Assessing the Benefits of Using Operating Envelopes to Orchestrate DERs Across Australia

Distributed Energy Resources (DERs), such as solar photovoltaic (PV) systems and residential batteries, are creating opportunities for their owners to provide services to the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) through aggregators. The use of operating envelopes can help ensure the integrity of the poles and wires as the volume of DER providing services increases. However, since different distribution companies have different network and customer data availability, the calculation of operating envelopes needs also to be different.

Summary

This project will, ultimately, provide key metrics and recommendations for distribution companies (known as Distribution Network Service Providers [DNSPs] in Australia) and AEMO (the Australian system operator) to assist them in their decision-making process when defining the most suitable Operating Envelope (OE) implementations (i.e., calculation and allocation) in a given distribution area. Understanding the benefits and limitations of different OE implementations is critical if Australian DNSPs and AEMO are to pursue this approach to orchestrate and make the most of large penetrations of Distributed Energy Resources (DERs).

This 1-year project (May 2021 to Apr 2023) is funded by CSIRO and the Global Power System Transformation Consortium (G-PST).

Related Articles

Using OPF-Based Operating Envelopes to Facilitate Residential DER Services, IEEE Trans. on Smart Grid, 2022

Grid and Market Services from the Edge, IEEE P&E Magazine, 2021

Bottom-up Services and Network Integrity: The Need for Operating Envelopes, CIRED, 2021

Ensuring Distribution Network Integrity Using Dynamic Operating Limits for Prosumers, IEEE Trans. on Smart Grid, 2021

On the Fairness of PV Curtailment Schemes in Residential Distribution Networks, IEEE Trans. on Smart Grid, 2020

Related Webinars

Further Information

• ARENA's Dynamic Operating Envelopes Workstream
• Project EDGE
• Project Symphony