ON DEMAND ENERGY
Virtual power plants and real benefits Demand response at small scale is a hot topic and one in which Discover Energy’s Chris Cormack is leading the charge.
38 WINTER 2022
EVERYONE LIKES A REWARD and Discover Energy likes being the provider, delivering benefits to Virtual Power Plant customers who shift electricity demand to alleviate pressure on the grid. Everyone’s a winner. And that was the topic of Chris Cormack’s address at the Smart Energy Conference in May in which he presented the bright future for the community and the grid as VPPs become more widespread, and how small-scale networks like Discover Energy’s have the smart technology to manage responses while providing alternative generation sources. It’s a future that could not be too far off, given AEMO’s projections that half of all Australian households will have distributed energy resources by 2030. “If that does materialise we will be pretty happy,” said Chris who across two decades has held senior roles at AGL Energy and AEMO at the cutting edge of the energy transition. He’s now overseeing the drive to position Discover Energy at the forefront of the market, and his enthusiasm for all things storage and VPPs is palpable. The company’s VPP program currently boasts more than 2,000 customers across the mainland states and, since its 2018 launch, has enjoyed a meteoric rise with month-on-month growth averaging 23 per cent and year-on-year growth at a phenomenal 539 per cent. One of the biggest selling points in the VPP experience is the increasing value of solar and battery storage counterbalanced by the decreasing value of feed in tariffs as experienced by customers across the board, Chris said. “Getting a battery actually makes sense these days but then
by being able to trade excess capacity, households are getting a better return on investment, and those who work with companies like Discover Energy and become part of a VPP can pay off the battery sooner.” Importantly they are also providing services to the grid, he said “FCAS (frequency control ancillary service) is an important service that effectively keeps the grid running at those really important times when there are interconnector issues, and voltages and frequency drops. “So VPP participants are getting paid while also providing a social good – a social service. “This is the future for the industry.”
How it works Discover Energy runs a similar model to One Stop Warehouse (both entities founded by Anson Zhang and Jeff Yu) by relying on a wide network of independent installers to present the case and close sales of the solar and battery system, and facilitate the finance associated with that. The Discover Energy VPP model’s energy plan includes the ability to manage trading using sophisticated algorithms and integrations with inverters, with a 50:50 profit share. “The VPP is effectively open to a number of different technologies, about 80 per cent of the inverter and battery brands on the market integrate with our API (application programming interface), this is the software that talks from ‘our side’ to the actual battery inverter,” Chris explained. “Although we’ve developed a way to integrate with the majority of brands on the market we’re also trying to be an open source by allowing our customers to bring their batteries and we provide
