Vicinity Centres and Enel X Announce New Partnership

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Vicinity Centres, Australia’s premier retail property group, and Enel X, a global pioneer in battery storage systems and Virtual Power Plant (VPP) platforms, have forged an agreement to commence trials of onsite battery storage systems at two Vicinity shopping centers.

This pilot seeks to extend Vicinity’s Integrated Energy Strategy by combining solar power with automated demand management plus the addition of batteries – thereby reducing reliance on electricity from the grid and optimizing energy output for greater sustainability.

Enel X and Vicinity have joined forces to bring a revolutionary energy project that will maximize value from the energy markets. Enel X is responsible for procuring, running, and optimizing batteries while Vicinity handles engineering, construction material procurement, and access to its infrastructure. Work on the first two centers at Broadmeadows Central in Victoria, as well as Lake Haven Centre of New South Wales, has already begun; with a combined capacity of over 5MWh, these establishments are planned for completion by mid-2023.

Company Statements

Matt Schultz, Head of Energy Storage, Enel X Australia, said, “Energy storage is needed at all levels in Australia – utility, commercial, and residential – where we have the highest percentage of rooftop solar in the world, to integrate this renewable energy. These projects will help Vicinity reduce costs by optimizing the battery charge and discharge strategy with our proprietary optimization software DER.OS. The batteries will store excess renewable energy when spot electricity prices are low or negative and will generate when the local network is peaking, and prices are high. VPP integration will introduce new revenue streams, such as frequency support (known as FCAS[3]), which helps to stabilize the grid.”

Justin Mills, Chief Information & Innovation Officer, Vicinity Centres, said, “The commercial collaboration with Enel X will help drive our Integrated Energy Strategy by delivering energy storage systems to our centers that complement our existing solar power installations. The batteries will support green energy use and the electricity grid. Vicinity’s Energy Team has worked tirelessly on this trial and our integrated energy strategy over the last five years.

Possibilities for Expansion

After the completion of two ground-breaking battery projects, Vicinity will be able to expand its venture even further. There is a potential to deploy in excess of 50MWh of energy storage or equivalent capacity as found in 5,000 home batteries across numerous facilities.

Vicinity’s Sustainability Strategy has set an ambitious goal: net zero emissions for common areas within its wholly-owned assets by 2030. To achieve this monumental feat, Vicinity is investing heavily in efficiency measures like energy conservation and renewable solar installations along with these state-of-the-art battery storage systems.

Enel X has been a pioneer in onsite battery storage since 2011, and its DER.OS software optimizes charge and discharge scheduling from multiple batteries to generate the maximum value from energy markets. Furthermore, Enel X’s Virtual Power Plant (VPP) platform merges different distributed energy sources to provide ancillary services for utilities or other market entities. This groundbreaking joint venture is essential for Australia’s progress towards renewable resources and grid stability – a move that will undeniably have positive environmental impacts.