Energy Management Systems

The Australian National University today opened its Distributed Energy Resources Lab, dedicated to researching and testing technologies including batteries, solar panels and electric vehicles which it says will “underpin the energy grids of the future”.


A major hurdle confronting large-scale solar and wind projects in Australia has been addressed with the Australian Energy Market Commission fast-tracking a rule change governing how electricity generators connect to the grid.

Smart Power India (SPI), a subsidiary of US-based impact investor Rockefeller Foundation, has supported the setting up of more than 300 renewable energy mini-grids cumulating to 9.2 MW of capacity across Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and Jharkhand, the largest such cluster in India. Jaideep Mukherjee, chief executive officer at SPI, spoke to pv magazine about the role of mini-grids in rural upliftment and the barriers to overcome.

Q Cells and Samsung have agreed to combine their hardware and software platforms to develop ‘zero energy homes,’ with on-site energy production and use.

Japanese giant Marubeni Corporation is backing Providence Asset Group’s plan for 30 regional projects which will integrate LAVO’s ‘green hydrogen batteries’, a new technology developed at the University of New South Wales.

Global infrastructure developer AECOM has run analysis on every petroleum fuel refinery and storage & import terminal in Australia and New Zealand as a novel means of locating sites well suited to future renewable development and hydrogen industries. “Some sites that were really suited to a wide range of end uses and those were our so-called ‘unicorn sites,’” AECOM’s Craig Bearsley told pv magazine Australia.

Lumea is planning the first big battery to be financed without any government support at Melbourne’s Deer Park Energy Hub.

Although self-consumption of solar power is the optimal economic approach, the expense of household batteries at present outweighs the increased ability they offer to use electricity generated on the roof. Whether aggregated ‘virtual batteries’ offer better returns is an open question, due to lack of electricity company transparency.

Smart energy software company Evergen will provide an energy management platform as part of a net-zero energy emission terrace homes pilot at Carseldine Village, north of Brisbane.

In the world of renewable energy, the past carries charge. It can be an anchor, a learning curve, a hurdle. In Bundaberg, it’s quite literally the fuel for the future. And that green future is being energised by an unusual crew: its local government.