After eight years, Melbourne community group Village Power is finally about to switch on its long-awaited community battery. But the project that emerged is very different from the one its volunteers originally set out to build. Village Power president Graeme Martin explains why the journey became a game of snakes and ladders, with regulatory, commercial and practical hurdles forcing the group to constantly rethink its model. Rather than abandoning their vision, they adapted it, creating a new partnership and community energy program to keep local people at the heart of the project. Their experience raises a bigger question: are Australia's energy rules making it harder than they should for communities to participate in the clean energy transition?