DER Visibility and Monitoring
Best Practice Guide
This Distributed Energy Resources (DER) Visibility and Monitoring Best Practice Guide (the Guide) has been developed by the DER industry to specify the data required to enable the transition of our electricity network to a high penetration DER grid. DER includes rooftop solar, batteries, and other appliances such as Electric Vehicles (EV) chargers.
This inevitable and essential energy transition is being driven by consumer demand and the need to provide affordable and sustainable electricity for all energy consumers.
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Purpose
This Guide has two key objectives, with the following targeted outcomes.
Objective 1:
To establish a common static and dynamic (near) real time data set collected for new DER installed behind the meter on the low voltage electricity network.
Target Outcomes: Provide consistent data required to equitably and cost effectively increase network hosting capacity for DER. Enable regulatory bodies, DNSPs, academics and other parties to procure and combine data from multiple sources to meet their network modelling and visibility needs – subject to appropriate commercial arrangements.
Objective 2:
To increase confidence in the quality and performance of DER through the provision of this real time system performance data to DER owners and authorised industry entities.
Target Outcomes: Enables consumers and industry participants have consistent information sources to ensure and evaluate optimal operation and system quality.
Why the Guide
is Required
Australia leads the world in the deployment of distributed energy resources (DER), with >21% of premises having installed DER and 20,000 new systems being added each year. Forecasts for 2025 show that DER will be one of the largest sources of electricity generation on the grid.
While this increasing DER penetration is contributing to lower electricity costs for consumers and lower carbon emissions, there are a number of key challenges to this continued growth and the delivery of enhanced value for consumers.
Equitably and cost effectively increasing the DER hosting capacity of the electricity networks while maintaining grid reliability and benefits for all energy consumers, and
Increasing the quality of rooftop solar systems being installed, and hence their safety, longevity and the renewable energy generated.
The key barrier to addressing the first of these challenges is increased DER operational visibility being made available to industry stakeholders. The major challenges from this lack of data will be – or is being – felt most acutely in the low voltage networks. It is these network businesses that are also likely to benefit most from being able to access standardised data and information about newly installed DER.
However, to wait until a standard is codified through existing standards and certification processes will take time, leading to unnecessary DER curtailment, inefficient network maintenance and higher electricity costs for all consumers.
Increasingly, today’s smart energy technologies such as remote monitoring devices and solar and battery inverter systems have built-in capabilities to collect vital data from these many DER installations, and to communicate it in near real-time via the internet.
Guide Development
This guide has been developed by the DER industry to meet the needs of both industry and all energy consumers. The Guide has been developed with extensive industry wide consultation, with feedback and support provided by the following organisations.
Guide Use
This Best Practice Guide is a voluntary Guide. This Guide specifies what data is required to be collected. How this data is managed and made available to the industry regulators and operators requires further work to ensure appropriate and cost effective data privacy and security is maintained.
There are a number of steps required for the Guide to be adopted.
Firstly there is a cost involved in securing customer permissions, collecting, managing and making the data available to authorised third parties. Hence, for the Guide to be implemented requires some form of incentive for the collection and provision of this data.
Secondly, the technology providers and potential recipients of the data require time to ensure that the data communications protocols, data conformity, customer privacy, data security and data uses are properly managed. Other initiatives and groups are addressing these matters.
The proposed implementation pathway is:
Trial a voluntary incentive to conform with the Guide
Evaluate the success of the trial program
Incorporate the Guide into the appropriate national standards or other DER requirements
