Local Renewable Energy Zone (LREZ) pilot
A Local Renewable Energy Zone (LREZ) pilot project site will be established at Caloundra and Townsville to help the community generate more renewable energy, and store it and share it locally across the poles and wires infrastructure that already exists.
LREZs aim to put customers at the centre of the energy transition where local customer energy resources like solar, storage, EVs, hot water and other appliances will be coordinated with our network and network energy storage across entire communities to take full advantage of the scale and value of the roof tops of Queenslanders.
LREZs will be a complete local energy system for communities coordinating generation from rooftop solar installations, electric vehicle charging, customer batteries, hot water, community and network batteries, with the existing network infrastructure to support a renewable energy transition led by customers.
The Queensland LREZ is a nation-first project to maximise the value of locally produced renewable energy for all customers including renters, vulnerable customers and those who live in unit complexes and do not have access to solar power.
Roof top solar is already a significant contributor to our emissions reductions targets, however there remains untapped potential for roof tops to host even more solar. The LREZ will seek to encourage increased levels of renewable energy generation by homes and businesses, with support from batteries in an efficient way that gets the most benefit from the existing poles and wires infrastructure that already exists.
The pilot project includes a partnership with universities and peak body organisations such as the Smart Energy Council to research key elements of the pilot program to inform customer incentive programs, economic models, customer adoption and behaviour, and technical standards. This vital research will inform the future design and development of LREZs across Queensland.
The LREZ enables communities to lead the way in the renewable energy transition and will bring together customers, retailers, and networks for a co-ordinated collaborative approach to delivering on renewable energy targets supporting not only the local area, but also the Queensland energy system.
Local Renewable Energy Zone (LREZ)
Queensland's Local Renewable Energy Zones aim to put customers at the centre of the energy transition.
What does the LREZ involve?
The LREZ pilot project will see the deployment of up to 8.4MW/18.8MWh of battery storage and support up to an additional 2.8MW of solar PV, and 0.9MW of demand management across nearly 550 residential and commercial customer sites starting from January 2025.
The project will optimise the size of behind the meter customer assets such as solar PV, batteries, home energy management systems and dynamic connections.
Local Renewable Energy Zones will give Queenslanders access to local, clean energy, and economic opportunities.
EQL Chief Engineer talks about LREZs in Queensland
Skip to descriptionOur customers in Queensland have been voting with their wallets and installing rooftop solo at global leading rates.
We've got over 800,000 customers who have got rooftop solar. Unfortunately not all of our customers have got a roof. So a local renewable energy zone is an opportunity for us to work with local communities and find new ways to have rooftop solar for those who've got a roof, to have rooftop solar for those who don't, to find new places to put batteries, and at the end of the day the objective is to enable the whole community to have their energy needs met. Whether it's charging their EV, powering their air conditioner, keeping their lights on. That's the purpose of a local renewable energy Zone and it's really about making distribution fundamental to that energy transition.
In terms of the Energy Queensland network, we've got to really meet those emerging and changing customer expectations, particularly as we look to electrify transport. We've got to find ways to enable, you know, that electrification of load to be serviced with a minimum new investment in our network. I used the analogy before about a multi-lane highway. On a Christmas holiday it's flat out, really really constrained, at other times of the year less people on the road, easier. We need to find that analogy and translate into sharing the capacity we've got in a distribution network so that every customer can get their energy needs met in a cost effective way.
You know I talk a little bit about customers, I've got some really smart engineers working at Energy Queensland that can help us solve the technical challenges. Technical challenges are at the core of the problem state we've got for a local renewable energy zone or in fact the broader energy transition. What we've got to solve, is new business models, new regulatory agendas, new ways to engage customers who presently can't engage. The purpose of day is to get broad community engagement, so we can explore and identify new solutions, not only for this like renewable energy zone, but to enable us to effectively input to a new a structure for the NEM moving forward.
Our Chief Engineer Peter Price explains the fundamentals of the new LREZs.
LREZs will:
- Improve the reliability and resilience of energy supply, by providing a self-sufficient source of clean energy and storage locally;
- Reduce the infrastructure investment required in our electricity distribution system by smoothing Queensland’s peak solar energy profile;
- Enable the grid to be ready for more EVs by co-locating solar, storage, and EV charging to reduce the need to upgrade the grid as demand for EV infrastructure grows; and
- Help deliver significant components of the Queensland Energy and Jobs Plan.
Want more information?
Contact us to find out more and register your interest in being involved.