SMART NETWORKS
OPTIMISING ENERGY EFFICIENCY: A CONNECTED APPROACH The continual development and uptake of distributed energy resources (DER), like home solar and batteries, electric vehicles (EVs) and chargers, smart meters, and home energy management technologies, means that energy supply and storage is no longer exclusively a one-way system. The connectivity of these DER allows consumers to actively participate in their use of energy, and gives retailers more options for managing supply and demand.
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rigin Energy has recently launched its new energy grid – named Origin Loop – a Virtual Power Plant (VPP) that connects thousands of energy assets through artificial intelligence (AI) to function like a traditional power station. Brendan Manzie, Group Manager, Future Energy at Origin, said the VPP’s functionality is twofold, “There's a backend to it that allows us to now connect to, talk to, and orchestrate a range of different energy assets, both generation of energy and also demand points of energy. And, on the flip side, it's a customer experience and an engagement tool that ultimately allows for greater digital experiences.” The notion behind the Loop was to move away from an energy system that was reliant on a small number of big points of supply in coal and gas generators, and instead create a much bigger connected network of devices to foster reciprocity between supply and demand. “We now have around 100,000 connected customers and endpoints as part of the Loop,” Mr Manzie said. “And, we've done that in a way that spans a range of different energy asset types. So, we've got
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everything from solar systems to batteries, to EV chargers, to hot water systems, to smart devices, large business customers, and even lots of small customers through behavioural demand response, all now connected to the Loop.”
A recipe for AI Origin Loop was developed over about 12 months, beginning with the build of an artificial intelligence engine that could communicate and connect with various points of energy supply and demand. The VPP’s AI uses a range of data from weather forecasts, market trends and historical energy consumption, to communicate with the National Electricity Market (NEM) and with Origin’s large-scale generation assets, to optimise efficiency. This data helps to inform demand and supply forecasting, and gives an overview of what’s happening in the energy marketplace. The next step is for the AI to look at the different assets connected to the VPP and their varying characteristics, such as when they are available, when they use energy, when they are dormant, and when they might be charging.
Finally, and importantly, the impact for the customer has to be considered, in order for them to “achieve their objectives of affordable sustainability”. So, the combination of historical and tailored forecasting data and the AI’s capability to react accordingly has been designed to create the most balanced system which makes the most use of renewables at the lowest cost, whilst offering the end customer the best value. “That's really the secret sauce,” Mr Manzie said. “As we look ahead, we're seeing a space where there's going to be millions of connected points of supply and demand appearing very, very quickly in our grid. “So that capability to understand when those assets are available, how a customer in the home or the business behaves, and therefore how to orchestrate those things in a dynamic fashion and learn from it, that's going to be really important.”
Consumer appetite for understanding Mr Manzie believes that there’s an undercurrent among energy consumers of wanting to actively participate in reducing their energy consumption, and a thirst for an understanding of how they can be www.energymagazine.com.au
