Australian outages show the value of solar and batteries

In Australia, one in three homes hosts a rooftop solar system. And 20% of those systems are attached to batteries. In February, a major grid outage put those systems to the test.  Extreme weather caused a series of grid failures in the state of Victoria. And with coal plants tripping offline, solar capacity helped keep the blackouts from cascading further. So what does the incident tell us about how solar PV can help grid operators during times of stress? And will policies finally catch up to reality that distributed resources are critical for grids facing more extreme events? In this installment, Editor Lisa Martine Jenkins presents a feature from the pages of Latitude Media on learnings from a massive blackout in Australia. Like what you hear? For more of Latitude Media’s coverage of the frontiers of clean energy, sign up for our newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices