Australia now has in excess of 2.5 million households with Solar PV (DER) installed and in a world shifting to renewable energy and alternative energy sources at a rapid pace, the expectation is that many more households with have solar in the coming years. The Project seeks to address a question which relates to a households ability to continue to export the energy generated by solar and the networks ability to continue to provide electricity to the grid – what level of measurement data is required to allow for an accurate assessment of how much DER can be connected safely without additional network investment?

Luceo Energy leads a consortium of five companies within the Project, including Ergon Energy, Energex, Essential Energy and GridQube. By utilising an array of current data sources, coupled with Luceo Energy’s ‘Luceo Platform’ and GridQube’s ‘State Estimation Software System,’ a safe and reliable determination of networks available hosting capacity can be made.

In this way, Distributed Network Providers (DNSPs) like consortium members Energex, Ergon Energy and Essential Energy, have the opportunity to move from static, conservative limitations to a more accurate determination of those limitations, based on data. This has the ability to allow network operators to not only better manage the flow of DER, but to also better plan or defer network investment or upgrades, to the benefit of customers.