SA Power Networks wins ENA Innovation Award for Advanced VPP Integration Trial

A trial involving SA Power Networks and Tesla that has established a blueprint for integrating energy generated by customers on the national grid, has won a prestigious industry award.

Energy Networks Australia has announced SA Power Networks as the winner of the 2020 Industry Innovation Award for its Advanced Virtual Power Plant (VPP) Grid Integration Trial.

VPPs aggregate large numbers of customer batteries to operate in much the same way as a traditional power station. They are an emerging part of Australia's rapidly changing energy mix and as they scale up in size, orchestration of their interaction with the grid is essential, particularly as large and unco-ordinated surges in energy demand or exports from VPPs have real potential to create grid instability.

In the trial, SA Power Networks worked with Tesla and other industry stakeholders, to design a suitable nationally-supported interface and communication framework, connection agreements and business rules to allow Tesla’s South Australian VPP and the network to share information and work together.

The project enabled higher levels of energy exports to the grid from customer systems in the VPP through implementation of flexible, rather than fixed, export limits and it also provided Tesla the opportunity to provide important network support services such as frequency control.

“Through application of this technology, the power output of Telsa’s proposed 50,000 battery VPP will be able to be doubled compared with traditional approaches to grid integration,” said Mark Vincent, Manager Strategy & Transformation at SA Power Networks.

“It has the potential to increase its ultimate capacity to 500 MW – the same capacity as the now decommissioned coal-fired Port Augusta (Northern) Power Station – and supporting up to one third of typical South Australian electricity demand.”

Energy Networks Australia CEO, Andrew Dillon, said the project demonstrated SA Power Networks’ understanding of the immense change the energy sector was undergoing and the economic and social need to create smarter energy grids.

“This is an important project not just for South Australia but for the nation as we work to integrate increasing amounts of distributed energy into the electricity system,” Mr Dillon said.

“The learnings from this ambitious project will contribute to the development of smarter grids and better customer outcomes across the country.”

Accepting the Award on behalf of SA Power Networks, Mr Vincent said: “Our next step is developing a flexible exports option for individual customers to maximise their export capacity as well as the groups of customers managed within VPPs. We are aiming to make this wider offering available to all solar customers in South Australia in 2022.

“This delivers a step change in terms of integrating renewables with the grid and we anticipate the work we are doing is creating the blueprint for a national approach to integration of DER. Our approach has the support of the solar industry, equipment manufacturers, networks, system managers and policy makers,” Mr Vincent said.