Measuring and communicating network export service quality

N2 Fast track

Measuring and communicating network export service quality Report at a glance

RACE for Networks

Research Theme N2: Low voltage network visibility and optimising DER hosting capacity

ISBN: 978-1-922746-33-7

Industry Report

Measuring and communicating network export service quality

Copyright © RACE for 2030 CRC, 2022

Project team

UTS

• Jaysson Guerrero

• Ed Langham

• Kriti Nagrath

• David Roche

SA Power Networks

• Bryn Williams

• Cathryn McDonald

• Sheryl Mourin

Essential Energy

• Gavin Morrison

• Scott Condie

Citation

Langham, E.L., Guerrero, J., Nagrath, K. and Roche, D. (2022).

Measuring and communicating network export service quality

Prepared for RACE for 2030.

February 2023

Project partners

Acknowledgements

The research team would like to thank the industry reference group participants from the following organisations: Australian Energy Markets Commission, Australian Energy Market Operator, Australian Energy Regulator, ARENA Distributed Energy Integration Program, Clean Energy Council, Energy Consumers Australia, Energy Networks Australia, Horizon Power, New South Wales Department of Planning and Environment, Queensland Department of Natural Resources, Mines and Energy, Solar Analytics, South Australia Department for Energy and Mining and the University of New South Wales Thanks also go to industry participants from the SA Power Networks Solar Industry Reference Group and DER Integration Working Group for their feedback

Acknowledgement of Country

The authors of this report would like to respectfully acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the ancestral lands throughout Australia and their connection to land, sea and community. We recognise their continuing connection to the land, waters and culture and pay our respects to them, their cultures and to their Elders past, present, and emerging.

What is RACE for 2030?

RACE for 2030 CRC is a 10-year co-operative research program with AUD350 million of resources to fund research towards a reliable, affordable, and clean energy future. https://www.racefor2030.com.au

Disclaimer

The authors have used all due care and skill to ensure the material is accurate as at the date of this report. The authors do not accept any responsibility for any loss that may arise by anyone relying upon its contents.

Report at a glance

What is the report?

The goal of this project was to develop and test metrics for understanding and communicating the quality of network export services received by owners of rooftop solar power systems and other ‘distributed energy resources’ (DER).

Why isit important?

Distribution Network Service Providers (DNSPs) are responsible for connecting solar and other DERs to the network, setting limits on the size of systems and the amount of power that can be exported to the network, and managing the upstream capacity of the network. These are referred to as export services. DNSPs are required to consider export services as part of their core services and to integrate them into planning and regulatory proposals.

What did we do?

To facilitate the above, this project developed and tested a set of proposed performance metrics for understanding and communicating the quality of export services that customers are receiving or should expect to receive.

What difference will it make?

This project identified a series of applications of export service quality metrics, commonly referred to as use cases in this report. These are grouped into three main categories of:

1. Customer communication

2. Regulatory compliance

3. DNSP grid operation and planning

What's next?

Many metrics cannot currently be calculated across the full customer base and require more sophisticated data capture and analysis workflows to be developed over time. Ultimately a bottom-up understanding of curtailment and export service access is required. Other priority areas to support further development of export service metrics include:

• developing widely shared definitions of curtailment and export service concepts,

• establishing methods to overcome low LV data visibility and monitoring issues, and

• improving methods to estimate voltage-related curtailment.

While this project provides a solid foundation for export service metrics, more work is required to refine metric applications and strengthen industry experience in working with real network data applied to specific use cases, particularly regarding economic efficiency benchmarking.