Standards Australia speaks on draft battery storage standard

Earlier this week, Standards Australia concluded public consultation on the draft battery storage standard — a standard that has been in development for some time.

Over 3000 comments were received on the draft, the organisation revealed, with many relating to how systems should be installed in a residential context. Given the significance of the public response, along with the fact that this is a new building technology with limited existing direction from governments, Standards Australia has offered to bring key stakeholders together to start a discussion and establish a framework through which these public policy tensions can be addressed.

Mandated residential construction requirements are ultimately public policy matters for governments, the organisation said. Furthermore, Australian Standards are voluntary, unless called up by governments, and are only published if consensus is reached between industry, government and community interest.

Standards Australia believes that its technical committee is not the appropriate forum to resolve the public policy tensions related to public safety, clean energy and minimum residential construction requirements. If there are policy issues for the respective governments to address, the organisation said, this should be determined before any further standards development work progresses.

Standards Australia said it is keen to see industry and government work together to find a way forward on how residential construction requirements for on-site batteries should be set. The organisation will continue to work with its technical committee and all stakeholders on the issue and hopes that a parallel policy dialogue will give the committee the guidance it needs to get on with the technical work.