Project Symphony: Enabling Australia’s next generation of DER orchestration

Overview

Western Australia has one of the highest penetrations of rooftop solar in the world. As customer-owned energy resources became an increasingly important part of the electricity system, Project Symphony was established under the Western Australian Government’s Distributed Energy Resources Roadmap to explore how these assets could be securely coordinated as a Virtual Power Plant (VPP) within the South West Interconnected System (SWIS).

The pilot orchestrated approximately 900 DER assets across more than 500 homes and businesses, demonstrating how coordinated DER could support electricity network requirements and energy market participation while creating value for customers and the wider electricity system.

Selected to provide key orchestration capabilities, SwitchDin delivered the technology that securely connected participating DER assets with the VPP and enabled coordination between customer assets, distribution network requirements and wholesale energy market participation. Rather than optimising markets and network operations separately, Project Symphony demonstrated how both could be coordinated through intelligent DER orchestration.

Challenge

As rooftop solar and battery adoption accelerated across Western Australia, customer-owned DER became an increasingly important part of the electricity system. However, these assets were largely operated independently, limiting their ability to support both electricity networks and wholesale energy markets.

Historically, Virtual Power Plants have primarily responded to wholesale market signals, while distribution networks have focused on maintaining local system security through voltage management, feeder capacity and network stability.

As DER penetration continues to increase, these objectives can no longer be managed independently.

Without coordinated orchestration, customer-owned assets cannot simultaneously maximise market value while responding to dynamic network constraints. This limits customer value, reduces network hosting capacity and makes it more difficult for distribution networks to integrate increasing volumes of renewable energy.

Project Symphony set out to demonstrate that coordinated DER orchestration could balance both market and network requirements through a common orchestration platform.

Why SwitchDin

Project Symphony required more than a conventional VPP platform. It needed a technology partner capable of securely connecting customer-owned DER assets with the wider VPP ecosystem while supporting dynamic operating limits and interoperability across multiple systems.

SwitchDin was selected to provide these key orchestration capabilities, enabling homes and businesses with DER to participate as part of a Virtual Power Plant connected to the South West Interconnected System.

Its vendor-agnostic platform provided the interoperability needed to securely connect distributed assets while supporting the exchange of operational information between network operators, VPP operators and market participants.

SwitchDin Solution

SwitchDin’s DER Manager formed the orchestration layer between customer DER assets and the wider electricity ecosystem. At each participating site, SwitchDin’s Edge Controllers securely connected to distributed energy resources including rooftop solar, battery systems and controllable electrical loads.

SwitchDin’s DER Manager then coordinated these assets by:

• Securely connecting heterogeneous DER technologies

• Translating communications between multiple equipment protocols

• Delivering reliable VPP dispatch while maintaining customer-specific dynamic operating limits

• Enabling secure communication between distributed assets and the VPP platform

The DER Manager user interface also supported site commissioning and fleet monitoring, helping installers and operators efficiently deploy and manage participating assets.

This architecture enabled customer assets to operate within local network requirements while remaining available for participation in the Virtual Power Plant and wholesale energy services.

How Project Symphony worked

SwitchDin’s architecture connected customer-owned DER with the wider energy ecosystem through a single orchestration layer.

At each participating site, the Edge Controller securely connected solar, batteries and flexible loads, while the DER Manager coordinated communication between customer assets, the Virtual Power Plant, distribution network systems and the trading platform. This enabled DER to respond intelligently to both network constraints and wholesale market opportunities.

Outcomes

Project Symphony successfully demonstrated that customer-owned DER can become an active and valuable part of Australia’s future electricity system.

Project outcomes

• Orchestrated over 900 DER assets across more than 500 homes and businesses.

• Achieved 99% platform operational availability during the 90-day trial.

• Demonstrated four DER orchestration services spanning both network and market use cases.

• Cost-benefit analysis identified A$280–920 million in potential net economic value from scaled, co-optimised DER orchestration across the SWIS. (source: ARENA)

• Produced 18 recommendations across technical, customer, value and policy themes to guide future commercial deployment.

SwitchDin’s contribution

• Enabled secure connectivity between customer DER assets and the Virtual Power Plant.

• Delivered reliable VPP dispatch while maintaining customer dynamic operating limits.

• Demonstrated scalable orchestration of diverse DER technologies within a multi-vendor ecosystem.

Conclusion

Project Symphony demonstrated that the future of distributed energy depends on more than connecting additional devices. It requires intelligent orchestration that enables customer assets, electricity networks and energy markets to operate together in real time. By providing the orchestration platform that connected these layers, SwitchDin helped demonstrate a practical pathway towards a more flexible, resilient and customer-centric electricity system. The learnings from Project Symphony continue to inform the evolution of DER integration and Virtual Power Plants across Australia.