downstream of the Wodonga terminal station – only started flowing through in March, so this is early analysis rather than a full performance report. But we’ve now been able to pull together enough information to show the impact of the two Wodonga batteries.
The interactive graph below looks at the one week period from 24 to 31 March 2026. You can zoom in and out, focus on particular days, and turn individual traces on or off. A useful way to read the graph is to focus on the difference between the “without batteries” and “with batteries” lines.
- Customer usage without batteries shows the electricity Wodonga customers are importing from the grid before the batteries are included in the analysis.
- Customer usage including batteries shows customer usage once the community batteries are included – particularly when the batteries discharge to help supply customers during higher demand periods.
- Customer solar exports without batteries shows the solar being exported by Wodonga customers before the batteries are included.
- Solar exports including batteries shows the export side once the batteries are included, particularly when the batteries are charging during periods of high solar production.
- Local energy shared without batteries shows how much energy would have been shared locally without the batteries.
- Local energy shared due to batteries shows the total amount of local energy shared once the batteries are included.
- Extra local energy shared due to batteries shows the uplift created by the batteries, in other words, the additional local energy sharing that would not have occurred without them.
Technical note: in the graph, customer usage is shown as a negative number. The key point for interpreting the graph is how the shape changes once the batteries are included.
What the graph shows
The batteries are doing broadly what we would expect. In the middle of the day, when rooftop solar production is high, the Baranduda battery helps increase local sharing by absorbing energy that would otherwise be exported out of the hub. Later in the day, particularly into the late afternoon and evening peak, both batteries discharge and increase the amount of customer consumption that can be supplied from shared local energy. The pattern is not perfectly smooth, and it is not driven by a simple timer. The batteries respond to operating conditions and price signals. That means they do more on some days than others.
The headline result
Across the analysis period, the batteries materially increased the amount of energy shared in the Wodonga hub. This is shown in the table below. Over this short period, the batteries nearly doubled the amount of energy shared locally. They increased the share of customer consumption supplied by shared energy from 30% to 51%, and increased the share of customer exports used as shared energy from 28% to 50%. That’s an increase in energy sharing of 4.2 MWh across the week. It’s this type of energy sharing outcome we’re seeking when we install these community batteries.
Why the daily results vary
The day-by-day results are not identical, but we don’t expect them to be.
On some days, the batteries make a large difference. On 30 March, for example, the share of customer consumption supplied by shared energy increased from 37% to 73% when the batteries were included. On other days, the improvement is smaller. On 26 and 27 March, the batteries increased sharing by much less.
The difference is caused by different operating conditions. Sometimes there is less available solar to soak up. Sometimes the evening price signal is not strong enough to justify exporting from the battery. In those cases, it can be more cost-effective to supply customers from the market rather than discharge the battery. This is how flexible energy assets should behave: responding when there is value in doing so.
What this means for customers
We don’t have a model where a solar customer simply exports energy to the battery and then imports it back for free. That might sound attractive, but it gets complicated quickly. Which customers receive that benefit? How is it allocated? What happens for customers without solar, renters, or customers who cannot shift their usage?
Our focus is different. We want the batteries to create benefit across the whole customer base.
They do that by helping Indigo Power manage the overall retail load. In practical terms, that means:
- soaking up solar when there is too much energy in the middle of the day,
- reducing our exposure to negative spot prices when customer solar exports are high,
- discharging when evening prices are high,
- and helping us manage more of our retail risk using our own community-owned assets.
That last point is increasingly important to us as we incorporate our growing fleet of community batteries into our hedging approach. Retailers usually manage price risk by paying third parties for hedging products. That risk premium ultimately has to be recovered through customer tariffs.
If we can use our own community batteries to manage more of that risk directly, we have a better chance of keeping prices competitive for customers over time. This new hedging approach, which incorporates our fleet of community batteries, is expected to start influencing our retail pricing from the 2026/27 financial year.
Batteries as physical risk management
One way to think about the batteries is as a physical version of a financial hedge. When prices are very low or negative, the batteries can absorb energy. When prices rise sharply, they can discharge. They do not eliminate market risk, but they can reduce the worst parts of it. That matters for Indigo Power because we are trying to do two things at once: support more local renewable energy and offer fair, competitive prices to customers. Community batteries help connect those two goals.
What comes next
This analysis is focused on energy sharing, not the full financial impact of the batteries. That work is coming.
As we build out the retail dashboard and collect more data, we’ll be able to show more clearly:
- how much financial value the batteries create,
- how much they reduce exposure to high and negative prices,
- how they contribute to our hedging strategy,
- and how that flows through to the prices we can offer customers.
For now, the early Wodonga data shows the batteries are doing what they are meant to do. They are increasing local energy sharing. They are responding to real market conditions. And they are helping us build a retail model where local community owned infrastructure supports local customers.
That is the point of community energy.
Ben is Indigo Power’s Managing Director. He has a passion for collaborative initiatives that positively impact our communities. Ben leads our skilled and committed projects team, driving the uptake of community-scale clean energy technologies in communities around Australia.