5. K EY FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

5.1 Research c oncepts

Research concepts proposed within each of the nine research opportunities are outlined in Table 2. The concepts presented cover more than one research task as final research projects will need to be practical and therefore should be treated as interrelated and cumulative.

1 Governance and regulation (RO1)

An assessment of the potential future regulatory framework for community batteries, microgrids and VPPs

1. A desktop assessment of the current regulatory frameworks in Australia

2. A comparative study with the international best cases

3. A mixture of in-depth qualitative interviews and focus groups to obtain the details and uncover the motivations, attitudes and values of various stakeholders

4. Cross-check the findings against the innovative ownership models introduced in the other CRC research themes, such as N4

5. Empirically examine institutional arrangements that could enhance trust and participation by the stakeholders

2 Revenue streams (RO2) Feasibility study for valuation of different revenue streams for CBs, microgrids and VPPs

A techno-economic feasibility project to understand the theoretical revenue for different value streams under different regulatory and operating scenarios

N/A

A virtual net metering market (interaction between VPP/DER aggregators and microgrids)

A virtual net metering market allows for the trading of energy credits between multiple entities, often using a third-party platform to facilitate transactions. This project aims to create a business model to understand interactions between microgrids and virtual power plants based on virtual net metering market.

This project aims to evaluate possible ways of representing the behaviours of EV owners/drivers as well as propose a proper business model and encourage EV owners to contribute to the reliability and stability of microgrids. Forecasting driver behaviour and controlling the bi-directional charging/ discharging processes is challenging.

5 Ownership and access (RO3) A multi-stakeholder participatory approach for community-energy systems development

1. Creating a framework for assessing the social fabric of the community

2. Developing a tool to identify the optimal business model based on learning from the social dynamics of the community

3. Developing a sand-boxing tool to assess the impact of various networkcapacity constraints, as well as regulations the community energy performance

4. Developing a framework for a

6 Electric vehicles (RO4) Harnessing fluctuating EV storage system that satisfies the range of the community’s needs, expectations and constraints

5. Establishing a community energy trial to test the accuracy, credibility and reliability of the analyses of the benefits of community energy under normal operation conditions as well as during natural disasters

1. Build a temporal-spatial model of where and when people charge their EVs and use it to predict the available battery capacity for storage or generation

2. Derive techniques to maximise the available battery capacity of EVs

3. Propose methods to nudge desirable behaviour by EV owners to maximise the amount of EV storage available to the grid, VPPs and community batteries. This may include financial or other incentives, disincentives and regulatory levers.