Village Homes Realty
Witchcliffe Ecovillage, 2024
The Ecovillage continues to use 100% renewable energy, exports over three times more renewable energy than it consumes, and is very close to being completely self-sufficient in renewable energy from onsite solar and battery.
It’s been a wonderful year on the energy front in the Ecovillage with all of our 7 x Tesla Powerpacks turned on, three 75kW public EV chargers (powered by 100% renewable energy) turned on in the three Stage 1 clusters, and the rollout of 3-phase household batteries in 3C, 4A, 4B and 4D.
From the time the batteries have been turned on, most clusters with the large Powerpacks are achieving self sufficiency in renewable energy in all months, with some having to purchase a small amount of renewable energy from our retailer in the winter months due to reduced solar energy and additional use related to EV charging and/or Hydronic Floor Heating.
August was particularly overcast as it was the wettest August on record for Witchcliffe, but some residential clusters with the single community Powerpack battery still managed to achieve 100% self sufficiency from solar and battery in this most overcast month.
The homes with household batteries are all achieving 100% self sufficiency in renewable energy from day one, due to the fact that they can install a 2:1 ratio of PV to inverter capacity (i.e. a 6kW inverter can connect to 12kW PV’s) compared with the standard 1.33:1, due to their hybrid inverters, which makes a big difference during the very overcast months of July & August.
Most households are getting monthly refunds for their energy throughout the year. The overall efficiency of our 100% electric, solar passive, homes has been so good to see! Some residents have reported energy returns/income of up to $850 for the last three quarters (since their batteries were turned on), which of course includes winter, which is a great result and what we had hoped for. This will only grow as EV patronage of our larger cluster chargers increases over time.
Perth renewable energy management company Element 47 have come on board with each of our Stage 1 -3 clusters, taking over the detailed job of energy billing, which has required a lot of work and data input. We’re very much looking forward to this becoming a more precise (capturing peer to peer) and automated process now that they have access to the SwitchDin droplet API.
Element 47 are also going to take over managing the solar export limits and future negotiations with Western Power & AEMO around increased solar export and potentially significant Distributed Energy Resource income that our combined solar and battery capacity should make us eligible for.
The total daily charges for all of the energy services, including the retailer’s daily connection fee (excluding fees for successfully generating DER/AEMO related income), is around half the price of Synergy’s A1 tariffs, which is a great result as it will ultimately include peer to peer/battery/EV charger/retailer.
I’ve also been thrilled to see that our EV charging pioneers in cluster 1C have now sold over 4200kWh of renewable energy to EV driving tourists/locals since they turned their EV charger on in mid February! This is a great result for the first nine and half months, especially given it includes winter (less EV driving tourists). Our February Newsletter will provide more information about the EV charger experience over the first 12months.
