Virtual Power Plants Optimize Home Energy Production

Australia is a sunny country with excellent renewable energy resources. However it is not rolling out clean energy projects rapidly enough to reach the Australian government’s target of 82% renewable electricity by 2030. A large number of solar and wind farms, transmission lines and energy storage systems needs to be constructed. Progress is being challenged by the scale required, community resistance to new infrastructure and the difficulty of connecting all the new renewable electricity production to the grid.

Various roadblocks are slowing the transition down including a prior lack of coordination among authorities and legislative hurdles. Recently, federal and state energy ministers agreed on the need for a national roadmap and a co-ordinated approach to integrating into the grid what they call “consumer energy resources” (CER), which include batteries, electric vehicles and rooftop solar.

Over one-third of Australian houses have solar panels on their roofs. The country leads the world in rooftop solar per capita. During the past year these systems generated close to 10% of Australian electricity and sometimes came close to generating all the power the country needs.

Unfortunately home energy production is difficult to integrate into the grid. The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) runs the grid network. As the grid operator, AEMO must also ensure it has reserve capacity to balance any differences in demand and maintain security. Rooftop solar is not part of the planning and dispatching process, so is an additional headache for AEMO to manage.

Virtual Power Plants (VPPs) offer a way out of this dilemma. If households and small businesses link up so they are coordinating their rooftop solar, batteries, appliances, electric vehicles and hot water systems to reduce costs and grid impacts. Recent trials in Western Australia (Project Symphony) and Victoria (Project EDGE) prove that local VPPs can work.

This puts energy-generating building users firmly in the driver’s seat in managing their power, with reduced energy bills, payments for sharing stored energy, and increased grid resilience.