"They have to be smart."If you put dumb batteries in — in the...

A need for 'smart' batteries

Mr McHugh agreed there was "a sense of urgency" about the need to bring in changes to the market.

He also agreed batteries would be vital to the evolution of the grid by acting as a shock absorber that could soak up excess renewable energy at times of low demand and give it back when demand was high.

There was a caveat, though.

Mr McHugh said batteries could help steady the market by reducing the peaks and troughs in power demand or they could make matters worse.

"The key element to this is that those systems all have to be able to talk to each other," he said.

"They have to be smart.

"If you put dumb batteries in — in the way we have dumb solar — that's not going to help.

He said coordination within the power infrastructure was the key to success.

"It is an orchestra," he said.

"There are many instruments and you need some sort of conductor that is basically coordinating those instruments, otherwise you just get this terrible noise.

"You want the sweet sound coming from the system, you don't want this horrible, messed up, uncoordinated noise."