Commercial case study: Hepburn Recreation Reserve

Solar and Powerwall providing back up for a rural fire station in grid outages.

Opportunity

Hepburn Recreation Reserve is a community sports centre in the Victorian town of Hepburn Springs. The centre serves as a base for the local sporting team, but is also a designated ‘Neighbourhood Safer Places’. This means that during emergency events like a bush fire, it is a dedicated location that members of the community can shelter in and access basic services. However, events like bush fires usually bring with it grid outages, meaning the Recreation Reserve is left without a stable power supply.

Solution

To fix the issue of intermittent power in events like bush fires, Specialized Solar Solutions installed 25 kW of solar and a Powerwall at Hepburn Recreation Reserve. The purchase of Powerwall was enabled through the Central Victorian Greenhouse Alliance (CVGA) solar bulk-buy program, helping communities across the region install solar and battery systems for free.

Powerwall stores excess solar and is able to detect outages, disconnect from the grid and provide stable power in a fraction of a second. Using the Tesla app, a reserve can also be set, meaning that if a grid outage is likely Powerwall retains its level of charge and will only dispatch power when an outage is detected. Powerwall also helps to lower the operational cost of the sporting clubs who use the centre through energy bill reduction.

Results

The solar system at Hepburn Recreation Reserve generates an average of 88 kilowatt hours a day and, depending on weather conditions, can supply indefinite power with Powerwall in an outage. This provides the community with a comfortable refuge during fire events, as well as ensuring the sporting teams and other community groups that use the site have a constant supply of clean energy.