General News
21 April, 2026
Community to benefit from battery installation
Maryborough's Salvation Army are among the recipients of the State Government's neighbourhood battery installations.
The State Government has commenced a new incentive to lower power bills and keep the lights on with plans to install a new neighbourhood battery in Maryborough.
Overseeing one of the first in the electorate, member for Ripon Martha Haylett visited the Salvation Army’s Maryborough Corps last week to hear how the battery is expected to cut power bills and redirect funds back into essential community services.
The Salvation Army is installing 22 neighbourhood batteries across the state, at locations including Salvos stores, food banks, domestic violence refuges, emergency crisis accommodation, drug and alcohol rehabilitation centres and community centres.
The battery roll out is also followed by $1 million given to the Salvation Army from the Victorian Government, and the launch of their 100 Neighbourhood Batteries program.
The project is expected to generate annual savings of $5282 at the Maryborough site, cutting energy costs and freeing up funding for vital frontline services.
“Just for the Maryborough Salvos, this will save $5000 on their energy bills, which will go back into support services,” Ms Haylett said.
“It’s a significant saving on a service that does so much for our community.”
The Salvation Army’s Warren Elliott said the battery will extend the solar power generated during the day.
“In a black out, the battery can cover services in that time. If all of the power in the community goes out, a battery will keep it going here, and we can set up what systems they will keep going, such as the refrigeration and IT,” he said.
Mr Elliott said using power from the battery will mean less reliance on the town’s power grid.
“Even just for those four or five hours in the evening when it is dark, if the solar panels aren’t enough to generate power for the whole building, it can draw from the battery as well, so it is going to save going to the grid as much as we can,” he said.
“The Salvation Army is also about to bring on our own solar farm, and that will generate enough electricity to cover all of the Salvation Army properties across the state.”
While Victoria is halfway through installing all batteries, the Maryborough Neighbourhood battery is expected to be finished by the end of May.
“What we were trying to do is mix [the battery locations] across community centres like this, plus some of our social centres like our youth services because this neighbourhood battery program is all about cutting the cost of energy bills and saving communities money,” Ms Haylett said.
The program is part of the state’s target of at least 2.6 gigawatts of energy storage capacity by 2030, and 6.3 gigawatts by 2035, enough energy to power around half of Victoria’s homes at peak energy use.