The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) has announced that Australia’s first database of consumer-owned renewable energy systems is to be launched this December.
To be known as the Distributed Energy Resources (DER) Register, the database will be the foundational project in AEMO’s DER Program aimed at building an electricity market to ‘buy and sell’ electricity and related energy from consumers.
In a statement, AEMO said that while it may come as a surprise to some, Australia actually led the world in adopting DER, which presented exciting opportunities, along with challenges, to an electricity grid originally designed for one-way energy flow to the consumer.
“In general, DERs are defined as consumer-owned devices, such as rooftop photovoltaic (PV) solar systems and battery storage, which as individual units can generate or store electricity or have the ‘smarts’ to actively manage energy demand,” AEMO said.
“The DER Register applies only to generation that receives an agreement for a connection from the local network, who will also provide advice on whether and how the data needs to be provided.”
It said that when aggregated and operated together at scale through micro-grids and virtual power plants, the devices had huge potential to exchange consumer value by contributing to a reliable and secure energy supply.
“AEMO has worked with stakeholders across the electricity sector to design the register, agree on the data and how it will be collected,” the Operator said.
“From 1 December, network service providers are expected to provide mandated information on every small generating or battery system within 20 days of the system commissioning or activation, which will feed into AEMO’s DER Register,” it said.
AEMO said it had developed a range of communications materials, including a fact sheet, frequently asked questions and other resources, to introduce the DER Register and provide an overview of the changes.
The two-page fact sheet can be accessed at this PS News link.
