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Mini-grids

Ubi™ for Community

Your Ubi™ connects you to the mini grid. It helps you monitor and manage your electricity use. If you have a solar system or battery Ubi™ will help you get the most out of them too.

Ubi™ for Business

Take control of your energy use. Ubi for Business is a smart meter for collecting, analysing and managing your energy use on.

Empowering communities to achieve their energy goals

You don’t have to have your own rooftop solar or battery to be part of a mini-grid. You can join just because you want to be part of your community’s transition locally generated clean energy.

A mini grid uses the normal power grid to share electricity, so no extra infrastructure is needed.

The great thing for communities is that you can start small. As more people join—and more clean energy is generated locally—the less energy comes from fossil fuels like coal.

The best of both worlds

Better than “going off-grid” or using only on-site generation. A mini grid combines the advantages of relying on your own electricity with the reliability and benefits of the grid.

The Energy Revolution

The Past

In the past homes or businesses could only consume electricity.

Electricity was generated at large, centralised power plants and distributed to consumers who paid their energy retailer for the power they used.

  • Centralised power plants were usually powered by heavily polluting fuels, such as coal.
  • During outages on the network, such as those caused by fallen trees, premises suffered blackouts until the outage was fixed.
  • On-site power generation options were limited, unreliable, dirty, prohibitively expensive, and any surplus energy generated was wasted.

The Present

In recent years many homes and businesses have installed on-site energy systems, such as rooftop solar. These systems are increasingly being coupled with battery storage.

These individual premises capture and store their own energy and also consume it from the grid.

  • Rooftop solar means you can provide your own power during the day.
  • A battery is a big step towards day & night energy self sufficiency.
  • Energy sourced from the grid is still largely sourced from fossil fuels.
  • Any surplus energy can only be sold back to the energy retailer for a modest price, sometimes called a feed-in tariff.

The Mini-Grid

A mini grid connects a group of energy users together, empowering them to generate, store and share energy.

The homes and businesses in a mini grid can be a mix of those with just solar, solar and batteries or even just participate as consumers of locally generated clean energy.

  • Energy sourced from the grid is significantly reduced. This maximises the amount sourced from locally generated, clean, cheap, solar energy.
  • Multiple locations, solar systems and batteries working as a team mean a higher potential for the mini grid to remain self-sufficient and avoid outages.
  • Surplus energy can be shared amongst participants in the mini grid, sold back the grid or even donated to a school, charity or other community organisation.

Yackandandah - A community leading the way

Learn more about how this Victorian town is charging towards its 100% renewable energy goal.
Ubi

Set, track and achieve community targets

With Ubi™, members of the mini-grid share information about energy generation, storage and use, empowering the community to set renewable energy targets. Ubi™ also unlocks the potential to trade energy locally through a community energy retailer.

Energy Hubs and Projects

Community

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