In November 2023 the Melbourne Energy Institute hosted a public lecture by Dr Niraj (Nij) Lal – who discussed the research behind his recent DER Bill of Rights and Responsibilities paper – and Professor Pierluigi Mancarella, who discussed some of the key socio-techno-economic findings of the Project EDGE trial of DER orchestration.
Rooftop solar panels have transformed Australia's energy mix, supplying up to close to 100 percent of electricity demand in South Australia and a quarter of the east coast's demand.
This change is reshaping the energy market and grid, with solar curtailment and emergency backstop measures having financial implications for solar owners, non-owners, and grid operators.
As more Australian households adopt distributed energy resources (DER), particularly in the form of rooftop solar PV and soon batteries and electric vehicles (EVs) too, the ‘social contract’ for connecting to and interacting with the grid must evolve. The outdated 19th-century model no longer fits, and we require a new agreement that is fair for both solar (and battery and EV) owners and non-owners.
Listen to a recording of a public lecture about interaction with the electricity grid, featuring Dr Niraj (Nij) Lal (AEMO, ANU) and Professor Pierluigi Mancarella (Melbourne Energy Institute). View the slides from the presentation.
Dr Lal discusses his recent DER Bill of Rights and Responsibilities paper, which aimed to support sector reform by outlining fairness principles and proposing a framework for grid connectivity. Drawing on powerful analogies, he explained that while individuals could unconstrainedly self-consume the energy they produced, selling energy to the grid should come with certain responsibilities.
Professor Mancarella then presented insights from the ARENA-funded Project EDGE, which successfully demonstrated how a DER marketplace could be developed to interact with the wholesale energy market and without breaching local network limits.
“In doing so, it’s critical to understand the concept of fairness and its broader impact on the community when distribution companies set time-varying export or import limits for DER at the customer’s connection point.
SPEAKERS
Dr Niraj (Nij) Lal, Principal at AEMO (Australian Energy Market Operator) and Visiting Fellow at the Australian National University
Professor Pierluigi Mancarella, Energy Systems Program Leader at Melbourne Energy Institute, and Australian principal investigator of the US-UK-Australia Global Center in Climate Change and Clean Energy “EPICS” (“Electric Power Innovation for a Carbon-free Society”).
MODERATOR
Professor Fiona Haines
Professor of Criminology, School of Social and Political Sciences
University of Melbourne
Banner image: Wikimedia Commons
First published on 28 November 2023.
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