Western Australia’s DER Roadmap: Switching the World’s Second Largest State over to Renewables
Photo by Shivam Dewan via Unsplash
The Western Australian Government’s recent announcement unveiling its Distributed Energy Resource (DER) Roadmap is a positive step forward for the energy industry. In their own words, the DER Roadmap is the set of actions required to realise a future where DER is integral to a safe, reliable and efficient electricity system, and where the full capabilities of DER can provide benefits and value to all customers.
As a provider of DER integration technologies that improve operations on the grid, SwitchDin is a vocal proponent of any government initiative that supports cost effective grid modernisation. We’re excited to be playing a role in WA’s energy transition, working closely with Horizon Power on trailblazing projects like the Smart Sun Pilot and the Onslow DER Projects, both of which paint a picture of what’s in store for the rest of the state.
The DER Roadmap is a critical milestone for WA, where renewables already comprise 20.9 percent of the energy mix, making it the fourth top state for renewable energy penetration in Australia. Looking at residential rooftop solar, 32 percent of homes on the South West Interconnected Network (SWIS) alone now have PV; in some areas, this number is even higher, closing in on the technical and regulatory threshold for maintaining system security. Without a strategic approach, the rate of grid connections for solar would either need to be slowed, solar generation from installed systems would need to be curtailed - or both. This would mean wasted economic & environmental opportunities for solar and renewable energy in the state’s future.
Why WA's energy system is an interesting challenge for SwitchDin
“Balancing supply and demand in real-time is an enormous task for the local network operators in WA. This is where DER management technology like SwitchDin’s becomes critical to enabling this next stage of grid modernisation.”
WA is the second largest country subdivision in the world and as such, it is uniquely challenged by its vast geography as well as its sparse and imbalanced population - a stunning 92 percent of its 2.6 million residents live in the southwest. This has necessitated the development of a large number of mini-grids scattered throughout the remainder of the state, making the energy system highly susceptible to the impact of unmanaged energy generation like rooftop solar.
Once these challenging characteristics of the WA grid are understood, it becomes clear that balancing supply and demand in real-time is an enormous task for the local network operators. This is where DER management technology like SwitchDin’s becomes critical to enabling this next stage of grid modernisation.
SwitchDin makes even small behind-the-meter assets smart and visible to the network. Importantly, we’ve designed our technology to be vendor-agnostic - our Droplet controllers with a wide range of equipment brands for site-level energy management & connectivity. This enables greater participation from asset owners, giving them chances to earn revenue by creating new value streams for anyone who is connected to the grid.
Our Stormcloud platform provides scalable and secure data collection, analytics and orchestration of rooftop solar, battery storage and controllable loads while also enabling microgrid and virtual power plant control. This is all done through a standards-based interface with both end-user and fleet manager web portals.
WA's history leading the way on DER integration
The introduction of a DER Roadmap is not the first demonstration of WA’s commitment to grid modernisation. The WA Government recently announced the Renewable Energy Hydrogen Fund, along with a proposal for an Asian Renewable Energy Hub, which will power mining operations in the Pilbara region. In addition to these initiatives, since 2018, SwitchDin has been working with Horizon Power for their Smart Sun project, where we investigated the viability of smart control of DER as an alternative to investing in re-enforcement of conventional ‘poles and wires’ solutions. For Smart Sun, we deployed our Droplet controllers into a new housing estate, enabling all the rooftop solar, batteries, hot water and air conditioning, to allow real-time control of network power flows. Our technology gave Horizon Power the capability to manage these resources on the local low-voltage network to reduce stress on the distribution transformer - all without impacting customers’ comfort. This project provided key learnings which informed the DER Roadmap.
But perhaps even more relevant to WA’s grid topography are microgrids. Most often powered by diesel, a microgrid in rural Australia is typically designed without taking into account the distributed energy resource potential. SwitchDin can coordinate the microgrid’s assets to improve the efficiency of the central power station by enabling cooperation with customer or community renewables, storage or demand response. We have been deploying this scalable, lower cost solution with Energy Queensland in other remote off-grid microgrids.
The road behind and the road ahead
Traditionally speaking, distribution networks already have control systems for managing energy generation, but we live in a new world now. The reason why new technologies and services such as those provided by SwitchDin are critical in this new world is because these small-scale, distributed technologies were never really built to be managed at scale and therefore don't interoperate with the network's existing control systems. But now there is a clear need to connect these millions of assets to make them secure and scalable - while also keeping them cost-effective.
The DER Roadmap, achieves its goal of outlining the critical path towards a renewables-dominant future. The road to where we are currently has been long and arduous, but we cannot make this a reason to settle for a less than optimal final outcome.
How WA can continue to be a solar-powered beacon for the world
We are fortunate to live in an era where there is almost no limit to the capabilities offered by the many emerging technologies available to us. Wouldn’t it be great if, as one of the biggest states in the world, Western Australia could embrace some of these technologies and become a shining example of innovation, for example:
A major focus of WA’s DER Roadmap is to encourage community storage. As this becomes more common, SwitchDin will be able to offer what we call a virtual battery, where homeowners can access a slice of their local community battery.
It’s not just solar, batteries and loads such as air conditioners, pool pumps and hot water that can coordinate to help reduce grid costs - the real potential comes with EVs. Whilst this may be a way off in rural areas, the future-proof solution will treat these as collaborative DER, able to participate and add value to network operations in a similar manner to other forms of DER.
Flexible approaches to connection agreements, especially for embedded networks and commercial and industrial customers which drives investment in behind-the-gate batteries to enable improved grid integration and reduce capital investments.
These exciting prospects are all examples of the possibilities that are opened up when a state or territory fully embraces renewable energy and proactively plans to move towards it. These and many other benefits are within reach, made possible in WA by the DER Roadmap, and SwitchDin is looking forward to being an active catalyst in the state’s energy transition.
This post originally appeared on Linkedin.