How Big is Big?

Demystifying Renewable Energy and Storage – From Home Battery to the Big Battery, with Community Battery in between.

Hi, I’m Sally Hunter from Geni.Energy, and I’ve spent the last few years helping farmers, households, and whole communities across northwest NSW harness the power of the sun. If you’ve ever scratched your head at the difference between kilowatts and kilowatt-hours—or wondered what on earth a gigawatt looks like—you’re not alone. So, let’s break it down in simple terms.

One of the local homes installed with solar and batteries by Geni.Energy

🔌 kW vs kWh – What’s the Difference?

Let’s start with two little abbreviations you’ll see everywhere in solar and batteries: kW and kWh.

• kW (kilowatt) is a measure of power. It tells you how much energy your system can generate or use at any given moment. Think of it like the size of a tap.

• kWh (kilowatt-hour) is a measure of energy. It tells you how much electricity flows over time. So, it’s like the amount of water that comes out of the tap in an hour.

For example, if you’ve got a 5kW solar system and it runs for one hour in full sun, it will produce about 5kWh of electricity. That’s enough to power the average northwest NSW home for about one third of the day.  

🏡 From kW to MW to GW – It’s All About Scale

Here’s a quick guide to how big things get:

• 1 kW = 1,000 watts (your kettle is about 2kW)

• 1 MW (megawatt) = 1,000 kW (that’s 200 kettles running at once!)

• 1 GW (gigawatt) = 1,000 MW (now we’re talking huge solar farms and major grid infrastructure)

  
  

In northwest NSW most homes are consuming an average of 18kWh per day.  Most home solar systems are between 5 –10 kW.  Northwest homes with solar export to the grid an average of 10kWh per day of excess electricity.  

A community battery like the one we’re working on in Narrabri is 500 kWh (that’s half a megawatt-hour of storage).  It is classed as a 100kW battery because its “tap” is 100kW.  That is, at any one point in time only 100kW can travel into or out of the battery.  It is classed as a five hour battery because that 100kW coming in per hour, over five hours in 500kWh of storage.

So if the average home exports 10kWh per day, then the community battery can store the equivalent of about 50 homes’ excess solar.  In comparison, the “big battery” in South Australia is 150MW with 194MWh of storage.  

🌞 How Much Solar Do You Need?

Here’s a simple way to think about it. On average, 1 kW of solar panels in NSW produces around 4.5 kWh per day in mid winter, and around 6kWh per day in mid summer. 

So if you’ve got a 6.6kW solar system (a common size for households), you can expect it to produce roughly:

6.6 kW x 4.5 kWh =  29.7 kWh per day in mid winter

6.6 kW x 6 kWh = 38.6 kWh per day in mid summer

The average household in northwest NSW uses around 18 kWh per day, depending on your appliances, heating, and whether you’ve got an electric car or pool pump. So that 6.6kW system can often cover your daily needs, especially if paired with a battery to store excess solar for the evening.

Geni.Energy has now helped install enough solar and batteries in the region to generate over 1 Gigawatt hour of electricity every single year! Free energy from the sun that helps locals save on their electricity bill.

🔋 And What About Batteries?

Batteries are sized in kWh. A 10kWh battery can store about a day’s worth of electricity for an average household. A community battery at 500kWh can store about 50 homes-worth of excess solar. The great thing about batteries is they let you store your solar energy for when the sun goes down—or when the grid goes out.  The Narrabri Community Battery then provides this stored electricity back to the grid in the evening when there is the most demand.

⚡ Why It Matters

Understanding these terms helps you make smart choices—whether you’re looking to go solar at home, invest in a battery, or support a community project. At Geni.Energy, we’re all about helping regional communities take control of their energy and make the transition to renewables easy to understand and easy to access.

If you’re curious about how solar or storage could work at your place—or you want to know more about the Narrabri Community Battery—be sure to subscribe to our email updates. Energy can be confusing, but with the right info, it doesn’t have to be.