Urban Renewable Energy Zones
Australia's unique opportunity: In the last blog we explained how Renewable Energy Zones aim to solve the problem of failing traditional infrastructure. But now think about how much power can be available locally in urban areas. Let’s see how we can tap into that.
Australia is uniquely positioned to leverage its abundance of low-cost renewable resources. With its world-leading focus on renewable energy, especially in Consumer Energy Resources (CER) such as rooftop solar and home batteries, it will be able to meet its domestic needs in cheaper, less carbon-intensive ways. This will ensure Australia plays its part in global decarbonisation and also expands its local low/zero-emission industries.
The opportunity to tap into Australia's take up of rooftop solar, (one in three households, and in some cases one in two) is a game changer. As part of the nation’s ‘Powering Australia Plan’, this opportunity is being boosted by the Federal Government’s AUD$2.3 billion Home Battery strategy. Add the recent plan to fund $224.3 million for 400 community batteries through Australia’s Community Batteries For Household Solar Program to that.
This and electric vehicles’ battery storage capability, means the country is back on track to harness its abundant low-cost renewable resources and meet its vision to become a ‘renewable energy superpower’. As per the Clean Energy Council, we want to ‘fully leverage CERs for bill savings, jobs, and achieve its emissions goals’.
A perfect segue
The simple fact is that most of the CER in Australia is in urban zones and, quite rightly, owned by consumers. So, it makes sense to foster urban renewable energy zones (UREZs), where the potential of these devices can be maximised. If we’re smart about it, we can use locally generated electricity to mitigate the need for expensive generation and transmission infrastructure that would otherwise be required for distribution. A well designed UREZ will not just benefit those who own CER, but will work for everyone.
An innovative team comprising the software engineers of SwitchDin, the internationally renowned research of the University of Wollongong (UOW), and the experienced and flexible network operators at Endeavour Energy, is determined to deliver a working UREZ to show how it can be done.
The approach is to optimise the coordination of community storage, rooftop solar, and electric vehicles within the local zone. The UREZ will enable CERs to have the best modern practices in data architecture, cloud software, and network management practices orchestrated.
A digital space
In contrast to some other proposals, the team’s plan is to deliver an ‘fully open digital space’. The core functionality will do two things:
The most important is to act as an ‘enabler’, like an App store, which others can use to run their own applications to orchestrate any CER device with the owner’s permission.
In addition it will provide high quality data and controls for developers, service providers, system operators, and regulators. This will enable them to aggregate and reliably operate fleets of CER to offer various energy products and services to consumers.
Digitisation will enable solutions to be developed in a real world environment - at scale.
But the openness extends beyond this. The UREZ product will be open-source, shareable code (and data) based on open standards. Anyone will be able to tap into this to make UREZ a reality for their own environment.
By bringing together technology, network, retail and infrastructure providers, the proposal is to create and showcase the real-world benefits of UREZ. It will manage the growing base of standards-connected CER devices through a single national standard interface (API) for use by any authorised party. This will enhance the use of CER, provide portable retail options for consumers, and reduce transmission dependencies.
The outcome
The outcome will be more than a report. It will be a workable, repeatable, open example of the UREZ concept, which will benefit all consumers, including renters and apartment dwellers who may not be able to own CER themselves. The UREZ concept operates to apply ongoing downward pressure on costs. The plan is to leave no-one behind and save each household more than $300 per year in power bills.
In the next blog we discuss how to overcome the barriers that are seen as the blockers to effectively sharing resources and incorporating them into the local electricity grid.
