Energy innovation and technology: Integration of renewable energy and customers (session two)
Jahangir Hossain
Associate Professor
University of Technology Sydney
Presentation title: Derwent Bridge microgrid: best practice and lesson learnt from remote community microgrid
Abstract: A microgrid solution needs to be socially attractive and suit to its community members’ behaviour. The trust of community members in their energy security and overall benefits is crucial for a microgrid project to be successful. To drive social acceptance and, in turn, community engagement, it’s critical to address what role community members will adopt as microgrid actors and how they canbecome more democratically involved. Social acceptance and willingness to participate will be affected by the possibility of being included in the planning, operating and deployment on their own and in surrounding spaces.
However, it is common that many community members have limited awareness and knowledge of their possibilities in engagement in energy applications. Therefore, community members’ awareness, capacity building and trust are essential for social acceptance of microgrids. Engagement between researchers, companies and community members can initiate inspiration, collaboration and sharing of information through the design and implementation process. It is an effective strategy for addressing information gaps found in norms, attitudes, and behaviour. Therefore, planning, temporary islanding and operation of microgrids should be designed and implemented optimally based on key application use case(s) and microgrid actors’ involvement using a well-defined techno-economic optimisation model associated with social and environmental aspects.
This presentation will highlight Derwent Bridge microgrid project's aims/objectives and planned activities. It will present the best practice, barrier and impacts of community microgrids. It will summarize the lesson learnt from the first year of this project. The preliminary outcome on microgrid business models and a generalised design tool will be discussed. Finally, it will show the project research roadmap and future activities for community engagement and validation of the performance of developed tools.
Elizabeth Ratnam
Senior Lecturer, ANU FERL Fellow
Australian National University
Presentation title: Optimisation-based operation of battery storage for PV grid integration: towards creating a resilient carbon-neutral electricity grid
Abstract: In recent years, a rapid and dramatic increase in electrical power generation from renewable energy sources has been observed in many countries. Rapid increases in grid-connected small-scale solar photovoltaics (PV) have been driven by government incentives and renewable energy rebates, including residential feed-in tariffs and the financial policy of net metering. However, new challenges arise in balancing the generation of electricity with variable demand at all times as traditional fossil fuel-fired generators are retired and replaced with intermittent renewable electricity sources.
This presentation considers optimization-based approaches to balance distributor and customer benefits of battery storage (including electric vehicle energy storage) co-located with solar PV, with a view to facilitating continual increases in grid-connected solar PV. Two issues that arise when accommodating significant residential-scale PV generation are addressed: the first is reverse power flow that leads to considerable voltage rise; the second corresponds to peak loads that occur infrequently, but potentially lead to the need for costly network augmentation when PV generation is unavailable. The benefits associated with addressing these two distributor issues are balanced with the benefit of scheduling battery storage to improve operational savings that accrue to customers. In the final part of the presentation, we will focus on ways to operate grid-integrated battery storage, including home and electric vehicle batteries co-located with rooftop solar PV, with a view of creating a resilient carbon-neutral electricity grid.
Graham Palmer
Research Fellow
Monash Unviersity
Presentation title: Validation of high-resolution BARRA reanalysis data using historical wind power generation
Abstract: Wind power is one of the critical low-carbon electricity generation technologies, and the contribution of wind to global electricity is projected to increase significantly. Prediction of wind power at short time horizons (up to 8 days) is undertaken with weather forecasting models. For longer term planning, historical wind data can be used to determine probability densities of wind speed, and characterisation of wind for specific geographical regions. In this work, we undertake an analysis of the high-resolution BARRA reanalysis data using historical wind power generation data from AEMO for the NEM and SWIS. We use modelling and correlation analysis to investigate the relationship between modelled wind power, based on BARRA, and actual generation. This work allows us to reproduce time-series wind traces for any location in Australia. We discuss the accuracy and confidence of the traces.
Grace Young
Chief Innovation Officer
Wattwatchers
Presentation title: Data for energy researchers: a service provider’s perspective
Abstract: Sydney-based digital energy company Wattwatchers works closely with a growing list of academic, community and commercial research projects, including leading two major grant projects that both will wrap up by mid-2023:
-3.5-year My Energy Marketplace (ARENA), which is creating a new energy dataset with granular data down to circuit-level behind the meter for up to 5000 homes/small businesses and 250 schools.
-3-year Heyfield MyTown Microgrid (RRCRF), co-led with UTS ISF and the Heyfield Community Resource Centre, a microgrid and local energy feasibility project.
We propose an oral presentation, although there is potential to turn it into a panel session and include panelists representing a range of projects and research institutions that Wattwatchers works with. For example, including UNSW as a research customer for data from the My Energy Marketplace project; UTS ISF as a partner in the Heyfield MyTown Microgrid project; and Climate-KIC and UTS (Professor Leena Thomas) from the Fairwater Living Lab project.
Assuming an oral presentation, the focus would be in two main parts, being:
-Planning and implementation for a project that requires energy data including monitoring of sites;
-Accessing data from already-installed sites as a way of expediting research projects (especially given the time it can take to get sites installed and then needing at a full year of data before the real analysis can begin).
Grace Young will make the case for why researchers and others need access to more data from behind the utility meter to develop solutions for the energy transition, and how that can be delivered, including:
-What data and when;
-Ownership and control;
-Putting value on data to transact across multiple parties;
-Fair distribution to appropriate use cases;
-Consumer data rights, privacy and security protections and choice;
-Cybersecurity.
The presentation will provide:
-Considerations of deployment of IoT monitoring and control devices for community and local energy monitoring and control projects, including research and commercial projects;
-Lessons learned from real world deployment projects;
-Information on an alternative to rolling out devices and the availability of shareable datasets;
-Expert insights into the technical, legal, commercial equity and consumer participation aspects of energy data strategy;
-Access to lessons learnt from major data-driven projects;
-Enhanced understanding of data and digitisation, and technology integration and interoperability, for the energy transition.