Energy Management Systems

Australia’s energy regulators say their COVID-19 power plan released last week is designed to ease regulatory pressure on the industry and strike a balance on reforms and changes: some must continue at pace while others will be slowed or deferred.

Batteries are emerging as powerful enablers of renewable energy as grids Australia wide become challenged by the high penetration of renewable energy. The Northern Territory is investing in battery storage large and small, to capture the overflow of its incredible renewable resource and redirect it for the benefit of consumers.

In this time of residential confinement, it seems appropriate that governments and agencies are advancing plans to enable the uptake of distributed rooftop solar resources and their integration with grid operations. A part of this much awaited movement the Western Australian Government this weekend published its DER Roadmap.

After decades of continual blackouts and bushfires the Murrays decided enough was enough. They installed Redflow batteries to team up with their solar installation to take their farm off-grid and independent.

“This has been one of the most challenging summers on record …” begins the communique from Friday’s meeting of the COAG Energy Council. The Coronavirus could achieve what drought and bushfires failed to bring about — a coordinated governmental and industry response to ensuring that our energy system — irrevocably in transition towards renewables — becomes more secure, reliable and fit for purpose along the way.

The Australian Government’s “Economic Response to the Coronavirus” incentivises commercial and industrial solar PV uptake.

A consortium of partners led by the University of Technology Sydney has been successful in its bid for funding of a Cooperative Research Centre dedicated to enhancing energy consumers’ access to and efficient deployment of distributed renewable resources — primarily rooftop PV.

With a Commonwealth MoU in hand and a ‘flexible’ attitude to the regulatory processes governing transmission build in Australia’s National Electricity Market, the NSW Department of Planning and Environment is revving up its plans to develop a demonstrator Renewable Energy Zone.

Australia’s distributed energy resources — rooftop solar, batteries, smart devices — have become a force to be reckoned with, and AEMO has opened its DER Register to help integrate consumer assets into what is expected to become the world’s most sophisticated two-way energy market.

The ARC Research Hub for Integrated Energy Storage Solutions has a broad research mandate as it looks for innovative energy storage solutions for the energy transition, but some of the nation’s finest minds are now working on them together.